Strike for Berlin: new alt-hist scenario for Ostplan 1919

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Here is something new-old for you: an even-more-alt-hist scenario for my alternate-history game Strike For Berlin.

In December 1918, a general revolt across “Greater Poland” (mostly the territory known as the Grand Duchy of Posen to the Germans and the Voivodeship of Poznan to the Poles) led to confused fighting between German regular and paramilitary Freikorps units and Polish insurgents and portions of the Polish National Army. A ceasefire imposed by the Entente in mid-February 1919 confirmed the Polish occupation of most of the area and contributed to the decision to award this and other areas to Poland under the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919.

In history, the Germans were disadvantaged in the initial revolt because most of Germany was then in chaos and revolution, and trustworthy forces were needed to secure order and save the government in Berlin. But what if the November Revolution had been settled faster, or if the government was on a more secure footing generally, and decided to buck the Entente-imposed ceasefire and fight again for Greater Poland, while the Polish main effort was diverted to the east in Galicia?

This scenario uses the rules, counters and map for Strike for Berlin. The directions for this scenario are written as additions, changes or deletions to the original rules.

Wolfgang Hoepper helped immensely with OOB and other details for this scenario. Not least, he also wrote a comprehensive article on the German contemplation of carrying out just such a plan! (I have edited the article slightly for usage and vocabulary.)

We hope you try this out, and enjoy. 

Ostplan scen

Ostplan 1919 article BRT edits

 

Kashmir Crisis: solitaire rules

Today at the Boardgamegeek.com entry for Kashmir Crisis, player (yes! there is at least one!) Steve Roberts posts about his method for an automated manual opponent for the game, using a second deck of cards with a different back. I haven’t tried it (frankly, I did not think at all about a bot for the game when I designed it) but it’s clever!

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2626513/my-solo-mechanics

He also posted about his experience playing the game solitaire, and the narrative it generated:

https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/281198/item/8203151#item8203151

Thanks Steve!

Send in the drones

Over at Forbes magazine, the very clever Michael Peck writes on a new move to place new technology on other new technology for an old purpose. It may take a while for the Pentagon to get what it wants loaded handily onto drones, but when it does we have anticipated it with optional rule 8.6 for Civil Power:

8.6 Helicopters (And now Drones!)

In the existing rule, Helicopters already come equipped with a searchlight plus the Police player’s choice one of a Gas Gun, a Sniper or an Active Denial System (optional rule 8.3). It’s easy enough to add a Baton Rounds capability to the aircraft (optional rule 8.1) reflecting the non-lethal munitions requirement; the Height Advantage of the Helicopter (now a drone) defeats the shelter a Barricade or Hedge would have given against these munitions. 

In the existing rule, Helicopters are eliminated by a “K” result in Fire combat. For balance, let us give Trained Crowds (1-6-3-3) laser pointers and let them apply their Fire Combat strength of 1 with infinite range against drones only, and treat a drone target as an individual, so it is removed on a “W” or “K” result (so 4 or more Trained Crowds using their laser pointers have a reasonable chance of overloading its sensors and bringing it down, as happened in Chile in 2019 (https://futurism.com/the-byte/protestors-kill-drone-using-laser-pointers , see illustration above). Again, if it is a drone, its crashing to the ground will not be so dramatic an event so it would simply be removed.  

Helicopters are fairly expensive at 70 points each, but we have made them easier to shoot down, so let us say that if the Police player buys one (as a drone) with a Gas Gun, Baton Rounds or Sniper system aboard, it will automatically be replaced within 1d6 turns if it is eliminated. A drone with an Active Denial System aboard is removed from the game when shot down. Also, they are machines, and no one cares about machines: eliminating a drone does not add to the Tactical Disintegration Number (optional rule 8.9). For a bit more balance, we can also assume that a small drone will not have a lot of munitions aboard, so roll a 1d6 every time a drone uses any of these systems and remove it on a roll of “6”. It will be replaced 1d6 turns later, as above.  

However, I am not writing rules for the “optogenics modulation of high magnetic fields to disrupt the human nervous system”. That’s just freaky.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelpeck/2021/03/08/the-pentagon-wants-to-arm-drones-with-non-lethal-lasers-and-microwave-cannon

The Pentagon Wants To Arm Drones With Non-Lethal Lasers And Microwave Cannon
Michael Peck, Contributor, Aerospace & Defense Mar 8, 2021,10:29am EST

These devices would include exotic non-lethal gear, including directed energy weapons such as low-powered lasers and microwave beams, as well as more familiar weapons such as stun grenades and stink bombs. These weapons would equip aerial drones and manned and robotic ground vehicles, as well naval surface and underwater craft.

For most of history, armies have only enjoyed a binary option: either use lethal force or don’t use force at all. Employing regular troops – who often lacked appropriate equipment and training – for missions such as riot control and civil policing often had bloody and politically embarrassing results.

But a new generation of non-lethal weapons – and the advent of small drones able to carry them – offers new options for armies preparing for gray zone warfare, that netherworld populated by information operations, cyberattacks, state-sponsored political and militant groups, and special forces operations. For U.S. commanders dreading social media video of American troops firing bullets at a mob, a robot that can disperse rioters with a non-lethal laser or microwave cannon would be a godsend.

The Pentagon is examining multiple non-lethal weapons for tasks such as disabling people or vehicles, according to the research solicitation published by the U.S. Navy, which is acting on behalf of the other services. These weapons, called Intermediate Force Capability, include:

• lasers to dazzle an opponent.
• 12-gauge/40-mm non-lethal munitions, including “blunt impact, flashbang, riot control agents, human electro-muscular incapacitation and malodorant” devices
• long-range acoustic hailing devices,
• directed energy weapons “such as counter-electronics (e.g., high power microwave weapons) and Active Denial Technologies (ADT ADT +3.2%).”

Particularly intriguing is a call for development of “optogenics modulation of high magnetic fields” to disrupt the human nervous system. The proposal also mentions using drones for broadcasting long-range “hail and warn” messages,  as well as access denial devices to discourage people from moving into designated areas.

The Pentagon wants small weapons that can fit on small platforms, so they should be less than 3 cubic feet in size and weigh no more than 50 to 100 pounds. Given that directed energy weapons such as lasers gulp electricity, it is not surprising that the military wants systems that don’t neither require a lot of power nor run so hot that they need elaborate cooling equipment (temperatures should range from minus 55 degrees Centigrade to 125 degrees).

Phase I of the project calls for developing “non-lethal stimuli.” Drone payloads should be less than 3 cubic feet and weigh no more than 50 to 100 pounds.

The Pentagon also wants equipment with a price tag in the tens of thousands of dollars rather than “payloads that cost more than $1 million.”

“Phase I will not require human subject or animal subject testing,” the Navy added.

Phase II calls for integrating these non-lethal weapons on small manned tactical vehicles as well as drones. The Pentagon’s Joint Intermediate Force Capabilities Office (JIFCO, formerly the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate) “maintains a set of counter-personnel human effects and weapon effectiveness models and a full set of counter-personnel and counter-material test targets at various DoD labs,” notes the Navy, which suggests these weapons will not be tested on humans.

If the projects succeeds, it’s not just the military that will be using exotic non-lethal weapons. Other potential users include the Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Security – and even Customs and Border Security, according to the Navy. “Local civilian law enforcement has these specific type of missions to support both counter-personnel and counter-materiel missions for law enforcement as well as to mitigate terrorist acts. Currently overall system size, weight, and cost have hindered the use of these systems by these agencies.”

The project appears more than feasible. Machine guns and anti-tank missiles are already mounted on drones, robot tanks and the manned dune buggy-like tactical vehicles by special forces units. Mounting weapons like lasers shouldn’t be that difficult, assuming that scientists can miniaturize them sufficiently to fit on a small platform.

The Navy says these non-lethal drones will be used across the Range of Military Operations (ROMO), which includes conventional combat operations, as well as irregular warfare and civic stabilization operations. This raises the question of whether non-lethal weapons could be used on conventional battlefields when governments decide that it’s better to incapacitate than kill opposing forces.

Either way, the advent of drone swarms – hordes of small robots that overwhelm a target – combined with miniaturized non-lethal weapons raises the possibility of future warfare where deadly force isn’t the only option. The fact that these non-lethal weapons can also be used by law enforcement raises another possibility: instead of calling out the riot police, authorities can call out the riot drones.

 

Civil Power: making your own scenarios

Copies of Civil Power are starting to thud and rattle into mailboxes across the land.

https://www.consimsltd.com/products/civil-power in case you haven’t had a chance to order your copy yet!

I’ve mentioned this before, but from the beginning I purposely designed this to be a “sandbox” type of game, for people to experiment with new and revised scenarios, optional rules and so forth – there is also a points purchase system and force-package system so you can easily assemble opposing forces.

The game comes with two geomorphic squared maps of an imaginary urban area. Keeping in mind that each square is 20 metres across (~25 yards) or about the width of a street, you could take an image from Google Maps or something and make a squared map to suit your favourite location, with terrain interpretations informed by your knowledge of the area.

As an example, I made one such for the Legislative Assembly buildings in my capital city… took me a couple of minutes to do. (Yeah, it shows.) Though I hasten to add that while the front lawn has seen many demonstrations, they have all been fairly well mannered except one time in 1993 where protesters forced their way into the building, and broke a window (and a staff member was shoved to the ground and hurt their hip). A collection was taken up by the organizers to have the window fixed.

Team play of COIN system games

O’er the hills and far away….

The estimable Brant Guillory of Armchair Dragoons and other manifestations has published a guide to the team play of GMT COIN system games that he and his group have put on at Origins!

Battle Lab: Team COIN Wargaming – A “How To” Primer

It’s brilliant, go check it out.

The hidden intelligence part is reflected in having teams of two players for each faction – one diplomatic and one military – but the diplomatic player cannot see the map and the military player cannot see the card, nor are they privy to the negotiations the diplomat has hammered out with the other players. This makes this method very good for games where there is a lot of argle-bargle, and Brant usually does this method with A Distant Plain (an even better wrinkle with this one is that the Warlords faction is played by two, but they take both roles, on alternate turns!).

Very clever, indeed.

Qwexit: a scenario for Canadian “Civil War”

 

Variant cover by Cavan Cunningham!

My non-Canadian readers may or may not know that on October 21, 2019, Canada had a general election. The incumbent party, the Liberal Party of Canada, was returned to power, but with fewer seats in the House of Commons. This strong-minority government was the most likely outcome predicted by most media outlets and polls, at least in the final ten days before the election itself, but two things were unusual:

• the resurgence of the Bloc Quebecois, a party that ran candidates only in Quebec and whose platform includes a drastically altered relationship between Quebec and the federal government; and
• the near complete dominance of representation by Conservative Party of Canada candidates in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta (though the popular vote was more diverse), combined with the accession to power in recent years by right-wing provincial governments there that have been quite vocal about the imbalance of power in the current federal-provincial relationship, at least where the Prairie provinces are concerned.

Neither of these movements is new. I recall attending a meeting of the “Western Canada Concept” party in Victoria BC in 1980, for the sake of research – I was then in my high school’s debating club and we were going to debate a resolution on Western separatism. The meeting was led by WCC founder Doug Christie, who gained notoriety by defending Ernst Zundel for denying the Holocaust, got slung out of the WCC for being too extreme and backed other right-wing movements (including a provincial WCC party in BC) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Christie_(lawyer)). And it was the surge to power by the Parti Quebecois in the mid-70s that prompted James Dunnigan to design Canadian ‘Civil War’, the sixth and last of the SPI Power Politics series of games, in 1976-77. 

For obvious reasons Canadian Civil War was not popular in the US, and there were few Canadian wargamers to buy up the remaining copies, so it has survived as more or less an orphan game with no updates or scenarios save a “Meech Lake” variant that ran in #23 of The Canadian Wargamers Journal in July 1990. Like many other Dunnigan designs, the game has some interesting mechanics in it, presented in a less appealing framework – and a requirement for four and only four players for the full game.

So, after having a look at the electoral map after October 21, I thought I would try my hand at an updating and variant scenario for the present situation.

The first thing I ought to say is that I do not think that the country of Canada itself is at serious risk. The Bloc Quebecois rhetoric is far less heated than in the 1970s, and it is unlikely that there will be any more referenda on sovereignty-association; the last one was in 1995 and I think it will remain so. I also think that the Western separatist talk is mostly that, just talk, that will be used by the premiers of Alberta and Saskatchewan when and how it pleases them (https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-canada-wexit-analysis-1.5335328). Not surprisingly, the founders of the “Wexit Alberta” movement have been identified as far-right activists, including a former spokesman for the Prairie Freedom Movement, a Western separatist organization that preceded this one (https://north99.org/2019/10/25/wexit-far-right/) (https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/59na9q/wexit-founders-are-far-right-conspiracy-theorists ) . Also not surprisingly, “bot” and aggregator activity has considerably boosted the signal and apparent numbers of the movement in Alberta ( https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/wexit-company-says-bots-aggregators-boosted-alberta-separatist-movement-on-twitter-1.4650507) so when people talk about tens or hundreds of thousands of signatures on an online petition, those signatures weigh about as much as that petition does.

However, we have never let facts get in the way of an interesting game problem, so the following is presented as a thought-experiment expressed through a rather old Dunnigan game: the “Qwexit” scenario. We hope you’re able to give it a try.

qwexit-4 nov  introduction and scenario rules

Cdn Civ War ctrs 2 nov  new counters

CCW var cards 30 oct  new cards

ccw spi ctrs, changes SPI conversion kit: if you happen to have a punched copy of Canadian Civil War, and don’t want to make up a whole new set of counters, this sheet gives you images for a small set of replacement counters and notes the changes to the Political Opportunity Cards.

EDITED TO ADD (3 November):

This may end up to be a bit of a work-in-progress… I was making up a set of the new counters last night and a thought struck me that should have struck me before.

One thing that bothered me a bit about this game is that one Interest Group is much like any other – so why not map them to their (most of the time) logically prime interests, and give them a game function?

So, game function is that an Interest Group gets a favourable column shift on the Contest Table when attacking or defending an Issue that it maps to: 1-1 becomes 2-1 on the attack, 3-1 becomes 2-1 when defending, eg.. Recall though, that an Interest Group cannot control an Issue by itself, only a Constituency piece can.

INTEREST GROUP -> ISSUE (# issue chits)

Chemical -> Healthcare (1)
Farmers -> Environment (2)
Francophone -> Language (1)
Hydro -> Territory (2)
Indigenous -> Indigenous (1)
Intellectual -> Education (2)
Manufacturing -> Industry (3)
Media -> Media (3)
Petro -> Finance/Banking (2)
Transport -> Transport (1)
Unions -> Immigration (1)
Wood -> Tariff/Trade (2)

Most of these are fairly logical I think, and cover all of the Issues except Foreign Affairs and Taxes.

I thought of letting the Prime Minister match to Foreign Affairs, since the PM counter isn’t the PM him/herself but the Prime Minister’s Office and functionaries/staff, who wield even more power than they did in 1976, but decided to leave it consistently Interest Groups, which don’t change when there is a change of government. Also, Taxes didn’t have a logical single IG match, quite complex so best to leave it as it was, I thought.

Anyway, if you give this scenario a try, add this small change to the rules. Or even retrofit it to the original game.

Site addition: Scenarios and Variants page

One thing I like to do, when I have the time and inspiration, is to write scenarios and variants for other peoples’ games. I think this is probably how many designers got started. Sometimes I write or revise items of my own work, too.

Anyway, today I created a page on this website for these items, moved over from my other older website. Have a look, there are items there for many old and new games!

Scenarios and Variants

Copyrights remain with the original creators or holders. No challenge is intended. The variant material is all created by me and is free for the downloader’s personal use, but I would appreciate name-checks and notifications of its use… motivates me to make more of these. Right?

I’d appreciate if you would send me any comments you may have, provided they are constructive and/or adulatory. (as always, I am not responsible if any of these files make your machine go **SPUNG**… though I don’t see how, they are all .docx and .pdf files)

NOTICE:

All material on this website, including all its subsidiary pages, that is written by me is made available through a Creative Commons license.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Please contact me if you want to discuss other uses of the content.

War Plan Crimson, Mark II

Faithful Readuhs will recall (or they can refer to my ludography) that I have designed four games in a family of games I call the “Between the Wars” system. In chronological order of design they are Freikorps (1998), War Plan Crimson (2000), Konarmiya (2007) and Finnish Civil War (2009).

Finnish Civil War, as the last one to be designed, was the first to use the three-Operations-Segment, interleaved sequence of play when it was published by Compass Games in Paper Wars magazine in 2016.

Subsequently Konarmiya got an overhaul to use this system and was published by Tiny Battle as Red Horde 1920 (along with the upgraded system it also had a new map, new order of battle research, some new rules and different components, so it really did need a new title too).

Freikorps was next to get a similar treatment and will be published in April 2018 in Yaah! magazine #11 (from Flying Pig Games, which is Tiny Battle’s sister company) as Strike for Berlin.

That leaves War Plan Crimson as the only one of the family left using the old mechanics and sequence of play. There’s nothing I want to change in the game’s content, just its mechanics, so today I rewrote the rules to update the game for the new system.

You can use these, or not; playing with the new system will probably give you a more chaotic experience, which is fun for many, but not all (I know some of you out there probably wince even at the idea of random events).

Warplancrimson mkII rules

Warplancrimson MkII charts

charts in pdf: warplancrimson-mkii-chartspdf

The rules and charts replace those supplied with the game. I might have missed a numerical reference here or there, deal with it.

You will have to make two sets of three Operations Chits each using blank markers, poker chips or something like that. That’s about all the physical conversion required.

I hope you will give this a try!

A Distant Plain, 5-10-15 Years On…

Recently on Consimworld someone suggested that I should do some kind of update kit for A Distant Plain, to cover the years since the end of the game’s scenarios in 2013 (coinciding with the NATO withdrawal from combat operations, and the physical release of the game in summer 2013).

People tell me it should be easy… you know, a couple of dozen new event cards and you’re done… right? Just like the people who thought there should be a simple 1979-89 conversion kit, for the Soviet-Afghan War (I hope I don’t have to explain to anyone why this one doesn’t fly).

Hmmm…but what particular events could there be after the  that could not be reflected in the cards we already have? I can’t think of any, because it’s been mostly a story of gradually declining Government control of the country matched with steady state or increasing strength of the two insurgent factions… even things that could still happen now, like peace talks, were reflected by a card in the existing deck.

Off the top of my head, a post-2013 version of ADP would effectively resemble a three-player game… the Coalition would have mostly withdrawn its troops and bases, leaving just some training units – and continuing to pay the bills for the Afghan army and police, the cost of which is double or triple the country’s current Gross Domestic Product. There are two COIN system games that are being worked on right now that feature three-player mechanisms, so that could be adapted possibly. More details are coming out on All Bridges Burning, Vesa Arponen’s very clever 3-faction game on the Finnish Civil War of 1918, which offers some mechanics worth thinking about.

http://www.insidegmt.com/?p=18759

Maybe the simplest thing to do would be to play a short game this way, as a three-player game of say 3 or 4 Propaganda Rounds, with an edited deck of event cards that have been prepared by removing cards that are specific to the Coalition, e.g. #1 1 ISR, #2 and #3 Predators and Reapers, #7 Find Fix Finish.. even then you would probably have to discuss the effect of some cards to reflect the mostly missing Coalition (although it’s not quite missing, a card like #9 Special Forces could still work because there are still substantial special operations troops there).  You’d have to review the deck carefully, but it could be done, I suppose. People are certainly welcome to try.

In the end though, I’m not sure what you would be proving, because the war has simply ground on in the last four or five years… no one seems closer to “winning”, in any sense of the word. Here is a recent article on the state of affairs in Afghanistan, and the tiny expensive/ laborious circles everyone is describing around each other.

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2018-01-03/why-taliban-isnt-winning-afghanistan

 

Spielenexperiment II: turning 2 into 4

Katie Aidley (nka Saffron Ann) with CT rulebook. (photo: Saffron Ann, Twitterfeed)

So, Colonial Twilight has been out for a few months now, some reviews have appeared (Armchair General , Space-Biff! , No Fun Allowed , The Players Aid , Katie’s Game Corner) and the comments on Boardgamegeek.com have been piling up , for whatever they might be worth.

They have been mostly very positive, but once in a while someone has said that a COIN system game with two factions does not have the depth, complexity, and interaction (which I think is euphemism for “backstabbery, bickering and scheming”) that a four-faction game does… like in A Distant Plain or Fire in the Lake.

I won’t deny that “2 < 4”, even for very large values of “2”. I’ve also done my best to explain why the “2”, when others thought it should be 3, 4, 5 or more. But I was thinking the other day: what if you had four people who wanted to play Colonial Twilight and there was only one copy? Or even less likely, you had a group of four who wanted to explore some of those divided aims, treacheries and further asymmetries within those two monolithic factions?

So here are my proposed rule changes to accommodate four people in a match of Colonial Twilight: preliminary, untested, result of solitary musings but mostly thought through (I think). Likely immediate results will be overall lengthening of game time and extensive bickering, followed by a longer-term resolution not to have anything to do with that Train fellow anymore….

File for the variant (Word, later additions and edits included): 4pct-160118

VARIANT: FOUR-PLAYER COLONIAL TWILIGHT

(10 January 2018)

Concept

• Each of the two factions is played by a team of two players (if you have three, subdivide Government). The players have different responsibilities (geographical and functional) within the team.
• During each campaign, one of the two players in each faction will be the Leading player, determined at the beginning of each Propaganda Round by who is leading in terms of Victory Points (VP). These VP have different sources, depending on player and faction. The Leading player will make some, but not all, decisions for the team during the campaign.
• The ultimate winner among the four players is the Leading player of the team that won the game, at the moment the game ends.

Definitions

• The FLN is divided into Interior and Exterior players (that is, controlling the FLN forces inside and outside of Algeria, respectively).
• The Government is divided into Intervention Force and Sector Force players (the first represents the professional and more kinetic-minded parts of the French Army and their political backers (both French and pied-noir); the second represents the conscript sector troops, police, civil administration and parts of the civilian government in Paris).

Setup

• This variant can be played in the Medium and Short Scenarios only. Set up pieces and markers normally, but when building the Event Deck players should remove Event Cards #49 (Factional Plot) and #58 (Army in Waiting) from the Event Deck before play, as these cards would unfairly affect the Exterior player.
• At the start of the Medium Scenario, the Interior and Intervention players are the Leading players for their teams. At the start of the Short Scenario, the Exterior and Sector players are the Leading players.

Actions during Campaigns

FLN:

• The Leading player for the FLN faction will decide what option on the Initiative Track to take, and which Operation (and possibly Special Activity) will be executed  (this holds whether the faction is First or Second Eligible). Each player within the faction will carry out Operations and Special Activities as required, alternately and within the areas over which they have responsibility:
  • Internal: all spaces within Algeria
  • External: Morocco, Tunisia and the France Track
  • Leading player: Event Card, Pass
• Players will select spaces for conduct of the Operation alternately, one at a time and Leading player’s choice who goes first (if the Leading player chose a Limited Operation, only one Operation is executed by one player in one space, but it does not have to be the Leading player). If a Special Activity is involved, both players must conduct that Special Activity at the time the Leading Player chooses (i.e. before, during or after the Operation).
• (See below for a suggested option that adds some logistical concerns for the FLN.)

Example: The FLN is 1st Eligible. The Leading player for the faction is the Internal player. He decides to do an Operation + Special Activity: in this case, Rally + Extort. The Internal player begins by selecting Tizi Ouzu (-1 Resource), then the External player selects Morocco (-1 Resource), then the Internal player selects Mostaganem (-1 Resource), then the External player selects the France Track marker (-1 Resource). That’s 4 Resources expended so far and the stock is getting low, so the Internal player chooses to Extort at this time. She selects Tlemcen (+1 Resource), then the External player selects Tunisia (+1 Resource), then the Internal player selects Tizi Ouzu and Bordj Bou Arreridj (since there are no more spaces where the External player can Extort; +2 Resources). The Internal player finishes by selecting Tlemcen, where the FLN happens to have Control, to Agitate one level, for -1 Resource. Finally she places the FLN cylinder in the “Execute Op + Special Activity” space on the Initiative Track.

Government:

• The Leading player for the Government faction will decide what option on the Initiative Track to take, and which Operation (and possibly Special Activity) will be executed  (this holds whether the faction is First or Second Eligible). The other player decides where and how the Operation (and possibly Special Activity) is executed, if it is their responsibility (it would be nice if the Leading player agreed, but it is not necessary). Responsibilities are as follows:
  • Intervention Forces: Sweep, Assault, Troop Lift
  • Sector Forces: Train, Garrison, Deploy, Neutralize
  • Leading Player: Event Card, Pass
• If a Special Activity is involved, the responsible player must conduct that Special Activity at the time the Leading Player chooses (i.e. before, during or after the Operation).

Example: The Government is 1st Eligible. The Leading player for the faction is the Intervention Forces player. He thinks it’s time for some strategic movement of pieces around the country and decides to do an Operation + Special Activity: in this case, Garrison + Troop Lift. Because the Sector Forces player is responsible for the Garrison Operation she executes the Garrison, moving 5 Police cubes around, Activating 2 Guerrillas in Souk Ahras and expending 2 Resources (the Intervention Forces player would have preferred her to Activate a Guerrilla in Tlemcen, but too bad, she’s setting up for a Neutralize in Souk Ahras). The Intervention Forces player is responsible for Troop Lift and so redistributes French Troops among 3 spaces. He could have done the Troop Lift before or after the Garrison was executed.

Actions during Propaganda Rounds

• Victory Phase: If Victory Check ends the game, the Leading player of the winning faction during the immediately preceding campaign is the ultimate winner.
• Resources and Commitment Phase: The Leading player for the Government faction decides which French pieces will be moved between Available and Out of Play.
• Support Phase: The Leading player for each faction decides which spaces will be Pacified or Agitated, and by how many levels. At the end of the Support Phase judge who will be the new Leading player for the following campaign. See below for how the players score Victory Points (VP); the new Leading player is the one with more VP. If the two players tie, there is no change in Leading player. If this is the final Propaganda Round, the ultimate winner is the one who would be the Leading player of the winning faction, if another campaign were about to be run.

FLN Victory Points:

• Internal player:
  • + Total Oppose
  • +2 for each French cube in the Casualties Box
  • +3 for each Government Base in the Casualties Box
• External player:
  • + Resource number from box on the France Track
  • + total number of Guerrillas and Bases in Morocco and Tunisia

Government Victory Points:

• Intervention Forces player:
  • + the number of Guerrillas that were removed in Assaults this campaign (keep a total of this during the campaign; the player gets credit for these “kills” even if Police were part of the Assaulting force (e.g. an Assault in a City or Border Sector, or if the Challe Plan card was in effect)
  • +2 for each Base that was removed in Assaults during this campaign (keep a total of this during the campaign; player gets credit even if Police were involved, as above)
• Sector Forces player:
  • + the number of Guerrillas that were removed in Neutralizes this campaign (keep a total of this during the campaign)
  • +2 for each Base that was removed in Neutralizes during this campaign (keep a total of this during the campaign)
  • + Total Support

Example: It is the Support Phase of the first Propaganda Round of the Short Scenario. During the campaign the Intervention Forces player has removed 8 Guerrillas and 1 Base in Assaults. His VP total is therefore (8+2 =) 10. The Sector Forces player has removed 4 Guerrillas and Total Support is 7. Her VP total is therefore (4+7 =) 11. The Sector Forces player will be the Leading player in the next campaign.

• Redeployment Phase: The Intervention Forces player redeploys Troop cubes as desired and permitted. The Sector Forces player redeploys Police cubes as desired and permitted. The Internal player may redeploy Guerrillas within Wilayas with friendly Bases, but the External player may not move Guerrillas between Morocco and Tunisia.

Event Cards

The Leading player for each faction will be the one to select and execute the text on the Event Card. However, no player ever gets Victory Points as a result of executing any of this text (e.g. removing pieces): Victory Points are calculated only in the Support Phase.

Pivotal Event Cards

If any player has control over play of a Pivotal Event Card, and wishes and is able to play it (see 2.3.2: pre-conditions are met, and 1st Eligible has not yet chosen an option), that action pre-empts anything any other player was about to do.

FLN: the Internal player has control over the play of the OAS card, and is the only FLN player who can execute the OAS-related Capability the card confers.

Government: In both scenarios, the Intervention Forces player has control over the play of the Coup d’etat card (edit: see additional suggestion below). If the FLN has played the OAS card, the Intervention Forces player is the only Government player who can execute the OAS-related Capability the card confers. In the Medium Scenario, the Sector Forces player has control over the Recall de Gaulle card.

Conclusion

By reading through this simple variant, you can see the divisions within the different organizations. The FLN within and without Algeria had divided aims – the units within the country needed to win the people over to their side and continue resisting the French on the ground, while the FLN sitting in the sanctuaries of the Tunisian and Moroccan camps were concerned with preserving an army and government in waiting, to assume power quickly when the French finally left. Meanwhile, the different elements in the French Army, the pieds-noirs and the civilian government had rival methods in mind to deal with the insurgency.

But neither player can give themselves over completely to actions that will benefit only them; they must use all the methods and resources at their disposal in order to win the game.

Let me know if you try this!

14 January 2018: After posting these rules, I had a thought, based on the suggestion of “Fred J”, a user on Boardgamegeek.com:

• If the Intervention Forces player plays the Coup d’etat Pivotal Event and wins the die roll, they become the Leading Player for the rest of the campaign. If they lose, no change.
• In the Propaganda Round, judge the VP and assign the Leading player for the next campaign normally (no change if the two are tied).

This way, the Intervention Forces player has the option during a campaign to “grab the steering wheel” and throw things his way (and maybe grab a bunch of Commitment and Resources too, as well as getting rid of De Gaulle if he was in play – which will make things less easy for the Sector Forces player).

Try this and let me know how it goes… I think I might add this rule to this ongoing experiment permanently. [ETA: has been added to document]

16 January 2018: Meanwhile, my only other concern for this is that the FLN Exterior player might not have much to do (in the game), so it’s a bit less fun for them. Therefore, this variant might make a better three-player game than a four-player – that is, with two Government players and one FLN player.

But adding a bit of extra complexity and historical detail might not go amiss, depending on the crowd. Historically, the Army of National Liberation (the military arm of the FLN) forces inside Algeria were very dependent on resources reaching them from the logistical depots in Morocco and Tunisia, from weapons to shoes and rations. The FLN members in the depots were constantly busy keeping the internal effort supplied as well as possible across the French border defences, but in the COIN system as in most wargames, logistics and supply does not cross over into exciting game mechanics. So try this optional addition:

• At the end of each Reset Phase, just before the new campaign begins, the External player divides the FLN’s available Resources into two pools, “internal” and “external”. The number of external resources is equal to the lesser of either the number of FLN Resources currently available, or the sum of the Resource number from the current box on the France Track and the number of Bases in Morocco and Tunisia. These are assumed to be resources stockpiled in Morocco and Tunisia and are under the control of the External player. The remaining Resources, if any, are under the control of the Internal player.
• Players may keep track of these two pools by any mutually agreeable method: scrap paper, two markers on the Edge Track, glass beads or other tokens, small coins, etc..
• During campaigns, each FLN player must pay for the Operations they conduct from the pool of Resources under their control.
• Any Resources added through the Extort Special Activity are added to the pool of Resources controlled by the player whose piece conducted the Extort. Your knife, your pie….
• Any gains or losses in FLN Resources due to Event Cards (e.g. #15 Jean-Paul Sartre, or #25 Purge) are enjoyed or suffered by the External player. Exception: Resources lost by the use of the OAS Capability by either faction are taken from the Internal player’s pool.
• The External player may transfer Resources from their pool to the Internal player’s pool (but not vice versa). In game terms, this is done under a March Operation, and it costs 1 Resource (to a “virtual” destination not depicted on the map). The External player may transfer as many Resources as desired, up to the total number in their pool, but each time the player does this, they must remove a number of Guerrillas equal to the current Border Zone Status number from their Guerrillas in Morocco and/or Tunisia and place them directly in Available. If they do not have sufficient Guerrillas to do this, they cannot transfer Resources.

Examples: 

• At the beginning of the new campaign, there are 9 FLN Resources available. The Resource number in the current box in the France Track is +2 and there are 4 Bases in Morocco and Tunisia. Therefore, the campaign starts with (2+4 =) 6 Resources under control of the External player, and (9-6 =) 3 Resources under control of the Internal player.
• Later during the campaign, the External player (reluctantly) decides to transfer Resources to the Internal player’s pool. The Border Zone Status number is 2. The player also happens to be the Leading player at the moment, so they choose a Limited Operation – March on the Initiative Track. The player “Marches” 5 Resources (all they have available) into the Internal player’s pool, spending an additional 1 Resource to do so, and removes 2 of their Guerrillas (in this case 1 from Morocco and 1 from Tunisia, but both could have come from one Country) to Available.

[ETA: this has been added to the document]