COIN it in

If you’ve been wargame-curious, there’s a good chance you’ve seen this capitalised ‘COIN’ somewhere. It’s a series of counter-insurgency games from various designers, all published by GMT Games. I guess you could call them wargames, but in my (admittedly limited) experience, there’s very little warfare. There’s no attack and defence values, or tiny numbers on a sea of cardboard chits. COIN games are about influence, control, and upsetting the balance of power. The lifeblood of COIN is an event deck which ticks away throughout the game, offering powerful opportunities, and sobering context to what’s happening on your table.

All Bridges Burning is a bit of an outlier in the series, as it’s one of the rare titles which isn’t built around four different factions. You take control of the Reds, seeking a working class revolution, the white Senate guard, trying to maintain control, or a third, blue, Moderate faction who want political reform. It gives the whole thing a very different feel, and I think it’s a real boon for new players. COIN games can be heavily asymmetric, and keeping track of what the other players are doing, as well as remembering their win conditions, is tough. Reducing that mental overhead by a third for each player isn’t to be sniffed at.

COIN games are strict in that all of the factions need to take part in every game, but at the same time they’re easy-going in that they don’t care how many meat-bags humans are taking part. The automa/AI players – or Non-Players (NPs) to use GMT’s parlance – are controlled with decks of cards and simple flow charts. Heck, you could have all three decks play against each other with no players at all if you really wanted to. The NP turns are super smooth, and mean that you can play a solo game relatively quickly. Solo play is great by the way, just be aware that the victory conditions are slightly different.

A game of two halves

All Bridges Burning has two distinct phases, and each has a markedly different feel. The first half of the game is spent posturing, building support, and doing your best to keep your cards (figuratively) close to your chest. There’s no hidden information at all.

The way these games convey theme still astounds me. For example – when the number of cells on the board reaches a critical mass, the Reds’ revolution begins. The tension this weaves into the game is fantastic. More and more activists spread across the map, vying for control of towns and regions. The white guard swell their numbers in response. You can feel it’s all going to kick off, and it’s a case of when – not if – it happens.

Up until that point, the red and white forces can’t even move around the map, let alone attack. Once the revolution starts, the game swings dramatically. Trains and cannons come into play, and all of a sudden you’re trying to build the foundations for Finland as it moves away from being a Russian duchy, into the 20th century. Russian and German troops are also in the country with their own vested interests, and the players can leverage them for their own goals. The poor Moderates are left trying to keep some kind of balance and political control while the rest of the country tears itself apart. The dichotomy between the two phases is stark, and really engaging.

If it sounds like it’s a long game, then you’re on the right track. You’re looking at something like at least three hours per game, and your first game will probably take twice as long, especially if you’ve never played a COIN game before. If it’s not your first rodeo, you’ll find it easier to pick up, but there are some notable changes from the previous games. GMT have kindly added callout boxes to the rulebook to bring these to your attention. The first you’ll notice is that eligibility order is based on player decisions now, not what’s drawn on the top of the card. It’s also likely you’ll take actions in nearly every round, not just every other.

All things in moderation

While COIN games are all about their asymmetry, it feels different in All Bridges Burning. Using Gandhi as my frame of reference, we had two violent and two non-violent factions. In All Bridges Burning, if you’re the player playing as the Moderates, it really feels like you’re playing a very different game to the others. The Reds and Whites are building up these huge forces across the map, bolstering their positions along the way, and you know that they’re going to spend the slugging it out. The Moderates though, they’re left stuck with six cells to place for the entire game. They can’t engage in combat. They feel less potent than the others.

It’s not a problem if you like COIN games, and you know what to expect, but if you’re playing this with someone new to the series, I’d suggest giving them control of red or white, instead of blue. The actions feel more tangible, and you get a better visual connection between what you’re doing and how it relates to your victory condition.

What I love about these games is the way they force you to make tough choices all the time. Everyone has their standard actions, and some powerful special commands at their disposal, which would make for an interesting game if those were all that happened. The event deck just turns things up to 11, and keeps throwing wonderful distractions out, tempting you off the road to victory. The cards offer all kinds of powerful actions, and all players know which card will be next. Sometimes you just have to pass your turn, delaying your plans, just to make sure you have first dibs on the next round’s card. That can be because you really want that next event, but nearly as often it’s just to deny one of your opponents the chance to do the same.

Hnnnnnghhh! Decisions are tough!

Final thoughts

Okay, I think I’m firmly in love with COIN games. When I first played Gandhi I was daunted, but perseverance rewarded me with one of my favourite games. I wondered whether a second COIN game would feel like more of the same, and it does. Except… it doesn’t. The system feels immediately familiar, the way the game works with its event deck, propaganda rounds, and standard actions. It doesn’t just feel like the same game with a fresh coat of paint though. All Bridges Burning isn’t just set in a different time and place, it also feels like a very different experience to play.

A game like this is never going to have the universal appeal of something like Ticket To Ride or Wingspan, and that’s okay. We’re talking about a pretty niche genre with COIN games, but I think that narrow slice of the board game pie-chart is getting bigger. So while I wouldn’t recommend you buy this to take over to play with the family at Christmas, I would say that if you’re into hobby board games, and are even remotely curious about COIN games, GMT Games, or wargames of any sort, this is a fabulous place to start.

I love the fact that all factions in All Bridges Burning need to be mindful of all of the moving parts on the board. There are very achievable conditions where none of the players win. The German and Russian supporting troops can win, but if they tie, nobody at all wins. Maybe that sounds terrible to you, but I love it. It keeps everyone aware of everything that’s going on, and it means towards the end of the game you could end up taking sub-optimal turns, just to avoid losing to a force who don’t have anyone controlling them!

All Bridges Burning is a fantastic game, and for now, it’s the COIN game I’d recommend to get started with. It’s Tosi hyvä.

Footnote

I know the way I talk about this game makes it sound like I have a very flippant take on what was a bloody civil war. A war in which nearly 40,000 Finns lost their lives. It’s important to acknowledge that while this is a game, it’s also a simulation of real-world events that happened. GMT, and their designers, have a real respect for the history, and manage to handle things with due sensitivity. The background and events are all explained in great detail, and at no point is it made light of. All Bridges Burning models what happened, and what could have happened. There’s no laughter to be had. It’s a tactical simulation, and if anything, leaves you with a profound sense of the scale of suffering a nation went through. It’s an educational, yet still enjoyable, experience. There’s further reading available from the rulebook, and all research is fully referenced throughout.

Review copy kindly provided by GMT Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

All Bridges Burning: Red Revolt and White Guard in Finland 1917-1918 (2020)

Designer: V P J Arponen
Publisher: GMT Games
Art: Chechu Nieto
Players: 1-3
Playing time: 180-360 mins

The post All Bridges Burning Review appeared first on Punchboard.

With each turn you make a decision about where you want to move, and whether you want to explore a new area, or visit a character or point of interest you’ve already uncovered. The app explains what’s happening in the story, with a cool atmospheric soundtrack playing in the background. Along the way you collect items, fulfil side quests for people, and learn more about the world you inhabit. As with the Chronicles of Crime titles before it, Destinies makes heavy use of QR codes. If you ask an NPC for a hint towards your destiny, you scan your card. Want to use an item at a location? Scan the card. It quickly becomes second nature.

Riding your luck

The system for combat and tests in Destinies is really clever. Each player has a board with three tracks on it: intelligence, dexterity and power. Your character begins with wooden markers at several points along each track, and through gaining experience and completing quests, you can move those markers to the left, to lower values. When you roll a number of dice to perform a test, you total their values and compare it to the markers on that track. The number of markers equal to or lower than that value, are the number of successes you make. The item cards you collect along the way can be expended at different times to mitigate bad rolls too.

It’s a really elegant system, and really lets you shape your character to the way you think you want to play them. It keeps the game ticking along at a quick pace, but it does get repetitive. If you don’t mind chucking dice ’til the cows come home though, you’ll be in your element. This streamlined approach runs through the whole game too. The rule book is very easy to read and understand, and it’s a game you can teach to new players in no time at all.

Competitive narrative

Destinies launched on Kickstarter selling itself as a competitive narrative game. It’s a type of game that’s very difficult to get right, with The King’s Dilemma being my favourite example so far. Within each scenario of the game, a story is unfolding, and a world is developing right in front of you. When I first played the game solo, to learn the ropes, I thought this was really cool. I was exploring, unlocking new locations, talking to new people, choosing where to go at my leisure. Playing competitively for the first time, was a different experience.

When the game starts, you know very little about the scenario you’re playing. There’s a couple of people and places to visit and four cardinal directions to start exploring. So what do you do first? You could head north, start exploring, talking to people, hoping to find something to further your quest. But what if there’s nothing relevant that way? What if your opponents headed in a different direction and are already on the right track? I found this frustrating at first, because once someone’s got a head start, it can be hard to overhaul them in Destinies.

However, having played it more, I tried re-framing my expectation of the game, and it really helped. The word ‘narrative’ is the important part here, not competitive. If you go into Destinies with a ‘must win at all costs’ viewpoint, you’re likely to come away disappointed.

Defining expectations

If you can accept the fact that the game is going to be exploratory and vague at times, I think you’ll really enjoy Destinies. It doesn’t hold your hand and say “You need to go west and investigate the old church” right from turn one. You will get hints like that, but they only come by exploring and talking to people. You never know if helping someone who’s asking you for something is going to give you something amazing towards your quest, or something unrelated. Frustrating and annoying at times, that’s just the kind of game it is though.

Once you abandon the competitive mindset, the game starts to become much more enjoyable. Now, I can understand if this sounds like I’m making excuses for the game here. A competitive game that’s best when you’re not being too competitive?! Maybe that’s a fair comment, but the point here is that there’s a really good adventure game waiting to be played. I just personally find that playing it with too much emphasis on the competition can be frustrating. All of that said though, I did play a couple of really tense scenarios where it came right down to the wire for who won.

There are two different solo modes in the box: Explorer and Challenger. I’ve played both, and I far preferred the Explorer option. It’s a game of exploration and doing things in your own time, soaking up the world. It’s not difficult, but it’s great fun. Challenger mode, however, is really tough. There’s time pressure, there are special events happening, and the whole thing feels much more stressful. I lost one scenario twice before I finally cleared it, and I’m not sure I’d have tried a fourth time.

Final thoughts

Destinies is a good game. The minis, components, artwork and app are all really good, and the whole thing feels high-quality from start to end. As I’ve mentioned above though, it’s not going to be a game for everyone. Really competitive players are likely to feel plenty of frustration when things don’t go their way, and it can really expose the luck that encompasses the early part of the game. The luck of starting in the right direction, and talking to the right person. If you can live with that though, or can play and not worry about who wins, you’ll have a great time.

It’s pretty decent solo, especially if you’re looking for something to scratch that RPG-lite itch. I think it’s most fun with two or three players though. You’ll see more of the map, and hear what happens to the other players while they’re off doing their thing. Maybe you’ll hear something to bank for later, a hint or a clue that helps you out. The stories are really good too. They’re not just the tried and tested medieval fantasy tropes, but involved, evolving storylines.

Where Destinies comes alive is in its world-building. It does things that you just couldn’t do without the app. The app allows the world to change around you while you play. Sometimes you’ll start a turn and it’ll tell you that something has happened somewhere, and that you need to update the map accordingly. Then you’re left wondering, “I wonder what I missed there”. In a game with inherently limited replayability, it gives you some impetus to go back and try a scenario again, but maybe with a different character.

Destinies isn’t going to be everyone’s idea of the perfect game, but with the simple setup, easy rules. and clever use of dice, it’s a game that you can teach to anyone. You’ll have a good time for a couple of hours in a rich, detailed fantasy world.

Review copy kindly provided by Lucky Duck Games. Thoughts and opinions are my own.

Destinies (2021)

Designers: Michał Gołębiowski, Filip Miłuński
Publisher: Lucky Duck Games
Art: Karolina Jędrzejak, Magdalena Leszczyńska, Irek Zielinski
Players: 1-3
Playing time: 90-120 mins

The post Destinies Review appeared first on Punchboard.