In Action Point 1, we looked at two of the Patriot actions, including Call to Arms and Escape. In this post we will examine the Search/Capture action for the British as well as the Hinder action, which can be used by both players but to effect different actions.

Search/Capture

The British player uses the Search/Capture action to search settlements for hidden arms and to capture Patriot leaders like Samuel Adams or John Hancock referred to in the game as Sons of Liberty.

When searching, the British player selects a region that has a Hidden Arms marker and at least one unbroken British Regular must be in the region being searched (if there isn’t a Regular who is going to kick the doors in hunting for the guns?). To conduct the search, the British player will draw a card to see if it has any hash marks.

The number of hash marks on the card represent the number of VP’s the British player will receive from the Search. But the number of hash marks can be reduced by a number of unbroken Patriot units in the region. This will be a reduction of 1 for each of a Minutemen or Militia. If after the reductions, there are hash marks remaining that many VP will be granted for the successful search.

Search is a difficult thing to succeed at though. Of the 22 cards in the deck, only 10 have hash marks. Of those 10, there are 4 with one hash mark, 4 with two hash marks and only 2 with three hash marks.

Capture uses the same card draw process and can be attempted when an unbroken British Regular occupies a region with one of the 2 Sons of Liberty. The number of hash marks don’t equate to VP’s but if there is a positive number of hash marks after the draw and all reductions from the presence of the Patriot units, the Sons of Liberty will be captured and their counter will be flipped over and is treated just the same as a captured Nightrider and can be moved toward Boston at the end of each round up to two spaces and will count for endgame VP’s.

If the Capture attempt fails, the British player can try once more immediately for the cost of 1VP. If the attempt fails, the Patriot player can move the Sons of Liberty counters to an adjacent region at no cost.

Hinder

Hinder means to create difficulties resulting in delay or obstruction and the way the Hinder actions in Revolution Road are used are true to that definition. I really enjoy using the Hinder action as it is very thematic and mirrors the goals of both factions and makes it possible to foil the attempts of the opposition to accomplish their aim.

Search

One of the goals for the British is to move throughout the countryside discovering and capturing Hidden Arms markers that represent stores of ammunition and arms to be used by the Patriots to foment their rebellion. The British will gain VP’s for each of these Hidden Arms markers that they find and capture and the special numbered markers located closer to or in Lexington, Lincoln and Concord are worth considerably more VP’s.

If the Patriot player wants to make finding these hidden markets more difficult, they can place the Hinder Search marker to delay that search and capture. The Patriot player can spend one of their activations to place the Hinder Search marker on any Hidden Arms marker. When placed it will be on the side that has a two printed in the upper right hand corner and will be in effect for two rounds. This action will prevent the British from searching for those arms for the two rounds.

But this is not a guarantee of preventing the arms from being found as the British player can use one of their actions to counter the placement by simply removing the marker. Once removed, the Hinder Search marker will be placed on the next turn space of the Turn Track and will be unable to be used by the Patriot player again until the next round. So you see, it is not a full proof way of preventing the hidden arms from being found but can be used to make the action more expensive for the British player. I have always felt in these type of games that forcing your opponent to use their limited actions to do something they didn’t plan to is a victory.

Muster

The Patriots need to be able to call out reinforcements to ultimately harass and prevent the British from reaching their goal of Concord. This is accomplished as the Nightriders go around to the various Gathering Places through the use of the Call to Arms action to summon hidden militia and minutemen.

The Hinder Muster Action is only available to the British player and costs an action. This action allows them to place the Hinder Muster marker on any Patriot Gather or Muster marker and will be placed on its 2 side. Once this is done, the Patriot player cannot flip a Gather Marker to its Muster side nor can a Muster marker be removed at the end of a turn. This has the effect of delaying any reinforcements arriving at the location until the Hinder Muster marker is removed.

Just as with the Hinder Search marker, the Patriot player can spend an action to remove the Hinder Muster marker which will then be placed on the next turn space of the Turn Track. This action can be very frustrating as it will prevent your troops from getting into the fight and will open the roads to the British to advance more quickly toward their goals.

Move

The Hinder Movement Action is available only to the Patriot player and they can spend an action to place the Hinder Movement marker in any region on its 2 side. Any British units moving into the region containing the Hinder Movement marker must end their move in that region.

This is problematic for the British as if on a road a British unit can move two spaces. So placing the Hinder Movement marker acts as a roadblock and will take that many more actions for the British to get where it is they want to go.

As is the case with all these different type of Hinder markers, the British player can spend an action to remove the Hinder Move marker and it will be placed in the next space of the Turn Track.

In Action Point 3, we will look at a few of the Patriots actions called Ambush and Snipe that are intended to inflict reductions on the British and eliminate units.

-Grant