The Red Burnoose: Algeria 1857 is a 1-4 player historical cooperative game that deals with the resistance of Fadhma N’Soumer and the Kabyle people in their fight against the invading French armies in the Kabylie region of Algeria in 1857. The name refers to the garb worn by the villagers here and specifically refers to the color of garb worn by Fadhma. The game uses very interesting mechanics such as deck-building to tell the story of villagers working together to defeat the invading French. The players will join forces and play cooperatively to survive as the French advance on their villages, either winning together or losing together. Players will all have a starting deck of cards that make up their available villagers who each have a special ability and function and can be used to perform various actions, such as ambush, gathering resources or mobilizing forces to the Game Board.

In Action Point 1, we looked at the Game Board focused on the various villages located in the rugged mountain terrain and the launching points for the invading armies. In this Action Point, we will dive into the various Village Cards and their abilities and benefits.

Village Cards

As was discussed in the previous Action Point, the Kabylie villages located in the Tell Atlas Mountain range in Northern Algeria are divided into 3 distinct color coded regions and can be played by up to 4 players by dividing them into specific territories that are called out in the rule book. There are a total of 9 different villages divided amongst 3 different colored regions including blue (located generally in the center of the Game Board), green (located toward the bottom of the Game Board) and orange (located on the top of the Game Board). Each of these villages has their own card that contains the name of the village, the region in which it is located, any starting resources that the village provides and a special ability in the form of text at the bottom of the card. These special abilities are tied to specific key words such as Steep, Sheltered or Wooded.

Let’s take a look at each of the regions and the individual Village Cards.

The Thaqvilth Ath Irathen Region includes the villages of Irdjen, Larbaa Ath Irathen and Mekla.

Irdjen

Irdjen has a very simple benefit which is triggered by the key word Wooded. With this ability, the player will gain 1 Re-roll Token at the beginning of each of their combats in that village, which is pretty nice. If you didn’t know, Re-roll Tokens simply allow the player to either reroll one of their own dice or force the AI to reroll one of their dice. This can be really important and a deciding factor in any combat.

The beginning game ability for the player who controls Irdjen is that they begin the game with 3 Re-roll Tokens at their disposal.

Larbaa Ath Irathen

Larbaa Ath Irathen has an ability that is triggered by the key word Sheltered. With this ability, as the AI attacks the village, their Artillery rolls will be decreased by 1 factor, meaning if they score a double hit it will only count as a single hit and a rolled single hit will count as a miss. This ability is pretty important because of the positioning of the Larbaa Ath Irathen village. It will be the first stop along the route to the orange villages in the Thaqvilth Ath Irathen Region from the Tizi Ouzou French Army Start Location located in the top left hand corner of the Game Board. This means this village will be attacked more often than the other villages in this Region and this type of ability is very beneficial in minimizing the damages from attacking French Artillery.

Mekla

Mekla has a decent ability that is triggered by the key word Steep. With this ability, when the AI attacks the village, the Cavalry units contained in the French Army will be unable to participate in the attack and roll their dice.

The beginning game ability for the player who controls Mekla is that they will start the game with a Market Card in their deck in addition to the standard starting cards. The Market Card is a very good card as it allows the player to discard the Market to spend Food, Weapons and Tools interchangeably as they recruit new cards to their decks. This flexibility is very important to allow the option to purchase the cards that are most needed at that point in the game.

The Thaqvilth Ath Ijjeur Region includes the villages of Iferhounène, Soumeur and Akbil.

Iferhounène

Iferhounène is a secluded village that will generally not be attacked, at least early in the game and it has a decent ability that is triggered by the key word Steep. As we discussed earlier with our look at Mekla with this ability, when the AI attacks the village, the Cavalry units contained in the French Army will be unable to participate in the attack and roll their dice. This village has no starting benefit or other text on the card.

Soumeur

Soumeur has a very weird and somewhat non-beneficial special ability as it is positioned on the road near to the Tirourda Pass French Army Starting Location and will most definitely be attacked during the game if the AI starts their attacks from there. But the special ability that appears on the card states “When French approach, roll 1 Artillery die. On a hit our double hit, they overlook Soumeur and continue on towards the next village”. In this case, the next village is Iferhounène which offers no really beneficial ability. I have found in the game that you cannot just place defenses in Soumeur but also must consider that the French will bypass and go onto Iferhounène. This means that the defenses in this region will be somewhat compromised and I feel it is the hardest area to defend properly.

The beginning game ability for the player who controls Soumeur is that they will start the game with a Fig Orchard Card in their deck in addition to the standard starting cards. The Fig Orchard is a simple card that provides the player with 7 Influence to be used to recruit additional cards to their deck. The concept here is that the Fig Orchard attracts villagers to the village because of the source of plentiful food.

Akbil

Akbil has an ability that is triggered by the key word Sheltered. With this ability, as the AI attacks the village, their Artillery rolls will be decreased by 1 factor, meaning if they score a double hit it will only count as a single hit and a rolled single hit will count as a miss. This is a good ability as Akbil is one of the first lines of defense for this region as the French Army moves out from the Tirourda Pass French Army Starting Location. This village has no starting benefit or other text on the card.

The Thaqvilth Ath Menguellat Region including Ath Yenni, Ain El Hammam and Ath Ouacif.

Ath Yenni

Ath Yenni is one of the two villages in the Thaqvilth Ath Menguellat Region that can be attacked by a the French Army as they move up the road from the Tizi Ouzou French Army Start Location. It has a decent ability that is triggered by the key word Steep. As we discussed earlier with our look at Mekla and Iferhounène with this ability, when the AI attacks the village, the Cavalry units contained in the French Army will be unable to participate in the attack and roll their dice. This village has no starting benefit or other text on the card.

The beginning game ability for the player who controls Ath Yenni is that they begin the game with 3 Re-roll Tokens at their disposal.

Ain El Hammam

Ain El Hammam has an ability that is triggered by the key word Sheltered. With this ability, as the AI attacks the village, their Artillery rolls will be decreased by 1 factor, meaning if they score a double hit it will only count as a single hit and a rolled single hit will count as a miss. This village has no starting benefit or other text on the card.

Ath Ouacif

Ath Ouacif has a very simple benefit which is triggered by the key word Wooded. With this ability, the player will gain 1 Re-roll Token at the beginning of each of their combats in that village, which is pretty nice. If you didn’t know, Re-roll Tokens simply allow the player to either reroll one of their own dice or force the AI to reroll one of their dice. This can be really important and a deciding factor in any combat.

The beginning game ability for the player who controls Ath Ouacif is that they will start the game with a Market Card in their deck in addition to the standard starting cards. This is similar to the benefit offered by Mekla. These type of starting benefits really give the player a kickstart at the beginning and allows them to recruit better cards more quickly.

So why are villages important? Simple. If the player loses any two villages to the advancing French Army, the game will be lost. It can also end in a loss if one village is conquered and the Retreat Token has been used. So defending these villages is key to winning the game. If you do not recruit appropriate fighting units, like the Moudjahidine, Sharpshooters or Moudjahadate, and place them in strategic locations you will be overrun and lose the game. Keeping the villages safe is all that really matters and the players have to work together to protect them.

That concludes our look at the various Village Cards and their starting abilities and benefits. The key words used in the game and assigned to different villages is one of the nice elements of the game from a thematic standpoint. The designers did their research in naming these villages and assigning their specific abilities. They included abilities on the cards that are tied to such things as the terrain and other natural occurrences that were available to the Berbers in the defense of their mountain villages. Just a very well done part of the game that really helps you to visualize and understand the plight and advantages of the defenders in the peaks and valleys of the Tell Atlas Mountain range in Northern Algeria.

In Action Point 3, we will take a look at the player’s decks and the makeup of the different Start Decks, Leaders and Recruitable Cards.

-Grant