Land and Freedom: The Spanish Revolution and Civil War is a very interesting and unique card-driven in which players are play the roles of various factions who are attempting to work together to repel the Fascist attack on Spain’s sovereignty. The three sides, including the Moderates, Anarchists and Communists, have to work together in a loose alliance against the Fascists but also in an attempt to keep each ideology in check and win the game by amassing the most glory. The game looks at Spain in the framework of 4 separate geographic Fronts, which players have to defend using only their whits and the cards at their disposal. These cards can be used for their powerful events or placed into a tableau where in later turns the play of matching symbol cards here can trigger a very powerful and game changing momentum swing. The game is semi-cooperative, and what is meant by that is that all of the players will lose the game if 2 of the Fronts or Madrid are lost but if they sufficiently work together to keep the Fascist invasion at bay, they can then win individually for their ideology by amassing the most Glory through their brave deeds, skillful manipulation of the turn order and focus on increasing their hold on important aspects such as government control, external support from world powers in the form of Foreign Aid, the increase of individual liberty or a focus on collectivization.

In Action Point 1, we took a look at the Game Board and discussed the Fronts and various Tracks that belong to the different factions. In Action Point 2, we examined the anatomy of the Player Cards and discuss the use of their Action Points and Events as well as the Fascist Event Cards. In this Action Point, we will take a look at the Morale and Teamwork Bonuses and how they are best used by the players.

Bonuses

In our first Action Point, we briefly discussed the Morale and Teamwork Bonuses and where they were located on the board. These are two very important parts of the game and players will have to utilize and prioritize these bonuses in order to stave off the invading Fascists and also come out on top of the struggle between the 3 competing ideologies.

The Bonuses are 2 circular spaces with images in the middle. The circle on the left is the Morale Bonus and the one on the right is the Teamwork Bonus. These areas can be effected by Fascist Event Cards in a negative way, by “turning off” or disabling a specific bonus, or by the play of Player Cards that “turn on” or enable the bonuses. The players can also spend Hero Points to “turn on” a bonus.

These bonuses are used by the player when they are placing Republican Strength markers onto Fronts to remove additional Fascist Attack markers (Teamwork Bonus) or to get additional activations of their Symbols found on cards that have been played to the player’s Tableau (Morale Bonus). Keeping these Bonuses on is very important for the players and they will find their mission that much easier when they do have them. Let’s take a closer look at each of these bonuses.

Morale Bonus

This Morale Bonus is the most important part of the game for the players. If they find themselves having it “turned on”, they will gain great benefit from it when they play their cards for Action Points. If the Morale Bonus is currently on, a player can use it when they choose to play a card for its Action Points. The Morale Bonus allows the player to choose any 1 of the Symbols shown on the left side of the card to activate. When activated, these Symbols will multiply the effect of that Symbol by the number of times that the Symbol appears on the cards found in the player’s tableau, including their current card.

I will help you understand this concept by providing you with an example.

Shown in the picture above is a nice Tableau that has been built by the player here with a total of 4 cards played. If the Morale Bonus is “turned on”, and the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Card was just played for 1 Action Point, the Morale Bonus would allow the player to choose any of the 3 Symbols on the card to activate and then get a bonus to that action according to how many times that icon appears on the other cards in the Tableau.

The player could choose to add +3 Strength to any one Front (+3 for the 3 total +1 Front Symbols found in the Tableau). The player could also choose to increase the Soviet Support Track by +3 if that would benefit them (+3 from the 3 total Soviet Support Symbols found in the Tableau). Finally, they could choose to decrease the Foreign Aid Track by -2 (-2 from the 2 Foreign Aid Symbols found in the Tableau). The important thing to remember here is that the Morale Bonus can only activate one Symbol on the player’s current card and that the benefit is multiplied by the number of additional Symbols found in the Tableau. This means that focusing on building your Tableau is very important and you cannot just choose willy nilly what cards you play. There has to be a purpose to adding each card and a lot will depend on what cards you have already placed into the Tableau.

Teamwork Bonus

The Teamwork Bonus is very specific and only benefits the players who are adding +1 Front Markers to the Fronts when the bonus is “turned on”. When a player attempts to strengthen any of the Fronts, they will place one (and only one) of their player tokens in that Front on the board to show their positive contribution this turn. First, if that Front is the location of the Fascist Test, then that player will earn 2 Hero points if Success on the Test is achieved. Second, whenever the second (or
third) different player token is added to the same Front, it may trigger the Teamwork Bonus.

If the Teamwork Bonus is on, it will add +1 Strength to the same Front where the second or third player adds Strength on the same turn. This allows the players to work together in defeating the Fascists and really is one of the more important parts of the game. If players focus too much on their individual tracks and improving their situation, they will find that the Fronts begin to get overrun and they are only one Fascist Event Card away from losing that Front and possibly the game if it was Madrid or their 2nd collapsed Front. Working together is key to the game and this is probably the greatest example of how these coordinated efforts can make a difference.

Keeping these 2 Bonuses “turned on” is important and will require the use of Action Points from cards, the use of precious Hero Points (more on this in the next Action Point) or through Events that “turn on” the bonuses. in our several plays, I feel like we would also check to make sure these bonuses are enabled because you really cannot afford to have them off as your efforts will simply not be enough with the bonuses to defeat the Fascists.

If you are interested, we posted an interview with the designer Alex Knight and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2023/02/06/interview-with-alex-knight-designer-of-land-and-freedom-the-spanish-revolution-and-civil-war-from-blue-panther-llc/

Also, the game can be ordered for $65.00 from the Blue Panther LLC website at the following link: https://www.bluepantherllc.com/products/land-and-freedom

In Action Point 4, we will discuss the uses for Hero Points and take a look at the various Medallions that can be acquired and their uses.

-Grant