Sometimes the well of ideas starts to run a bit dry after writing for the blog now for 8+ years. I have tried to keep our content varied with Reviews, Previews, Strategy Articles, Best 3 Games with…, Action Points, First Impressions, Designer Interviews, Event Card Spoilers, History Behind the Cards, The Love/Hate Relationship and the occasional opinion pieces. But, I have recently felt like what I am doing has grown a bit stale so I wracked my brain to come up with something new. And I tried and tried but just couldn’t settle on anything. Until, I remembered that I had been asked several months ago to write up a summary of one of my favorite cards from a game. This request came from Harold Buchanan for the San Diego HistoriCON Conflicts of Interest magazine. Well, I never got around to writing that post for him (please forgive me Harold) but I thought that this idea was exactly what I was looking for. With this new My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, I want to share with you a look at this series with its initial entry.

Card #1: Sistani from Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001-? from GMT Games

Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001-? from GMT Games is a 2-player asymmetrical Card Driven Game that pits the mighty and powerful United States military and all of its various antiterrorist agencies against the Jihadists in the Middle East whose sole goal is to spread terror, sow the seeds of deceit and ultimately destroy Western civilization.

One of the more difficult aspects for the US player in Labyrinth is changing the Governance Level of countries, especially during Regime Changes, to go from Fair to Good. Getting the Governance Level to Good Ally is the requirement to end the Regime Change and becomes so difficult because going from Fair to Good requires a roll of a D6 with success only on a 5-6. The real kicker with this though is that the act of going from Fair to Good will apply a -1 DRM to this roll. So, you really have to roll a 6 for success, which for me is always a challenge. Any available cards in the game that can change the Governance Level automatically without a roll are like finding gold. For example, Sistani is a great card for the US as it allows you to improve the Governance by 1 level without a roll! This card can automatically end your Regime Change and allow you to move to the next fire to stamp out.

The historical significance of the card is that Ali al-Sistani, an Iranian-Iraqi Islamic scholar, has been ad advocate for moderation in the region. He has been called the “most influential” figure in post-invasion Iraq during the early 2000’s. After the American invasion of Iraq in 2003, Sistani urged Iraqi people toward “clearer decisions” and to fight “media propaganda”. Ultimately, he advocated the occupying forces for a constitutional convention and later for a democratic election for the establishment of a transitional government. I really like the connection here between the historical figure of al-Sistani and the action of Improving Governance as it is about stabilizing and strengthening the region and giving the local populace more control.

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Vsevolod Merkulov from Churchill: Big 3 Struggle for Peace from GMT Games.

-Grant