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, here is the next entry in this series.

Card #8: Famine from Twilight Struggle: Red Sea – Conflict in the Horn of Africa from GMT Games

In Twilight Struggle: Red Sea – Conflict in the Horn of Africa, there are 51 total cards in the game; 21 of which are Soviet aligned, 20 are United States aligned and 8 are both aligned (Neutral). The final 2 cards to round out the number are both Scoring Cards, including Africa and the Middle East. Famine is a very unique Neutral Card which is a Mid War Card with a 2 Ops Value. The Horn of Africa has to deal with severe drought and high temperatures that often lead to crop failures and the loss of livestock. This results in regular famines that accost the land and the Cold War powers tried to use this to their advantage by trying to convince the local populace that they could do better than their opponents. I really enjoy these type of thematic connections in the cards found in Twilight Struggle: Red Sea. They reinforce the propaganda and tactics of each super power during this titanic world ideological struggle.

As you can see from the card pictured above, Famine allows the player using the card as an Event to place Famine Markers in 2 adjacent countries. Once these markers are placed, the player can then attempt a free Coup in one of the countries where the Famine Markers were placed with a +1 DRM to the attempt. If the attempt is successful, they will have to remove the Famine Marker but its work will have been accomplished in the region. When you play this card though you have to understand that the Famine Markers will not just benefit the player who played the Event, but the markers being there will provide a +1 DRM to future Coup Attempts by any player.

I really like the Famine Markers as they remind me of the Aid Markers found in Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001-? from GMT Games. A static marker placed to provide a benefit is not a new gimmick in these type of games but this thematic connection is definitely unique.

Famine affects the Horn of Africa approximately once per decade. Famine is caused by drought compounded usually by poor agricultural policy and civil instability or warfare. Virtually every country in the region – Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya – has experienced famine in modern African history. Yemen and South Yemen have also suffered from famine. The famine of 1983-1985 that ravaged Ethiopia was perhaps the first such event to receive global media attention and coverage, and in both the UK and United States lead to enormous outpouring of personal charity. This lead to the writing and production of the song We Are the World which was a charity single originally recorded by the supergroup USA for Africa in 1985. It was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and produced by Quincy Jones and Michael Omartian for the album We Are the World. With sales in excess of 20 million copies, it is the eighth-best-selling physical single of all time. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost during this great famine of the 1980’s and a failure to manage the effects led to the toppling of many governments throughout the Horn of Africa.

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at USS Carl Vinson Makes Historic Port Call in Vietnam from Flashpoint: South China Sea from GMT Games.

-Grant