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 #14: Seychelles 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. Seychelles is a Late War Card with a 2 Ops Value. The Seychelles are an archipelago of 115 islands with a total population of 90,000 located off the East Coast of Africa. In 1976, they received independence from Britain and immediately their socialist leaning Prime Minister France Albert Rene staged a coup and took them in a decided pro-Soviet direction. The Seychelles card is a huge boon to the Soviet player in the continuing battle for control of the Strategic Sea Lanes Box, which is one of the new additions to the Twilight Struggle system. The Strategic Sea Lanes simply changes how scoring is completed. Strategic Sea Lanes are scored when a Scoring Card is played if one of the players Controls the space by having Influence equal to the Strategic Sea Lanes Stability Number, which is 4, while also having at least 4 more Influence in the space than their opponent. When a player Controls the Strategic Sea Lanes space, the effect is that this will double the Victory Points they will receive when resolving a Scoring Card. Also, the player who has more Influence than their opponent in the Strategic Sea Lanes space when a Scoring Card is played, but does not have sufficient Influence to Control the space, will receive 1 VP.

The Seychelles Card gives the Soviet player the opportunity to take Control of the Strategic Sea Lanes Box by giving them 1 Influence for each of the Middle East Countries that do not contain any United States Influence. As there are a total of 5 Middle East Countries (remember that Egypt counts as a Country in both the Middle East and Africa), this could give the Soviet player 5 Influence in the Strategic Sea Lanes Box and give them a fantastic start to building their control in the region and taking those extra Victory Points.

In our example above, when the Seychelles Card is played, the United States only has Influence in 1 Middle East Country being Saudi Arabia. This will mean that the Soviet player will receive 4 Influence to place in the Strategic Sea Lanes Box which gives them Control. This can be a devastating play if the card is timed right as it can put the game out of reach for the United States player as it can double the Victory Points granted when the Middle East or Africa Scoring Card is played. And in this example, the Soviet player controls the other 3 countries in the Middle East Region and it will be a tall order for the United States player to make a dent in that control.

One of the things that I was immediately impressed by when we first played Twilight Struggle: Red Sea – Conflict in the Horn of Africa, was the fact that it was not just a reskin of Twilight Struggle. This game was a smaller, faster playing, more tightly focused regional look at the Cold War and the struggle for control of Africa and the Middle East as I have espoused above. But it was more than that as it really had integrated some new mechanics and tricks into the design that have created a new focus and new tension for the players. These new elements don’t make large sweeping changes to the core of the game, but do add some interesting new twists to give a new and fresh experience without taking away the essence and feel of the original classic Twilight Struggle.

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at 2 cards including Ambush and Local Guides both from The Wars of Marcus Aurelius: Rome 170-180CE from Hollandspiele.

-Grant