A Fifth of the Fourth – or – a day late and a bit short; playing Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection (@gmtgames, 2016) #wargame #boardgame #waro

AFTER A VERY FULL DAY OF WARGAMING ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, I was up early again on Friday. Lucky to have the day off, I pulled out Harold Buchanan’s contribution to the COIN-series, Liberty or Death: The American Insurrection (GMT Games, 2016). Knowing that today was going to be a bit busy, I set up the Optional Sprint Scenario of The Southern Campaign. I played the Patriots (of course) and let the ‘bots take the other players.

Earlier this year, I was able to experience Brian Train’s two-player COIN game, Colonial Twilight: The French-Algerian War, 1954-62 (GMT Games, 2017). Although I have played Liberty or Death for several years now, it was not until I played Colonial Twilight that I grokked the relationship of Commands, Limited Commands, and Special Activities. Now that I grok those relationships, it helped make this play of Liberty or Death go much faster and with more meaning as I am now able to better understand how to “pull the levers” of the game.

I don’t pull my COIN games out enough. Glancing at the Rules of Play, I am amazed that the core rules are delivered in the first 22 pages. When it comes right down to it, the mechanics of a COIN game are not very complex. Instead of “mechanical complexity,” COIN has “thematic complexity” as many similar actions are named thematically for each faction which makes it look like there is alot to learn, but in truth they are very similar (though not necessarily identical).

Familiarity with the terminology makes the game go faster; building familiarity demands more plays. I don’t know how I am going to get more plays of COIN to the table but I really need to as each delivers unique insight into the issue it covers.

Feature image GMT Games.