Labyrinth: War on Terror - 2001, an SDR and Barth experience

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Overconfidence in the Jihadi ranks dooms their efforts in Jordan to failure.  Despite adherents flooding into the region from as far afield as Kazakhstan, efforts to topple the Jordanian government are farcically inept.  Insurgent forces are decimated and the Jordanian government allies itself with the West.

(I attempted a major Jihad in Jordan and failed to roll a single success on 3 dice.  When this happens, it pushes the government one notch closer to the US but also places a besieged regime marker in the country making it easier for the Islamists to stage a revolution there in the future.)

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

The US responds to warming relations with Jordan by sending aid and advisors.  Funding for the Jihadis takes a hit and the ruling government regains popular support (I lose two funding and the besieged regime is removed from Jordan.)

Realizing that Jordan's going to be a tough nut to crack for very little payoff, the surviving revolutionaries go to ground and flee to Saudi Arabia.

(The map's looking rather bare all of a sudden.  Need to get more cells out there.)

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

The US continues to push hard on the War of Ideas with mixed results.  Their behind the scenes machinations in Indonesia pay dividends.  They manage to penetrate the local terror network there and, using the intel obtained, are able to sweep up key players currently holed up in Pakistan.

Tony Blair goes in front of the EU to give a speech promoting unity in the face of extremism.  It doesn't go over well and Italy, the Benelux countries, and the Scandinavians come out firmly against portions of Blair's speech.




The Jihadists continue to recruit new members in Iraq and, in an effort to broaden their appeal beyond the Middle East, attacks are planned in the Philippines and Chechnya.   

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Not much happened this phase.

The US detects and thwarts the planned terrorist attack in the Philippines.  Two more terror cells cross the border from Iraq into Saudi Arabia.  A new cell emerges in Gaza.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

There were a few more turns of the Jihadis building up cells and launching terror attacks throughout the Middle East.  They were able to overwhelm US intelligence services and achieve critical mass in Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi Royal family fled into exile and the country fell under Islamist control.  A new caliphate was established in the region.  The will of Allah prevailed (with the help of copious amounts of suicide vests).

Jihadi victory was achieved on the first phase of the fifth turn of the game.





I managed to draw a devastating hand on the fourth turn.  I was able to force Barth to discard three of his eight cards (and I was allowed to use two of them against him), therefore he simply wasn't able to stop the flow of cells into Saudi Arabia and I could just steam roller my way in.


I've got 5-6 games of Labyrinth under my belt now and it seems like the Jihadis have the easier time of it.  They have the initiative (which makes sense given the theme) and have more opportunity to dictate when and where flashpoints occur.  The US has a hard time doing much more than reacting and the prestige track can really kill their chances if the Jihadis can knock it down to "low".  I also think that the US chances are a little too reliant on dice rolling rather than skillful play.  In order for the US to take action in a country with a "poor" government rating, they have to spend a 3-point card to act and then only get one die roll (and most only succeed on a 5-6).  The Jihadis can always act and get a number of dice rolls equal to the value of the card they play so odds of success greatly favour the Jihadis.  I'm going to have to read some forum posts to see what strategies are effective for the US.


Thanks for the game, Barth!

[Barthheart]

Great game SDR! I agree with your analysis of the game. I never seemed to get the initiative... whether through bad card play, probably, or through bad card deals, my excuse.

I'm going to have to read some more to see what I was doing wrong.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I think the dice had a lot to do with it as well.  You had a string of bad luck with all those posture rolls in Europe going against you whereas I seem to have had much better luck than normal and all my jihad attempts succeeded except for one.  Finally, that hand of cards I drew at the beginning of the 4th turn was ridiculous.  6 of the 8 were for my faction, 1 was neutral, and only 1 was a US card and that one was a single point value.  Being able to drop your hand from 8 to 5 and being able to use 2 of those cards against you essentially gave me two actions to your one.   

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

https://theplayersaid.com/2017/03/08/strategy-advice-on-playing-as-the-us-in-labyrinth-the-war-on-terror-2001-by-gmt-games/

[Barthheart]

Good article.... I think I tried to do all those things but like you said your 4th round hand was just too much. It took away my ability to stop the conversion of Saudi... :pullhair:

[JasonPratt]

If only there was a game where four players could team up to oppose everyone else in fighting the War on Terror, so that card draws though random would be more balanced in their effects.....

....


....  :-"


... and if we could get four players together for that game, no matter how distant from each other...

...



.....


....where could four players for such a game be found....!? If it plainly existed. Hm.... 

[Barthheart]

Don't own Distant Plain... have no idea how to play it...

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

I've only played two COIN games, Fire in the Lake and  Andean Abyss.  I found it somewhat frustrating because I really wanted to like the games but I found that the 4 player experience was lacking in flow and theme.  The game play  just didn't gel together and everyone's actions came across as very gamey and disassociated from everyone else's.  The theme of the games just didn't come through at all which was a disappointment.  At no time did I feel like I was playing a game about the Vietnam War.  Instead it seemed like everyone knew what their victory conditions were and just went for it. 

The consensus from our group is that the games play much better with two players than with four, especially for Fire in the Lake.  The Cards are used for events more than ops and the experience is more thematic (which is the main reason I play historical games).  I'd like to give the 2-player experience a whirl.

[JasonPratt]

SDR, ADPlain somewhat reduces the chaos of four factions competing against each other (while two sets cooperate with each other, which I found nicely evocative in FITL assuming you accept the theory that the NVA didn't want a powerful VC cadre in South Nam after winning), by requiring the teams to help each other more for the individual win. The Coalition and the AfGov can't both win but both have to be 'winning' for one of them to win, for example. The Coalition can't simply screw over the AfGov to keep them down like the other two players for the win.


Barth, there's a VASSAL module; and I'm entirely certain there's a TTS module -- since there are no secret cards or things like that in this game system, I could gamemaster it on TTS showing positions and options for each player, like I did with AzTank.

While the implementation of the rules is of course somewhat different, if you read my AAR vs AzTank you can see how the system is generally played.