Red Menace

Thursday night was boardgames night down at the cricketers again. It was another reasonable turnout with 3 different tables of games on the go, I saw lots of Dominion being played behind me as well as the classic Acquire and Cosmic Encounter from Richard.


Added to this fine pedigree of games was my own Twilight Struggle, which Colin and I had earlier arranged to play. Obviously we came in for some friendly banter for having a private 2-player game of our own, and to be fair we did shun the rest of the group whilst engaged in the race for global dominance.

I played as the Reds for both of the matches we played, with neither of us having a particular preference of sides. The first game lasted barely three turns, with Russia scoring heavily in Europe, Asia and SE Asia, thanks to these cards appearing in my hand early on.

Having played once before I think I had an advantage with understanding the significance of Military Operations, Coups and the DefCon track. In that I realised how they related and how the Russians could Coup first early on to force down the DefCon track and gain Military Operations advantages that resulted in a few VPs coming my way.

The second game ran out of time for a definite conclusion, but Colin was playing well and had a good board position as we finished about 1/2 way though the Mid War period. I felt I suffered from a poor hand at the start of the Mid War, but I definitely made a couple of mistakes with Headline cards and failed to take advantage of a really strong Red hand on the last turn.

I wasted the turn trying to wrest control of Asia from the greedy claws of capitalist pigs because I held the Scoring card. Instead I should have concentrated elsewhere, in locations where I could have made significant gains as Colin was already starting to establish a presence in South America and Africa.

It was a really enjoyable game to play and I'd certainly like to bring it along for more play.