What's 1989?
1989: Dawn of Freedom is a
card-driven game based on the Twilight Struggle system about the Democratic
revolutions in Eastern Europe in 1989. The game was designed by website
regular Ted Torgerson.
The rules are posted here
The game is still under development,
so the Wargameroom league will be used for playtesting as much as it will be used for
competition. In thanks for participation, Ted will be giving "door prizes"
away for two randomly selected league members who complete their schedule.
The prizes are both brand new copies of the GMT game Pursuit of Glory.
1989 can nicely be summed up as "Twilight Struggle with Battle Cards." The core
system is directly modeled after Twilight Struggle: TS players will have very
little trouble stepping in and playing right away.
The map is of Eastern Europe, with the spaces set up exactly the same as those
in Twilight Struggle: stability numbers and battleground status. In addition to
these two attributes, each space is further broken down by type (farmer, worker,
student, etc.), which factors in with certain rules and events. Spaces are
grouped by country, as they are grouped by region in TS.
The card playing mechanic is identical to Twilight Struggle: you choose whether
to play a card as an event or for operations, and the exact same mechanic is
used with respect to enemy events triggering when you play one of their cards.
There's even the equivalent of the TS Space Race: the Tiananmen Square Track.
The method of resolution is slightly different, but it pretty much serves the
same purpose, and gives bonuses for advancement much in the way the TS Space
Race does.
Influence placement is exactly the same as in TS (although influence is called
"support" in 1989) You need to be in or adjacent to a space in order to place
influence in it, and it costs 2 Ops to place influence in a space controlled by
your opponent.
The coups and realignment rolls of Twilight Struggle are rolled into a single
mechanic called a Support Check. It's basically a coup, but the die roll is
modified by number of controlled adjacent spaces as are realignment rolls. A
card played for Support Checks gives 2 Support Checks as opposed to the single
coup allowed by TS.
1989 has scoring cards too: they're called Power Struggle cards, and the same TS
principles of Presence, Domination, and Control are used to score the country in
question. But before the country is scored, there is first something called a
Power Struggle, which can both change the position and even result in a toppling
from power of the Communists in that country.
The Power Struggle is resolved by Battle Cards very much like the ones in
Hannibal. The same match and counterattack mechanism is used: one side has the
initiative and plays a card, then the other side must match the suit or lose the
battle. If he matches, he can then make a die roll to steal the initiative.
The battle cards have a few twists, though. The cards in each suit are broken
down further by rank, with varying strengths from 1-3. The strength of a card
influences the counterattack roll. There are Reserve cards which can match any
suit just like Hannibal, but they can only be used if you control a space in the
country of the type (farmer, worker...) that the card requires.
That's the general overview. Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, so
why don't you give the game a try?
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