Red7 is one we lately play a lot with two. It’s a nice little card game where you try to be leading according to the current rule for as long as you can by either playing to that rule or changing the rules. Sounds a bit twisted, but is quite easy to play after reading the small rules. And the best thing: it has modular rules where you can go as far in complexity as you like, with the base game being really super accessible even for new players.

The allready mentioned Jaipur and 7 Wonders: Duel are bot in our list of stuff we played (in case of Jaipur, as that got replaced by other games, Red7 among them) and still play (7 Wonders: Duel) quite a lot.

Red7 is one we lately play a lot with two. It’s a nice little card game where you try to be leading according to the current rule for as long as you can by either playing to that rule or changing the rules. Sounds a bit twisted, but is quite easy to play after reading the small rules. And the best thing: it has modular rules where you can go as far in complexity as you like, with the base game being really super accessible even for new players.

The allready mentioned Jaipur and 7 Wonders: Duel are bot in our list of stuff we played (in case of Jaipur, as that got replaced by other games, Red7 among them) and still play (7 Wonders: Duel) quite a lot.

I have Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear on order, with the Firefight and Solo expansions. The firefight generator and solo system is currently only available for CoH:AtB, but it is planned to have them available for Guadacanal and Storm of Steel, too. But as with anything from Academy Games, I treat any “will be available in the near future” with a pound of salt, because they never really hit any deadlines they communicate 😉

The games are a system, so the different games do carry the same structure, but each will have little deviations from the formula to better model the conflict at hand. For example the Guadacanal game adds bushido as a factor for the Japanese player, instead of mere VP, which is intertwined with soldiers morale and so directly tied to the outcome. Never played it, because I am waiting for the availability of the solo expansion for that, but definitely on the list of stuff I might get later down the road.

I have Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear on order, with the Firefight and Solo expansions. The firefight generator and solo system is currently only available for CoH:AtB, but it is planned to have them available for Guadacanal and Storm of Steel, too. But as with anything from Academy Games, I treat any “will be available in the near future” with a pound of salt, because they never really hit any deadlines they communicate 😉

The games are a system, so the different games do carry the same structure, but each will have little deviations from the formula to better model the conflict at hand. For example the Guadacanal game adds bushido as a factor for the Japanese player, instead of mere VP, which is intertwined with soldiers morale and so directly tied to the outcome. Never played it, because I am waiting for the availability of the solo expansion for that, but definitely on the list of stuff I might get later down the road.

I never played it, as the theme wasn’t too interesting to me at the time. It changed lately with me going more into modern conflicts, but since I allready have three COIN games, I am a bit reluctant to go too deep into that system – there are other interesting systems out there to try. And even with modern conflicts, I only went into Labyrinth when it added the arabian spring uprisings with the new expansion, the original box with it’s hard war-on-terror wasn’t really doing it for me. But all said, I think with the COIN system it is mostly a question of what conflicts interest you the most, all of them can be learned with some effort that will come much easier if you are interested in the conflict portrayed in your game.

I never played it, as the theme wasn’t too interesting to me at the time. It changed lately with me going more into modern conflicts, but since I allready have three COIN games, I am a bit reluctant to go too deep into that system – there are other interesting systems out there to try. And even with modern conflicts, I only went into Labyrinth when it added the arabian spring uprisings with the new expansion, the original box with it’s hard war-on-terror wasn’t really doing it for me. But all said, I think with the COIN system it is mostly a question of what conflicts interest you the most, all of them can be learned with some effort that will come much easier if you are interested in the conflict portrayed in your game.

Sorry, I never played Infection, can’t say anything about it.

Sorry, I never played Infection, can’t say anything about it.

The State of Siege games (which Ottoman is one of) give you quite a bit bang for the buck in that they are usually not too expensive and provide excellent solo play – but only solo play, usually. Structure is in parts similar to Space Hulk: Death Angel in that every action is confirmed (or more often denied) by dice rolls and you have an evolving scenario based on cards coming out, giving you historical events and action points to do stuff. They all kinda are like very mean and nasty castle defense games, with historic context. I myself prefer Cruel Necessity (about Cromwell and his civil wars) and Mound Builders (about the mound builder culture in northern america), or Soviet Dawn (russian revolution) for something super-quick (max 30 minutes). But really it’s about getting the historic context that interests you more than anything else, they share a system with many similarities (but still each game adding a few interesting own quirks, so you can easily have multiple games of the series).

An “outlier” of the series is Dawn of the Zeds, because it provides multi-player coop in addition to the solo mode (it started as pure solo, but the newest edition added coop). It’s a blast to play, even though a bit fiddly to set up, and is – to me – one of the best cinematic renditions of the zombie apocalypse. It has many different difficulties for setup that not only change a few simple parameters, but really change up the whole game by adding lots of cards and opening more advanced heroes and stuff like that, so if you want a game to grow with your play, this might just be it. It still has the inherent aspect of all SoS games in that it has heavy wristage – you roll tons of dice, repeatedly. There are ways to mitigate luck in all SoS games, but they are rare and the dice allways have a chance to break all your nice plans. So SoS is far more like Hostage Negotiator than Mage Knight with regard to long-term planning.

The State of Siege games (which Ottoman is one of) give you quite a bit bang for the buck in that they are usually not too expensive and provide excellent solo play – but only solo play, usually. Structure is in parts similar to Space Hulk: Death Angel in that every action is confirmed (or more often denied) by dice rolls and you have an evolving scenario based on cards coming out, giving you historical events and action points to do stuff. They all kinda are like very mean and nasty castle defense games, with historic context. I myself prefer Cruel Necessity (about Cromwell and his civil wars) and Mound Builders (about the mound builder culture in northern america), or Soviet Dawn (russian revolution) for something super-quick (max 30 minutes). But really it’s about getting the historic context that interests you more than anything else, they share a system with many similarities (but still each game adding a few interesting own quirks, so you can easily have multiple games of the series).

An “outlier” of the series is Dawn of the Zeds, because it provides multi-player coop in addition to the solo mode (it started as pure solo, but the newest edition added coop). It’s a blast to play, even though a bit fiddly to set up, and is – to me – one of the best cinematic renditions of the zombie apocalypse. It has many different difficulties for setup that not only change a few simple parameters, but really change up the whole game by adding lots of cards and opening more advanced heroes and stuff like that, so if you want a game to grow with your play, this might just be it. It still has the inherent aspect of all SoS games in that it has heavy wristage – you roll tons of dice, repeatedly. There are ways to mitigate luck in all SoS games, but they are rare and the dice allways have a chance to break all your nice plans. So SoS is far more like Hostage Negotiator than Mage Knight with regard to long-term planning.

The COIN games are great, and Cuba Libre often is named as the easiest to get into, but don’t disregard Falling Sky (gallic tribes vs Caesar) or Liberty or Death (american war of independence). I think the latter one isn’t in print right now, so if you want to get it soonish, probably CL or FS would be your best bets. I just name LoD, because especially for two players it has a great mode of play where you don’t need to add any bots – both players just play the “allied” factions and disregard the local victory condition between allied factions. With all other games from the COIN series, you probably will have to add bots to play it two players.

Another important part about COIN: even though they look like euro games, they aren’t. Be prepared to lots of rule complexity compared to even heavy euro games. But yes, I am sure they will be very different from what you have.

Another option of a “proto-COIN” would be Labyrinth, war on terror – you can play it two players or solo and with the expansion play it solo as either the Jihadists or the American forces. And it is in print right now, so should be easy to get. It is a much more political game than the COIN games even, quite a bit like Twilight Struggle.

Leaving Earth on the other hand is a totally different beast and if you are into very thinky games, this is great. It can be played multiplayer, but I really have a hard time envisioning me to ever play it with more than just myself, because I imagine the downtime being horrible. You are constantly calculating and recalculating missions. But solo it’s really great.

Another game you might want to look into is Night of Man or Conflict of Heroes, both come with expansions that add very solid solo play and both are good as two player games, too. NoM is one of my favorite tactical skirmish games with solo mode, but that might be just because I haven’t yet gotten my CoH copy (it’s incoming this week, though). NoM definitely gives you a ton for the money, and CoH adds the firefight generator as another expansion that allows you to generate your own solo scenarios and so have even more replayability. Both aren’t exactly cheap, though.

The COIN games are great, and Cuba Libre often is named as the easiest to get into, but don’t disregard Falling Sky (gallic tribes vs Caesar) or Liberty or Death (american war of independence). I think the latter one isn’t in print right now, so if you want to get it soonish, probably CL or FS would be your best bets. I just name LoD, because especially for two players it has a great mode of play where you don’t need to add any bots – both players just play the “allied” factions and disregard the local victory condition between allied factions. With all other games from the COIN series, you probably will have to add bots to play it two players.

Another important part about COIN: even though they look like euro games, they aren’t. Be prepared to lots of rule complexity compared to even heavy euro games. But yes, I am sure they will be very different from what you have.

Another option of a “proto-COIN” would be Labyrinth, war on terror – you can play it two players or solo and with the expansion play it solo as either the Jihadists or the American forces. And it is in print right now, so should be easy to get. It is a much more political game than the COIN games even, quite a bit like Twilight Struggle.

Leaving Earth on the other hand is a totally different beast and if you are into very thinky games, this is great. It can be played multiplayer, but I really have a hard time envisioning me to ever play it with more than just myself, because I imagine the downtime being horrible. You are constantly calculating and recalculating missions. But solo it’s really great.

Another game you might want to look into is Night of Man or Conflict of Heroes, both come with expansions that add very solid solo play and both are good as two player games, too. NoM is one of my favorite tactical skirmish games with solo mode, but that might be just because I haven’t yet gotten my CoH copy (it’s incoming this week, though). NoM definitely gives you a ton for the money, and CoH adds the firefight generator as another expansion that allows you to generate your own solo scenarios and so have even more replayability. Both aren’t exactly cheap, though.

The reason I am in (well, through some group order, because cheaper) is that it still gives me a very open-world vibe. And I think it looks gorgeous, I like the style. The big box definitely is a benefit and I switched to that immediately, don’t need no superfluous boxes with lots of air in them.

The reason I am in (well, through some group order, because cheaper) is that it still gives me a very open-world vibe. And I think it looks gorgeous, I like the style. The big box definitely is a benefit and I switched to that immediately, don’t need no superfluous boxes with lots of air in them.