Angola (1988)

This game is currently on P500 from Multi-Man publishing and IN DANGER OF NOT BEING REPUBLISHED, which would be a shame because is a great and sold out game that deserves a new edition with better graphics and components.

Pre-order now! http://www.multimanpublishing.com/preorder/viewGame.php?id=63

For those afraid of playing time, the new Multiman Publishing Edition will include a shorter scenario, apart from the original.

What some board game geeks have said about Angola:

• Wesley Dau (Welbus): A must for any wargamer.

• Jordi Cairol (jcairol): Probably the best wargame I have ever played! Cool, terrific, intelligent design.

• Nicholas Barker (nick barker): An excellent game with a unique and rather brilliant system which captures the gradual escalation of the conflict. Works very well as a 2, 3 or 4 player game.

• Jeff Myers (peacmyer): Fascinating and easy to play four-player game, with not much downtime. Highly recommended. MMP P500.

• (Salo sila): A brilliantly innovative game that has quite simple, albeit at times procedural, rules; it will be a crime if MMP does not gather enough preorders to republish it.

This is a paraphrased description coming from an article written by Pietro Cremona about the first edition (1988, Ragnar Brothers, sold out):

"Game comes in a thin box (similar to the 3W ones) with a yellow cover depicting an typical African town with a soldier looking from a balcony.

Inside you find a rules booklet (20 pages - well done, with many examples and step by step explanations), four sets of counters for the different factions/players . The MPLA (Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) aligned with the FAPLA (Popular Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola) against the FNLA (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) who are aligned with UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola), a set of "foreign" units (from Cuba-Zaire and South Africa), some markers, a six sided die, "column" cards and "special" cards, and a map depicting the Angola region and a small part of the border nations (Zaire and South Africa).

The game was designed for 2-3-4 players but appears best with 4 players playing on opposite sides of the two factions. The game can last up to 10 turns, but it may finish early if an Alliance wins a "decisive victory" (capturing Towns and Cities from the enemy).

The game begins in 1975

Each player collects 5 town counters (another 23 are mixed in a bag, to picked-up by players later), then you deploy your initial forces (each faction has different units), randomly draw some towns, deploy off map units onto your City/Town counters. You may create new troops which can be acquired by Direct Aid (foreign powers committing units of their own armed forces) or by Recruiting (raising extra units in the Towns or Cities of Angola) or by Bidding for Reinforcements .

VICTORY is determined by the number of VICTORY TOKENS that an alliance controls at the end of each turn [more specifically, the number it has taken control of in the current turn]. The Victory Track has Victory markers that moves up and down. If the number of Victory tokens for an alliance reaches a predetermined level on any turn then that side wins a decisive victory. Victory determination happens every turn. If no Decisive victory is accomplished during the game then at the end of turn 10 the alliance with the most points wins the game. (Probably a Marginal Victory)"

Angola Microbadges :