Zurmat

In a remote, dusty farm district, under the shadows of the mighty Hindu-Kush mountains dividing Afghanistan from Pakistan, an American infantry company arrives to take its turn trying to tame the wild frontier. As the sun melts away the snow, the Taliban begin to emerge from their caves and safe havens, eager to test the newcomers mettle. This is counterinsurgency at the lowest level, where Sergeant’s decisions carry grave weight on the entire deployment. This is Zurmat in 2008.

Zurmat is a two-player game pitting the Coalition forces of the Afghan army and police along with their American partners against the entrenched Taliban. Players will add either influence or decoy discs face-down to the modular tiles each month-long turn until the winter snows end operations. Then each player chooses an action and/or card to play. Using an escalating benefit slider the longer players wait to take an action the more powerful it becomes. However, in order to take advantage of a situation or fulfill a victory condition you may need to repeat an action, watering down its potential in the process. The game will end earlier if the winter comes early, with each player revealing their victory conditions, adding these point to the number of tiles they control to determine the winner. Like most counterinsurgencies, it will take the skillful use of multiple actions to win, not just combat. The fate of Zurmat awaits!