1989: Dawn of Freedom
A game for 2 players designed by <PERSON> (and <PERSON>)
"What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government."
<PERSON>, The End of History
Introduction
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Roger's Reviews. I've been playing board games since I was a wee lad and wargames for over thirty years.
1989: Dawn of Freedom follows in the footsteps, both literally and figuratively of the best selling game from GMT, Twilight Struggle. 1989 covers the events of that tumultuous year as the people of Eastern Europe and the Balkans shook off the shackles of their Communist regimes, with the most visually compelling one being the fall of the Berlin wall, symbol of the Iron Curtain since its erection in 1961.
<PERSON> berlin 1989
Play
I was a play tester for this game (I'm even listed in the credits at the back of the rule book) through the wargameroom.com league and have watched the evolution of this game from an early inception to this gorgeous new GMT release. I have also previously reviewed a print and play edition of this game (cf. ).
Photos in this review are used with the kind permission from <PERSON> (psicoserra).
Components
GMT has outdone itself with this game, with one of the nicest game boards I've had the pleasure of playing on.
The colour contrasts for the different countries are clear and clean, the scoring track harkens back to the original Twilight Struggle with the +/- values on the track, the graphics are easy to see and read, and all the symbols are listed in the legend on the board. There are even spaces on the board for some of the key events, and the event tokens themselves are in full colour with artwork to easily distinguish them from one another.
There are two decks of cards in the game: the 110 card event deck split into the early, mid, and late war, and the 52 card power struggle deck for resolving scoring phases in the game. Counters are thick die cut counters with a nice heft and feel, with very clear easy to read large numbers. I might have to get a second set to use with my Twilight Struggle game. Yes, they're that nice.
Someone went to a lot of effort with the graphic design on this game, and it really shows. The event deck cards are easily sorted by early, mid, and late year by the colour stripe across the top, and the stars tell you whether it's a Communist, Democrat, or rare neutral event. 92
However, in the power struggle cards, while they are suited, in one of those "that seems obvious in hindsight" moments, I feel it would have been really helpful to put the elite, church, and worker symbols on the leader cards. Once you've played the game a few times it's easy to remember that you need to control the church space to use the church leader card, but with everything else so nicely designed with icons, it seems an unfortunate omission.
Did I mention the gorgeous board? Stunning. Really.
Rules & Game Play
Although there are some differences in the final rules, I will refer readers to my old review for the core mechanics and focus on the game play in the GMT edition. As a veteran Twilight Struggle player, I will also comment on some of the core differences between the two games; comparisons between the two are inevitable.
1989 follows the basic premise of the Twilight Struggle game engine. We have a shared deck split between the early, mid, and late year. You can use cards either for operations or events, opponent events in your hand will trigger when you play them, and events with an asterisk on them are removed from the game.
Relative to Twilight Struggle, events in this game are rather more dramatic in effect. For one example, The Legacy of 1968 allows the democrat player to put 1 support point into each and every space in Czechoslovakia that is not communist controlled. There are also more linked events in this game, such as the Sajudis + The Baltic Way + Breakaway Baltic Republics chain that has to be played in order.
Adding to the interesting tension in the game, of the 110 event cards, 90 of them (82%) are starred events, meaning they leave the game when played. In Twilight Struggle that ratio is much closer to half. There are 44 communist events, 14 neutral events usable by either, and 42 democrat events. You spend your events at your peril, but it's even more harrowing to play a 2 ops card that lets your opponent remove 4 of your support points from the board!
The direct consequence of this is that hand management is incredibly fraught with peril. 597