In the sea of historical, card-driven war games, the COIN series (short for COunter-INsurgency) from GMT Games has always stood out to me because its subject material is precisely NOT what most others are: large, national superpowers fighting one another in historically well-known and globally impactful (but otherwise covered-to-death in the wargaming space) conflicts. From the Colombian government hunting down Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel (Andean Abyss, Volume I) to Mohandas Gandhi’s civil resistance against colonial rule (Gandhi, Volume IX) to a bloody civil war in Finland (All Bridges Burning, Volume X) the COIN series focuses on smaller guerilla, revolutionary, and civilian fighters and protesters taking on the powerful, ruling parties (as well as one another), using asymmetric powers, variable winning conditions, and an innovative turn structure to produce some of the most compelling war games I’ve ever played.
A quick COIN gameplay overview: Using a deck of Event cards, players take actions on their turn (based on the faction initiative on each card) with the resources at their disposal, attempting to reach their unique winning condition. A small number of cards, spaced out and mixed into the Event deck, lead to a “victory check” when flipped up, and if no player has reached their particular winning condition, there is some shuffling of the map, resources, and/or pieces, and play continues. Guerilla groups will try to move undetected, gathering support along the way, and using their limited resources to strike at just the right time. Meanwhile the larger, more menacing powers, who usually begin with more control of the map, a daunting and organized army of units, and a hefty bag of cash, attempt to expose and eliminate these elements.
Asymmetry is the name of the game, and since Volko Ruhnke first debuted the series in 2012, many games both within wargaming (GMT’s Irregular Conflict Series) and outside of it (Cole Wehrle’s ROOT) have taken inspiration from the innovative mechanics and framework of his system.
A New Challenger Has Appeared…
The 11th volume, Kenneth Tee’s People Power: Insurgency in the Philippines, 1981-1986, is the latest entry into the main COIN series and, like the others, deals with one such real-life David and Goliath scenario, but it also represents an evolution in the series. Let me get this out of the way first: I believe People Power is the best entry point in the entire series, replacing Jeff Grossman’s Cuba Libre as the new king (or in this case, kleptocrat) of COIN introduction. Granted, of course, you have exactly three players.
While the majority of COIN games play up to four factions, and I’ve found that almost all play best at their full player count, People Power already has a leg up by simply having one less faction to learn. Since it can often be difficult (at least in my gaming circles) to get three other people to sit down for a full session of a heavyweight war game, cutting that total player count down by one will be quite helpful in actually getting it to the table.
Aside from solo plays, I ran the game with three different groups: one made up entirely of experienced COIN players, another who had played some card-driven war games, but never a COIN game, and a final group who mostly played light- to medium-weight board games, but this was their first modern war game. I was surprised by how easily I was able to teach the rules and how quickly we were able to get rolling with all three groups. In fact, with the experienced group, I was able to include all the (optional) advanced cards from the start, with only a brief explanation of the additional rules — more about those in a bit. For first-timers, I always recommend choosing a faction in advance and reading up on their distinct actions and goals, and People Power is no different.
Compared to other war games, setup is a breeze. Like many other COIN volumes, the placement of all the starting pieces are printed on the board itself and the excellent, large player aids, (which lists all actions for every faction) are simple to navigate. For beginners, there are some terms that can be confusing, with players needing clarification — what exactly is an “active” activist? — but most are quickly explained in the larger rulebook, which is well-organized, follows the sequence of play, and includes an index of key terms. Experienced players are able to jump right in, with a short update on the new tweaks to the standard COIN gameplay.
One of the most welcome changes to the system is that all factions, if eligible, are able to complete at least one action on a single turn, which was limited to two in previous volumes, leading to more engagement from all players throughout the entire game. This also helps with pacing since you are rarely sitting around without anything to do and, ultimately, leads to a shorter game length than others in the series. Additionally, each area’s support or opposition is only one step away from neutral, rather than the standard two, so allegiances (and victory points) tend to change a lot faster throughout the game. There is rarely any province or city that feels completely out of reach.
An Evolution in Revolution
People Power streamlines most of the processes of the COIN system without changing the core mechanics that make it so special, but it can also amplify what makes them frustrating. Not having a preview of the next Event card in the deck (as in most COIN games) can derail your strategy and players often find themselves taking an important Operation plus Special Activity action, only to find themselves locked out of an even more powerful Event action on the very next card. These are the excruciating decisions you must make every turn, especially for experienced players who are used to planning their moves based on the upcoming card. Personally, I found that this ratchets up the tension between all players and led to the most memorable moments of the game. There’s nothing like completing a large-scale, successful turn where your victory condition is now within reach, only to flip over an Event card meant for you that now changes the balance of power by landing into another faction’s lap. While these moments occur in other COIN games, not being able to prepare for them can cause a lot of strain. I found that taking away this little sneak preview, however, led to less AP from players, pressured to try and squeeze every advantage from their dwindling resources on a single turn, because they knew it could all be taken away on the next card flip.
The biggest improvements that People Power introduces are the advanced Personality and Acts of Desperation cards that I mentioned earlier. They give a much-needed jolt to the series and add a level of replayability not seen in any other COIN game outside of separately-sold expansions, only these are included for free in the base game.
Personality cards are variable powers, chosen before each round, that give small, but sometimes crucial, abilities or discounts on a regular action. Anyone familiar with Euro games will recognize these types of cards, usually handed out during setup to give their strategy some direction. Also, by requiring players choose a new “personality” between rounds, they can pivot if their initial plan backfired while, conversely, not allowing a single player to abuse their own personality power for a whole session. It also accomplishes something that I don’t think any COIN game (and many war games for that matter) does, by giving you a chance to learn more about the actual participants involved and what their goals were within the real conflict. This puts a name and face to the events unfolding in front of you. I went in knowing some of the key events and figures of the conflict (Ninoy Aquino, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos) but was thrilled to leave the table having gained much more knowledge about this historic revolution.
The Acts of Desperation cards are a gamble on the future success of your strategy. Every faction has three choices, each of which will give you one final, super-powered action after the final election (endgame ‘1986 Snap Election’ card) takes place. The catch is that you must make your decision on which card to choose during the penultimate election, and there is always a requirement to actually deploy the action, which you may not have by the time that final election rolls around. This will render the card useless. The effects these cards can induce might be too extreme (hence the name, Acts of Desperation) for those opposed to swingy endgame scenarios, but I felt they were just powerful enough to be exciting without monkeying with a well-planned strategy. In every game I’ve played with them, each player was able to use their card, and the leading player remained in the lead. If they hadn’t been able to execute the action, the game would have been decided by the slimmest of margins.
Protest, Opposition, and Support
This is not to say that there aren’t problematic issues with People Power, some which persist from the series as a whole and others exclusive to this volume. Like most previous COIN games, there can be one faction left in the dust, undone by a single bad action or being unlucky enough to not have first priority on several cards in a row. This generally leads to kingmaking, and possibly betrayal and hurt feelings from other players. Also, the current election card grants a single power or limitation that remains in play until the next election card comes up, and this can give a single faction a sizable head start. Though it does balance itself out with subsequent elections, these cards also trigger a winning-condition check, so some games can end early if the faction with the advantage really exploits that power.
As with all GMT Games, the high production quality continues with People Power, but I thought that the individual player boards felt a little cheap, in contrast to the rest of the game’s components. In most other COIN games, these play areas are printed right onto the mounted board and while I do like that they have broken free of those limitations — I’m not forced to sit in the exact place around the board where my faction’s pieces are located anymore! — they are a little flimsy and visually dull, especially when compared to the rest of the incredible graphic design choices on the cards and game pieces. In fact, it seems like they missed a big opportunity to print these on the same cardboard used for the counters, since there were large, empty, unprinted sections on the punchout boards. Though ultimately a negligible issue, I do hope future printings will adopt a more uniform look and feel to the player boards.
Finally, while I believe this 3-player game is the best introduction to the COIN series, I still actually prefer playing the volumes which play up to four. At that player count, it helps alleviate some of the balance issues I had with People Power, which can easily become a 2-vs-1 game. With most of the 4-player entries, pairs of factions usually have similar-enough goals that they will naturally team up (at least for a few rounds) and you generally feel like someone has your back if you wind up taking a big loss on a turn. There is no such safety net in People Power and this is how one player can get so far behind that they come away with a negative experience by game’s end. It also is not the most indicative of how the other volumes play out, so there may be a big leap in complexity for players who want to go from this to, say, Mark Herman’s epic Fire in the Lake (the highest rated on BGG and my personal favorite.)
I also think fans of Cuba Libre might find People Power resembles that game a bit too closely, as it often feels like a game with very similar structure, scope, and goals for each faction, minus the Syndicate, almost as if the designer took the most square-peg element of Cuba Libre (the casinos) and simply removed that faction altogether to streamline the game. While this change is successful in accomplishing the goal of simplifying the factions, it can at times seem like Cuba Libre Jr.
Still, most of these gripes are minor and should not detract from what I believe is the most approachable COIN game released, by far. It plays quickly — most sessions averaged 2 hours after the teach, compared to around 4 hours for most other entries — and there is enough substantial content here that everyone in all my groups wanted to play again, and most started looking into other volumes in the series. This is exactly what a good introductory game to a heavyweight series should do: provide the basics of the system and be enjoyable enough to keep them wanting more. And, in this case, actually learn a thing or two along the way. People Power checks these boxes and more.
A Side Note on Solo Play:
Long, heavyweight board games may be a hard sell for most friends and family, and long, heavyweight (often dry) war games can often feel like you’re begging them to sign a contract, which is probably why wargaming has a history of being accommodating to solo players. So much so, in fact, that GMT prints both the complexity and solitaire ability right on the box of every one of their games. Though I don’t typically play games solo unless they were designed for a single player only, the COIN series has recently added a series of clever workflow cards designed to simplify the process. I’m not sure how much it differs from the usual large-format sheets that they include, but I found it helpful in navigating the often-confusing operations of the bot players. I still had a good time playing People Power solo, though it can feel a bit odd cursing at a card, rather than an actual person, when a particularly rough action brings you down. I will say, however, that while the cards are handy to use, they really squeeze a lot of information on each one, which can be a strain on my aging eyes, especially when figuring out which card to use for which scenario. Still, the solo mode surprisingly retained much of the tension and enjoyable back-and-forth of the multiplayer sessions.
People Power: Insurgency in the Philippines, 1981-1986 details
- Designer: Kenneth Tee
- Artists: Donal Hegarty
- Publishers: GMT Games
- Release Date: 2023
- Player count : 1 - 3
- Age range : 14+
- Time range : 90 - 180 minutes
- Mechanism(s): Area Majority / Influence, Dice Rolling, Simulation, Solo / Solitaire Game, Worker Placement, Worker Placement, Different Worker Types
- More articles about People Power: Insurgency in the Philippines, 1981-1986.
Sent here from a link on the GMT games site and just wanted to say that I really appreciated the transparency and thoughtfulness of the review. People Power was my first COIN (not long after it came out) and I now own four others. I have only played them solo, but looking forward to getting some others into it soon. I agree that People Power is a great entry point, especially for three players, but I also agree that the series shines best when you get to strategize around the upcoming card. Great review!
Just wanted to thank you for this review, and briefly say that I agree that PP is an excellent choice for players not familiar with COIN games because of the ease of set-up and a minimal teaching burden. I was a little nervous about trying this title with my wife, who is neither a war-gamer or frequent gamer of any type, but I had a particular hook to spark her interest.
Like many Pinays, she participated in the EDSA Revolution of ’86, and playing a game based on a pivotal moment in her former country’s history (and one that was largely representative and accurate regarding the events) was an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. Our game took twice as long as what you mentioned, but only because we would frequently pause as she shared details about her experience and some of the events that shaped it. It’s not often that I get to play a game and receive a personal lesson in history.
Does this mean my wife has become a convert and I can enroll her in my TI group? I wish, but the important thing is that she had a great time, wasn’t intimidated by this interation of the COIN system and would be willing to try other games of similar complexity next time. Mission accomplished.
Best moment: she looked through the personality deck during set-up and asked me “Where’s Sotelo?”. Antonio Sotelo was a Philippine Air Force officer who was ordered to strike Camp Crame where Enrile and Ramos had sought protection. Instead, Sotelo had his gunships land near the camp itself as he and his crews defected to the Reformer side (an event that Filipinos called the “Sotelo Landing” and have remembered as an important moment when the military began to abandon Marocs).
Not-so-best moment: my wife reflecting on the fact that after all the hope and promise of the EDSA revolution, the Philippines is now lead by another Marcos (Ferdinand’s son, Bong Bong), who was democratically elected (insert ‘cough, cough’ sound here).
Great review. Many thanks. 🖖