MH Demo #1: 2 Player L1

Starting positions: Yellow chooses London for a capital, while Purple opts for Washington DC. The BRICS-aspirant zones are Jakarta, Cairo, Buenos Aires and Mexico City.

In his first turn, Yellow builds a University PA in Yaounde and moves it to Cairo. Inset: Subversion spell to create a Jupiter Culture.

Purple finds that he has the right cards to build a Media PA, and he deploys it to Perth. From here, he can project into Jakarta and capture it with a Color Revolution (inset).

Both players now need to reap Power. Yellow plays a Raise Power spell to harvest his Jupiter Culture (inset). This provides enough PP to move his Uni and capture Abuja to control access in and out of Africa.

After Purple raises power on his Saturn Culture, he builds a University PA in Boa Vista, which he then moves to Brasilia to cover the zone. He doesn’t have the right cards to create a Culture yet, but hopes to block Yellow from capturing it.

Yellow upgrades his capital from a Saturn to Jupiter Culture (top right inset), and then commits a False Flag attack on it to generate Power (bottom right inset).

Purple’s attempt to capture Brasilia is thwarted as Yellow crosses from Africa to evict his PA from the zone before he could claim it. Yellow then creates a Culture on the BRICS zone. Purple had to pull out to Boa Vista, and so decides to capitalise with a Culture there to control access in and out of South America. Inset: Evict spell.

Yellow builds his Media PA in Manila to counter Purple’s interest in the region. Purple responds by capturing Jayapura with a Culture transmitted from Perth. He also stations a Parliament PA in Jakarta making that zone accessible for his mobile PAs.

Both players upgrade their capitals; Purple to Jupiter, and Yellow to Venus.

Purple stations a Parliament PA on Jayapura and then arms the East China Sea with a view to capturing Beijing by Border Controller card Color Revolution, but Yellow beats his opponent to the punch. He projects a Culture into Beijing from Manila.

Purple responds by reorganising all his pieces. First he moves his University PA to Quebec and creates a Culture there. This zone is the main way to North America from Europe, and has access to Northern Canada, so it’s one of the most strategically important PZs to capture.

Purple also moves his Media PA to Montevideo. While Yellow can’t get the right cards, and has to miss a turn to swap his entire hand, Purple takes advantage and starts trying to box Yellow in in South America, and to prevent access to Buenos Aires – revenge for being kicked out of Brasilia.

A Parliament PA is stationed in Yellow’s Beijing, and this makes the zone traversable for his Media PA, which he moves all the way to Africa as his focus again swings west.

Purple builds a Parliament PA in La Paz, and this opens up a path for which to move his University PA all the way to Buenos Aires via the Transit Zones in the Atlantic Ocean.

As for Yellow, players can’t afford to have PAs blocked out of the game, and so he has to have his University PA hop over the Purple Culture in Boa Vista. If Purple had stationed a Parliament PA in Boa Vista, Yellow wouldn’t have been able to do this.

Purple upgrades his capital to a Venus Culture. Because Yellow’s capital is London, he can use that zone to go around Purple’s Quebec, via Northern Canada (as it is not yet controlled outright by any player) and then down into Mexico City. With the taking of this zone, the players meet the BRICS-Captured criteria, so now they can start to surround Russia…

…and so Purple manoeuvres his PAs towards Suva with an eye to controlling some of the Military Zones located thereabouts. He captures the zone, moves his University PA up to Tokyo to capture that, and then uses his Media PA in Suva to arm the Marshall Islands.

Yellow tries to opens up a route through Africa with a Culture in Luanda, improved with a Parliament. This enables him to bring his University PA back from the Americas through and up to Tehran.

Things start to heat up in the Middle East as Yellow follows up on his early domination of the area by moving his Media PA to Muscat to capture Damascus. This adventure ends in a failure, and the zone falls to a Resistance Uprising.

Purple moves his Media PA to Rome to try to cover Yellow making gains in Southern Europe and the Middle East. The objective is Kiev, but Yellow beats him to the punch. Purple makes the best of a bad deal, and burrows down into Tripoli with an eye to begin to open up his own path through Africa (an expensive prospect at this point).

Purple has a change of mind, and looks to take advantage of Cultures already on the map. He moves his Media PA to Quebec to arm Northern Canada. Shifting focus to East Asia, where he does have a significant presence and advantage, Purple captures Changchun and Ulanbaataar.

Yellow also joins the party, and gets very aggressive. First on the list of captures is Urumqi. Then moving through Beijing and Manila, Yellow’s University PA hops over Jayapura to land in Port Moresby. A Parliament PA in that zone enables him to arm the Mariana Islands. Finally, he hops over Suva to reach Anchorage via Hawaii.

By this stage, the players have met the criteria for Russia Encircled, and can start to attack it directly...

Purple closes the door after the horse has bolted when he places a Parliament in Suva – which would have prevented Yellow hopping over it previously. However, this does enable him to arm the Mariana Islands so that that Military Zone comes under no overall control. He’s not finished yet, either. Purple attacks Yellow in Port Moresby with an Insurrection ranged out of Jayapura. This successful assault leaves a Resistance Uprising in the zone, and means that the Marianas cannot again be armed by Yellow.

The Players attack Russia; in turn Yellow captures Omsk and Kiev, and Purple Vladivostock and Ulan Ude. Yellow, having captured Orenburg, then invokes the "3 turns till the end" rule. Purple tries to capture Magadan and fails, but does finally sieze Krasnoyarsk from Northen Canada.

Final Points: Yellow 58; Purple 43.5; Russia 26
In the end a comfortable victory for the faction out of London.