April 26, 2024

#UnboxingDay – Indian Ocean Region by Compass Games

Billy Riley, 19 August 2021 ~ #UnboxingDay

I don’t know why I bought this. Honestly. It was most definitely on a whim. It had been mentioned in the sticky thread I asked for and I almost felt an obligation to get it. However – it wasn’t totally that – I do like modern warfare – and a fictional war with real factions kind of did stir the loins somewhat.

So yeah – I bought it. Shoot me.

Here’s the low down

Box Art – Nice image of a carrier and an unknown aircraft (kudos points to anyone who knows what it is)

Unbox-IOR-1

click images to enlarge

Manual

Unbox-IOR-2

The manual is nice and small. At first glance it seems well laid out. The whole book is 35 pages. 21 are rules, 6 pages contain an Example of Play – though only of the Military Phase and a further 7 pages for Scenarios (7 scenarios in all).

It is a well laid out manual and is good quality, decent sized font and enough graphics to assist.

The game plays out in through a Political Phase and then through several Military Phases. A total of 6 Political Phases are played using cards and it seems at some point through that phase, conflict might erupt and Military Phases take over.

 

Player Aid Cards – There are 2 identical player aid cards. These do a good job of explaining the counters – there’s a lot of numbers on these counters.  

 

Counters – There are 3 counter sheets. They are nice counters, easily punched. They didn’t need rounding, but yeah – I did it.

 

Political Cards – I haven’t really read much of the rules – just a glance – but these cards are what are used through the Political Phase and at some point, conflict could break out. From what I gather in the rules, it’s possible conflict might not erupt though.

Unbox-IOR-8

 

Maps – There are 3 maps – sorry, I didn’t measure them individually or together – and that is normally a bug bear of mine – so I apologise for not providing it.

The maps are nice. Big and clear.

 

This is the layout of all 3 maps together

Unbox-IOR-12

That’s all there is. I don’t really have a whole lot to say about it. It appearing on Kickstarter surprised me. My purchase surprised me and actually getting the game surprised me.

I’m intrigued. I don’t know how the Political Phase is going to play out with one person where each faction either plays a card or discards it – they can even trade…how I’m going to manage that solo, I’m not sure.

Anyway – it’s going to join my collection of unplayed games and wait for it’s turn.


Thanks for joining this month’s #UnboxingDay with the Armchair Dragoons and we hope you enjoyed our recon of our recent acquisitions.
You can always leave us your feedback in our #UnboxingDay thread, or in the comment area on this article, below.
The regiment also occasionally musters on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and occasionally at a convention near you, once we’re allowed to hold them again.

Brant G

Editor-in-chief at Armchair Dragoons

View all posts by Brant G →

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