Dude! Take Your Turn!
A Gaming Life
Dual Powers – Revolution 2017 Kickstarter
(Edit – 12/20/19: The review is live!)
I’m a big history buff, which is maybe why I love historical games so often. I’m sure it’s why I fell into wargames when I was a kid.
(All pictures will be from the Kickstarter page)
When I saw the Kickstarter link for Dual Powers – Revolution 2017, I had to check it out.
When I saw the cover artwork above, I had to delve even deeper.
And when I saw how the game worked, I knew I had to back it.
Obviously I have never played it, but I wanted to tell you what attracted me to it so you can see if it’s something you may want to back.
The game is a 1-2 player area control game designed by Brett Myers (Rome: City of Marble) with beautiful artwork by Kwanchai Moriya (Flip Ships and Dinosaur Island). It’s going to be published by Thunderworks Games.
I love area control games, especially short and yet thinky ones such as Iron Curtain. Dual Powers is supposed to take around 45 minutes to play, which is perfect for lunchtime!
That fact was what kept me reading, but then I watched the playthrough, looked even more at the gorgeous artwork, and I was hooked.
Each player directs the forces on either side of the Russian Revolution in 1917 in Petrograd, either the conservative Provisional Government or the Socialist activists. Each turn, you’ll have a hand of 8 cards. One of these cards you will play secretly to be your scoring goal for that turn.
Four other cards you will alternate playing to do a variety of things, whether it’s to recruit units in a certain area of the city, move units already on the board, or maybe move the blockade that is keeping units from moving around.
You’ll have three leader cards that are always in your hand (until you play them) and will let you put a leader onto the board as well as doing his special action. Leaders can only be played once, so you have to make sure it’s worth playing them.
All played cards have a time factor on them, which will move the calendar along. This is kind of the timer of the game, but also players will get additional special actions depending on whether they moved the timer past certain points.
There are neutral units in various parts of the city, and whoever has The Will of the People will actually get to count those units as strength when determining the winner of an area that scores (but only if you have at least one of your units there as well).
Scoring is done on a track that starts in the middle and then moves toward one side or the other depending on who gets the points. It’s a see-saw battle, but if the scoring marker ever goes all the way to one side, the game ends immediately with that side being victorious.
Otherwise, the game ends at the end of the round which moves the timer into October.
I love the sound of this! I love the push-pull mechanic, the secret scoring objectives each round (and the fact that whatever card you choose as your area objective means you can’t use that card as an action).
Each turn, there is an area of unrest as well which will very possibly score (depending on some factors) and so players must be aware of that as well as their secret objective.
It just looks like such an elegant design.
As soon as I read the Dual Powers Kickstarter page, I knew I had to back this one.
Let me know what you think, and whether it’s something you may want to back as well.
At the time of this writing, it has earned just over $12,000 CDN of the $37,700 CDN goal with 19 days to go.
Let’s get that amount up and over!
I want this game.
You can get a copy of it for pledging $32 US with free shipping in the US.
Come on.
You know you want to.
Check it out and see!
Dude! Take Your Turn! 
Think I’m done with Kickstarters for now. But this does look great, and Kwanchi is my favourite artist in board games at the moment. Practically anything he touches is gold. I really love the cover for dinosaur island expansion.
Will put this on the list for when it hits retail.
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I completely understand the sentiment. I haven’t burned out on them like some people, though.
So far, I’ve been lucky and had only one delay, and that is supposedly only going to be a couple of months (supposed to ship in May when it was originally March).
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