There are games which I play sporadically, and there are titles / series which hit the table – be it digital or face to face – quite regularly. Also, most of my blog readers know my fascination with history, political aspects of the conflicts, especially when we have asymmetry in play. At the intersection of all those characteristics lays the COIN (COunter INsurgency) system created by Volko Ruhnke and now further developed by the group of creative designers.

Among the many titles in the series, Andean Abyss was the first to be published and set the standard to which many further positions were aspiring & referring to. But wait, it was quite recently released on one of my preferred digital platforms – Rally the Troops! That means I had to check it with my boardgames friends and play there.

The Platform

Rally the Troops is an online site where you can play board games in your browser, with fully automated rules enforcement. Play live or asynchronously with friends or strangers, or explore the games on your own. It is free to play, and you do not have to look at any ads – which is impressive.

The platform develops and grows all the time. At the moment when I am writing this article, Rally the Troops consist of 18 wargames from various publishers; we have a pretty wide arrays of the most iconic and prominent designs in our hobby, but you can find also some of the less known. It is rapidly expanding, and we are getting a new position every couple of months – based on the bandwidth of its main developer, Tor Andersson. There is a forum and discord server where you can discuss the next titles in pipeline, ask the rules questions or simply express your gratitude to the team.

The Game

Before going straight to the session report, let me spend some time explaining the Andean Abyss in more details. The theme is very interesting. Colombia in the 1990s hosted one of the world’s last Marxist guerrilla armies, brutal drug lords, and right-wing death squads and appeared close to failing as a state. A decade later, its Marxists had lost their top leaders and rural sanctuary, its big drug bosses were dead or in prison, and its paramilitaries were negotiating demobilization. The Government had extended its writ to most of the countryside, restored its popularity, and improved the economy and respect for human rights.

Mechanically, we have core of COIN system here: card driven game, with possibility to execute events, special operations, and actions (eligible player choice), huge asymmetry in capabilities and victory conditions as well as sudden Propaganda (victory check) phases. A lot of jockeying for the best position and skillful maneuvering between allaying with and/or confronting other factions.

The Sessions

We had like four sessions with random factions’ assignment. I had a pleasure to play with fellow bloggers and content creators Dave (dudetakeyourturn.ca/) as well as Alex & Grant (theplayersaid.com/). The async mode – especially taking into account our time differences – worked perfectly for us and allowed for pretty quick and streamlined gameplay. Let us have a look at one of the sessions – actually the third we played, and which was very tense, close, and lasted almost till we run out of event cards!

PS. As always, feel free to click on below images for full details.

Here is the game set-up – with Grant as AUC, Dave as Cartels, Alex as FARC, and me as Government. At the same time, it was also the initial Propaganda round (victory check)! Well, to draw it as first card in the game is pretty surprising but happens. That was actually good for most players as we got decent number of resources. We thought at this moment the game will be quick, but no – the next Propaganda arrived only after next 25 cards and there are four of them in total!
Close-up on northern Columbia at the game end: visible significant forces of Government in mountain regions, but not enough support tin the cities! AUC presence clearly visible, with some Cartel bases around
Close-up on southern Columbia at the game end: while Government controlled cities and mountain terrain, the support was not enough and rural communities were true FARC haven. AUC had pretty decent presence in less populous areas. Cartels amassed huge amount of resources.

That was a very exciting session which kept in balance till last moments! In the end Alex won by 1 (!) point with my Government. During each of the propagandas somebody was close to victory but always we managed to prevent this from happening. Final results: Alex (FARC) 0, Michal (GOV) -1, Grant (AUC) -3, Dave (Cartels) -7). This is just one of the examples how great that title can be!

As mentioned earlier, we played four sessions and here are all the results just read from up (1st place) to bottom (4th place):

What observations can we make based on this small sample? It seems Cartels are most difficult to play while FARC seems to be easiest to get the victory (3 in above 4 games). Government definitely is hard to manage but if well established (three mountain areas in the middle of the map) it can vie for victory. AUC constantly achieved decent results but always lacked just that last piece.

The Impressions

Let me share now some of my impressions about the gameplay of Andean Abyss on Rally the Troops:

  • First things first, accuracy of rules implementation in digital format. Guys, this is perfect – Tor does an excellent job, working directly with designers and publishers, getting quickly direct feedback and implementing fixes. 
  • Then, the game looks simply astonishing beautiful, with possibility to zoom into areas of interest.
  • You are getting full set of materials (Rulebook, Playbook) in digital form within application.
  • What I like – and used for above report – is great “review the game” functionality. Here you can analyze the session move by move or turn by turn from the beginning.
  • Last but not least, you can play it from PC, laptop, tablet, or phone – very user-friendly and accessible.

Again, if you have not tried yet the Rally the Troops, give it a go – it is worth it! Highly Recommended!