Enduring Pain with Patience...

I'm doubling down on first world problems this week at the Castle. With school reports to finish, chapters for the Infinity RPG to edit, and the usual morass of child-born debris to tidy, a game I have been looking forward to for a long time finally arrives.

Falling Sky: The Gallic Revolt Against Caesar, by designers Volko and Andrew Ruhnke is set in the turbulent period after Caesar's military campaigns, while Gaul was yet to be fully subdued. 1-4 players find themselves representing either the might of the Roman Empire, or as leader of one of the Gallic powers, seeking to satisfy the individual victory conditions of the Belgic, Arverni, or Aedui tribes.

Falling Sky is a COIN game, which stands for COunter INsurgency, a set of interlocking mechanisms designed and implemented first in Andean Abyss, a game about the complex battle for control of Columbia.

The game system strives to bring in a variety of thematic aspects, from the military through to propaganda, politics, economics and more. By all reports it is a cleverly designed game engine, and has seen implementation in a range of different games. Falling Sky is the first of the series to step into ancient history.

This is a game that is about much more than pushing soldiers around in a map, and is one of the things that really drew me to it. Managing the politics and economics of the period at the same time as marauding Germanic tribes, alliances and other bits and pieces breathes a whole and complex flavour into playing a game set in the period. I am very much looking forward to getting it to the table.

However, for now at least, all I can confine myself to is ogling the bits...

Nice heavy box, the usual high quality from GMT.

Rules of Play... there is also a Playbook

Lots of player aides, some for during a normal game, some are bots to use if you play the game solo...

It couldn't be a GMT game without at least one counter sheet!

Lots of nice colourful wooden bits...

Vi victa vis... or until I can get a few more things done perhaps Appetitus rationi pareat is more appropriate. 

Very nice map...

Suitable reading material on the side-table...

And this, of course...