Stripped down for parts: 2 Minutes to Midnight

  

  

Charles S. Roberts Award nominee: Best Modern Wargame

Soooo much game.

I was aware of 2 Minutes to Midnight (Plague Island Games, 2022) having a relatively successful turn on Kickstarter a few years back, but as a Cold War kid, the subject didn’t really appeal to me. Over the last couple of months, though, I’d read some good things about, mostly about how it takes a different approach to the benchmark game of the period, Twilight Struggle (GMT Games, 2005). I was intrigued, and when a copy became available at a reasonable price, I gave in to my curiosity.

What I got was much more game than I expected. In the stuff I’d read about the game, people tend to talk about 2 Minutes to Midnight (hereafter 2MtM) as a card game; not a card-driven game, or a card-assisted game, but a card game. Maybe they couldn’t decide which is was closer to, so went with ”card game” as a catch-all. Let me tell you now. Yes, there are cards; quite a few cards (including a short deck to facilitate solo play). But 2MtM is a definitely a board game, but I’ll come back to that later.

But for now, on with the scheduled presentation. Given what’s in the box, I’m going to take an archaeological approach to 2MtM, and excavate the contents, layer by layer.

The box for 2 Minutes to Midnight is a nice, solid container, with a moulded plastic insert. The box lid is a firm fit, but eases off without difficulty rue to the metric shit-ton of contents.

2MtM Rule book, in situ.

The rule book runs to 40 pages, but it is printed in a good-sized font, in double columns for ease of reading. That reading is pretty dense, with few illustrations beyond counter explanations and such, but the rules themselves are – to my mind, at least – clear and articulate. When I actually get some time to spend with them that view may change, but after a cursory read-through, I don’t think this will be a difficult game to understand or to get to the table.

NExt, we have a cellophane envelope containing seven Scenario Cards. The game has six scenarios (running from shorter 60-90 minute games to the full seven-hour campaign, along with a solo, out of the box Introductory or learning scenario). The Scenario cards are double-sided with an easy to follow (with a magnifying glass) guide to board set up, and written instructions for the scenario on the back).

I’m always looking for games with multiple scenarios or play options. A seven-hour game might be an option for me once or twice in a good year, so shorter play options are always appreciated, and two of the scenarios in 2MtM claim to be playable in and hour.

We take out the Scenario cards to reveal the Technology Advancement Board (yes, Board). This is a secondary board to the main play area. It’s kind of half-way between the Space Race track in Twilight Struggle and a Technology Tree in a computer game like Civilization. Developing technologies will give your side distinct advantages in 2MtM, but it will come at a cost, and becomes one more layer in the hard choices stakes of the game.

After the scenario cards, we come to the counter-sheets, of which there are three. These constitute some generic force counters for the antagonists (Army, Bomber and Nuke counters), but are mostly status markers for various mechanics in the game (from civil unrest to industrial espionage). This is a game with a lot of levers.

The counters are of the pre-rounded, easy punch variety that we’re seeing more and more of in some games from publishers like GMT, Compass, and Worthington, but that some European companies (Hexasim, for example) have been doing by preference for years. They tend to be a little larger as well, which goes to readability (you kids with your dumb haircuts and 20-20 vision don’t know what it’s like).

The game comes with two pairs of Player’s Aid Cards which, between them, look like they cover all the basic operations for your turn. A cursory look-through suggests to me that within a few turns on your first game, you should be reaching for these rather than the rule-book; they are that comprehensive.

Also included is a fifth PAC for solo play (presumably you’ll still be referring to the other two as well).

The actual game board is where the action happens (scroll down a few pics to see the board laid out alongside the Technology Advancement board). The board has a stylised map of the world, with activity boxes zeroing in on the hot-spots across the globe (more similar to Labyrinth: the War on Terror (GMT Games, 2010) than Twilight Struggle). The board also features two boxes in the upper corners for the belligerents (ironically, with the US on the left and the Soviets on the right, but to be fair, it makes sense with the map orientation.

Soviet tracking board insert.

Speaking of the main board, there’s a nifty little extra that appeared in the box-dig a couple of stratum ago; a separate board that duplicates the Soviet status area. Chances are, if you’re playing a two-player game, you’ll be seated opposite each other with the board in the middle. This extra board is here to place over the board-printed Soviet status box, but inverted, so the poor, economically beleaguered at least keep track of their fortunes without having to read everything upside-down.

We’ve now burrowed down to the last stratum, a veritable dragon’s horde of components.

The game is replete with bits. It has wooden blocks and discs, and translucent plastic markers, along with the aforementioned three sheets of cardboard counters. (It should come as no surprise that zip-loc bags for counter storage also come with the game).

I haven’t read through the rules far enough to say with any authority what role each of these pieces play in the game, but I did look up the clear plastic discs. These seemed to me a bit disappointing, something you’d find in a kid’s stocking stuffer present for Christmas. I was wrong. These components were chosen especially so they can each mark a value on a track, while allowing you to see the value they are marking. That’s brilliant; that is good design being put ahead of silly prejudice, and I feel like I should apologise to the designers for thinking poorly of them.

The cards are printed on good stock, and there are a lot of them, 179 in all, though 20 of these make up the solo-play deck. They are functional and clear to read. Some might be disappointed by the lack of evocative photos on the cards, but with all the other effort that has gone into the presentation of 2MtM, I think it would be a bit churlish to try to make a thing of that.

The footprint of the game is large. Not A Victory Awaits (Multi-Man Publishing, 2022) large, but comparable to Mr President (GMT Games, 2023). This may seem daunting, but it shouldn’t. 2MtM is kind of upscaled compared to comparable American games. There’s been a premium put on usability in the design of the play-space. Everything you need fits onto the board, but it doesn’t feel shoe-horned at all; adding a second board for the Technology Advancement stuff actually makes the prospect of the game less overwhelming. You’re not trying to move tiny markers around on tiny tracks without accidentally bumping other markers. The whole thing is very player-friendly.

Detail of the Introductory Scenario set-up.

In short, the game looks great, and it looks like it will play smoothly, for all its buttons and levers. A lot of attention has gone into the details of this game, from the play to the packing. I don’t think I’ve ever come across an insert so perfectly crafted to not only house, but to protect all the stuff in the box (although Undaunted: Reinforcements (Osprey Games, 2021) deserves an honourable mention).

2 Minutes to Midnight promises to be something special. I’ll post a full review when I’ve played it enough to feel comfortable talking about it. In the meantime, I’ll post some first impressions in subsequent State of Play posts. Watch this space.