The Punk Rock Wargame – A Land and Freedom Review

Land and Freedom: The Spanish Revolution and Civil War
Players: 1-3
Playing time: 60-90 mins
Board Game Geek

I am so sick of rules. I don’t mean that in a punk rock sort of way, though I did spend my entire teenage years playing in punk bands. No, I just mean that games just have too many rules most of the time. Sure, some games can get away with having 40 page rulebooks if they are mostly filled with pictures and examples. But in the wargaming niche of board games, 40 page rulebooks generally mean 8 point font, single spaced, dry legalese writing and these are the rules I’m sick of.

Wargames have a soft spot in my heart but they are also something that has been more on my periphery than in my normal gaming rotation. I like the idea of them more than I like the learning/teaching/playing of most of them. Enter Land and Freedom: The Spanish Revolution and Civil War.

As a brief overview of the flow of the game (and I guess a bit of historical context within the game itself), there are three player factions. Set in 1936 , Land and Freedom launches you straight into the conflict.The Anarchists want to keep both the Liberty and Collectivization tracks high. The Communists want control of the Government, while also suppressing the Liberty and/or Collectivization tracks. The Moderates want the same thing as the Communists do, but obviously want control of the Government for themselves. All of these factions are working together as The Republic, against the game, representing The Fascists. 

Note that I said they are working together but this is not a cooperative game. Each faction is vying for control of at least two tracks directly correlating to their influence to gain initiative. Initiative holders at the end of each round (and again at the end of each of the game’s three years), put one of their tokens in a bag for the end of the game.

Hold initiative long enough and you can feel it getting more full with your tokens. But is it enough? If players work together just enough to defeat the fascist regime then tokens are pulled from the bag until an overall winner is ultimately declared. It is a perfect balancing act of being selfish for your own personal means while also uniting against a common foe.

Fans of Watergate or Twilight Struggle will feel right at home with the cardplay here. On your turn you can either play the very powerful unique ability on the card as a one time use. Generally, these move tracks in your favor, add support to fronts, and likely screw with your opponents plans a bit. You can also opt to take the number of action points on the card to support fronts or move tracks. I just described most of the game but there is a very fun wrinkle added here.

When you play a card for its action points, it enters your tableau. Cards in your tableau can have the additional bonus of triggering a single symbol found on the cards. The number of times it triggers is equal to the number of times the symbol is in your tableau. It can be incredibly powerful when used at the right times. But wait! This can only happen if a particular bonus is active and the fascists or other players can turn bonuses on or off.

It’s all great fun and a delightful tug-of-war split three ways. Knowing when to help or just when to help yourself without being too greedy and losing for everyone is such an interesting concept. I should also take this time to discuss what happens when you don’t have three players at the table with you.

Each player mat contains all the helpful player information for you and your humans to play the game. They’re quite good. Flip them over and you’ll find the rules for non-player factions. These boil down to a very simple flowchart for the decisions made by that faction but it works surprisingly well. I haven’t played solo against/alongside two bots, but I’m sure it would be an interesting challenge.

To circle back to my rant against rules for a moment…. For a wargame, the rules are surprisingly light and straightforward. The obvious downside to having a fairly brief rulebook is sometimes the lack of clarity or edge-case rules. Even after a few plays it feels like new questions arise during the game that aren’t explicitly defined. This is fine because we were able to resolve the questions to the best of ‘the spirit of the game’ that we could, but some were less clear cut than others. It’s not terrible, but it does grind an otherwise fairly quick game to a halt.

In all, Land and Freedom may be a great entrypoint into the wargaming scene. You might learn a little about history or you might even go a step further and read more about the actual Spanish Civil War. A favorite of mine is George Orwell’s “An Homage to Catalonia” which isn’t a history lesson so much as just Orwell’s own experiences fighting against fascism. The entire conflict is a fascinating bit of history that, in my mind, gets overlooked. And frankly, Land and Freedom would be easy to overlook too, but here’s hoping you give it a shot.

Presentation

+ Easy to parse board and cards
+ A little bit of historical context to each card
+/- Bold colors but very heavy on the reds. Might not be very colorblind friendly
+/- Components are wargame quality but not mainstream boardgame quality, but they are high quality
– Cover art is not the most welcoming sight

Getting it Played

+ Rulebook is easy to learn from 
+ Non-player faction rules work well if you don’t have three players
+/- Might be a tough sell if no interest in the time period
– Fabric ‘board’ is tough to lay flat

Gameplay

+ Turns are quick but decisions are meaningful
+ Ending can be tense with the token pulls
+ Seems well-balanced across all factions
+/- Can feel a bit stuck if you get ganged up on by the other two factions

Fun Factor

+ Lots of great decisions
+ Learn about history while playing a game!
+/- Seems like the game could be fragile with one player doing their own thing

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