Breaking the Chains - Vassal Module Playthrough

Breaking the Chains: War in the South China Sea

Designer: John Gorkowski

Artist: Mark Mahaffey

Publisher: Compass Games (2014)

Original Vassal Module: Dave Deitch

Fan Counter Art:  Christopher Moeller

Vassal Module Playthrough produced and narrated by Juan Carballal for Eurojuegos Buenos Aires

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https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/137498/breaking-chains-war-south-china-sea

Very good as a sandbox game, but I needed to devote a lot of effort to tweak it to function the way I wanted.

Generally speaking, my variants and house rules include:

- play exclusively the full campaign scenario

- double the map size (in vassal)

- the new single-sided fan-made art counter set (a must)

- russian set mini expansion counters

- russians allied only with vietnam (neutral aggressive with everyone else)

- russian battleship, CG and DDG have one LCMS

- CC has anti-ship ballistic missiles (1 per turn)

- LCMS 1 per turn with single damage per launcher

- All combat deals 1 damage

- Unless attacked, 1 country per day (per side) enters the war in the politics phase

- Non-beligerants are neutral aggressive with everyone (active CAPs/SAMs)

- CC places SpecOps in even days, resolves them in odd days

- FICC plays them in odd days, resolves them in even days

- BlackOps are triggered before LCMS strikes

- CAP has range of 0-1

- LCMS must evade CAP to impact (check against AA score)

- Days have only 4 cycles

- CC has the initiative on all cycles

Other houserules not included in this playthrough:

- Hidden submarines move on the edges of the hexes

- Subs can only be targeted if active (on an engagement)

- All cities are worth 1VP, endgame trigger is 30VPs at the end of the day

So you know how much it took me to get this game to an 8. I think many people will not bear to make such an effort, so take this rating with a grain of salt.

So, what's your take on this game? Interested? Tried it? Liked it? Got houserules, strats, protips? Let me know!  :)