Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 5th Printing

Into the Labyrinth…2001: The American Century has closed with a single Cold War superpower standing, and a pause in conflict that some dubbed the The End of History. It wasn’t. In the Middle East and South Asia, an Islamic revival was underway, while resentment spread due in part to US support for the regions’ anti-Soviet tyrannies. Thus erupted a new struggle against the West. Wealthy Saudi fanatic Usama bin Ladin declared holy war against America in 1996 and struck with spectacular terrorist attacks on US targets in East Africa in 1998 and Arabia in 2000.

Bin Ladin’s al-Qaeda organization recruited and trained under the protection of an Afghan fundamentalism born of the anti-Soviet Bear Trap of the 1980s. By 2001, al-Qaeda had set in motion even more devastating strikes—this time within the US Homeland—in hopes of igniting a global Muslim uprising. Uprising or not, the West’s response to those September 11th attacks would reshape international affairs from London to Jakarta, and from Moscow to Dar es Salaam.

Labyrinthtakes 1 or 2 players inside the Islamist jihad and the global war on terror. With broad scope, ease of play, and a never-ending variety of card combinations similar to GMT Games’sTwilight Struggle,Labyrinthportrays both the effort to counter extremist terrorism and the wider ideological struggle—guerilla warfare, regime change, democratization, and more. From the designer of the award winningWilderness War,Labyrinthcombines an emphasis on card-driven game play with multifaceted simulation.

In the 2-player game, one player takes the role of jihadists seeking to exploit world events and Islamic donations to spread fundamentalism. The other as the United States must neutralize terrorist cells while encouraging Muslim reform to cut off extremism at its roots.

Labyrinthfeatures asymmetrical game play and a maze of political, religious, military, and economic events. In the parallel wars of bombs and ideas, international coordination is key—but terrorist opportunities disrupt Western unity are many. The Towers have fallen, but the global struggle has just begun. Let’s roll!