… This War of Mine Boardgame made Ours
Here are the cards that come with the Core Game:
TOTAL 195
Awaken Realms made a nice insert for This War of Mine. It’s like the interior is divided into 9 sections. Many of the sections have two levels with a narrow smaller section at the bottom followed by a standard card sized section above it! It looks like this:
You can see the four sections that have two levels of depth. You also can see how there is a rounded out part of the insert “grid” that makes room for a finger to slide down to gracefully pull out the cards.
So, for me, I had to unlearn that I had to put all the tokens into separate bags. One bag for the green tokens, one for the yellow tokens, etc. Yes, you CAN still do this, but Awaken Realms has designed their game insert in a way that you can place the tokens in the lower level of the four double level sections and then when you place the cards on top of them, the cards act like a cover to keep the tokens in their places without the need of a bag. And finally, placing the thick six piece game board on top of the cards keeps the cards in their bins as well. And after that there still is room at the top for the various books, booklets, save pad and even handy printouts that you make for yourself.
When I am done playing the game, putting it all back into the box is really quite easy. I start by placing the tokens in all the sections, taking care that the tokens in the four double level sections do not go above the bottom level. I still put all the miniature models in a bag, but I think I could place them in the largest bin section loosely without the need of the bag:
Notice that the insert actually has enough room for me to place my Game Trayz triple section tray right in the bin inside the the insert (I have the cover off to the side, but when packed, the cover is snapped onto the game trayz bin).
If you were one of the many who helped support Ukraine Relief by purchasing a copy of This War of Mine from the Awaken Realms special sale, you will be happy to know that you will be getting the Kickstarter Edition! However, you will NOT be getting the Stretch Goals box as per their announcement on the main page of that campaign:
* If you ordered this during the 2022 Awaken Realms Ukraine Support campaign, please note that it states: “Core Box DOES NOT include Stretch Goals from the campaign (unfortunately, we do not have SGs left in stock)“
However, you may be getting a some of the extras included with the game due to it being the Kickstarter Edition (not sure which ones, here is a list of them all – you may get some but likely not many of these)! Awaken Realms even includes a booklet that explains what all the bonus things are!
First off … you might get one extra character for the game, including both the character card and the miniature model. And the character actually is a good character in the game:
Next … they made the large game board double sided. The back side is the “advanced” side. Make sure to start on the other side (the regular side) of the game board!
Continue reading “Kickstarter Editions – What’s Included! (Ukraine Support Sale)”
Awaken Realms posted this update for those who purchased games via their Ukraine Cause Sale:
We just wanted to inform you that we are preparing the parcels and we should start shipping them out from our EU hub at the beginning of next week.
Read the full update here:
=> Update #1
If you don’t really want to go to ANY of the three locations currently displayed, you may return 4 Exploration cards and remove one or more of the current locations and replace them from the Locations deck as per Script 534. You also can do this at the END of your Scavenging if you still have 4 cards left! To help you remember, here it is visually … 4 Exploration cards and 1 Location (that will be replaced by a new location):
I’m in the United States and hesitated getting these since they were being made and shipped from Spain. However, the design was the best, so I ordered one. I was totally amazed at how fast I received it even in the midst of a pandemic and global shipping problems! Bravo to LuxYourGame! I ordered 3 more of them today (I will soon have four copies of the game) and highly recommend them to you! It is a great way to organize your character cards and the five state tokens as well as the color token. I also recommend getting the original set of four colors so that the trays themselves will match the color of each of your characters on the board! Here are mine:
Note: You can see from my photo (above) that sleeved cards fit just fine in these trays!
Get them from Etsy:
=> This War of Mine: The Board Game – 4x Character Boards
Here is the photo they posted on Etsy of the four original color trays / boards:
I have dozens of board games and typically do NOT place any of the cards in sleeves. I actually bought a full set of sleeves for Terraforming Mars, tried them, disliked them, removed them (sold them 2nd hand for half of what I paid). However … I now have an EXCELLENT reason to use sleeves for this game! There are three additional characters with nicely done card images that you can print on your own printer. However, mixing them in with the thicker cards that come with the game does not work well at all. However, it you put all the Character cards into sleeves (both the originals and the additionals), you can shuffle and mix them together just fine. Just be sure to print both the front and the back of the cards! Here is where you can find the additional Characters:
=> Additional Characters (printable cards)
But wait … there’s more!
There are SEVEN “phases” to each day (each round) in the game. I tend to forget where I am at in a round, so I made 7 gameplay “phase” cards that I flip through as I play through the game. You can print those 7 cards on one sheet of paper back to back, or on two sheets of paper. Either way, after you cut out the cards, place them in a sleeve and it will be much nice flipping through them as you play the game. Here they are:
You can find standard size card sleeves from a variety of manufacturers and in a variety of places. The size that I have that works well is 66×91 mm. I got non-glare, non-reflective so they are easier to read. However, this size sleeve is slightly too big to fit into the box insert.
If you’d like to sleeve all your cards but still want them to fit into the game box insert you need to use a sleeve called an “inner sleeve”. These tight fitting sleeves are great for all the cards in the game EXCEPT for the Character cards because they are so thin. An additional character card printed on normal paper works well inside a typical “normal” sleeve, but the tight fitting sleeves are too thin and the cards you print on your printer just don’t work well in them.
See this article about the tight fitting sleeves:
=> Sleeving the cards (I didn’t sleeve any other games, but I did sleeve this one)
Awaken Realms sold off all the remaining copies of This War of Mine that were in their warehouse and donated 100% of the revenue that came in (less taxes and shipping) to Ukraine relief. This amounted to over 48,000 Euros (or around $53,000). See their Facebook message:
=> Awaken Realms Message on Facebook
Their message reads:
Thanks to your support, we gathered over 48,000 Euro during our special This War of Mine sale. We will donate them to support humanitarian efforts, for Ukrainians who have suffered from the cruelty of war.
You can listen to Awaken Realms CEO Marcin talk about this in his live Q&A today:
=> Live Q and A (starts at 1:25 time stamp)
This War of Mine is Excellent. But it is more than just a game. Actually, it is more an EXPERIENCE than a game… kind of a hybrid. It is designed to help you (the player) feel, experience and understand what it might be like to be living (trying to stay alive) in a city that has been devastated by a war. Shops are closed (if the building is even left standing). There are looters. There are homeless. There are hobos. There are snipers! Just trying to find water to drink can be a harrowing experience. The game is hard. Really hard. Online comments have asked how to make it easier. The answer is, please don’t… it is MEANT to be hard, just like life is for those living in the situations in the game (as in real life).
Designing and developing the game was a task of love. They did not sit in a conference room trying to make up things that might happen. They poured over real life documents, journals, books, photos, videos from people who actually were living in the situation depicted by this game. And that realism shows. The game comes with a logbook with nearly 2,000 log entries that you read throughout the game… and NOT in any specific order! Which log entry you read next is determined by your choices of what you want to do, as well as a roll of the dice and drawing of a card.
Here is a nice overview of the game:
This War of Ours 