Turn One

Turn Two

Turn Three

At long last, we return to the hustings.

Phase 1

-2 red, Nixon Initiative. Kennedy goes first (13 to 16)

KENNEDY 1: New Frontier / Event: Discard Stature Gap, Civil Rights Act

NIXON 1: Gaffe / Event: -1 Momentum (to zero!) and -3 support MI (to zero, only has 1) no change

Troy: New Frontier lets me throw out two cards and pick up two more. The Stature Gap card would cut my political actions by two points, and Eisenhower’s Civil Rights Act gives Nixon a leg up in that issue. Either one would have been tempting for Bruce to activate with a momentum chit. I draw Industrial Midwest (boo) and New England loves me (yay), so it’s a pick up of one. That Industrial Midwest card is a ticking time bomb, though.

Bruce: Once again I’m faced with faced with 4 Kennedy cards and can’t pre-empt them all due to insufficient Momentum. The only way to combat this is to try and deplete your opponent’s momentum, so that he can’t activate events of his that you can’t pre-empt. Gaffe does this for me, as well as costing Kennedy support in Michigan for whatever snide comments he made about wolverines.

Phase 2

KENNEDY 2: Stump Speech / Event: +2 Momentum (+1 rest)

NIXON 2: Herblock 2 CP: +1 MI (exempt), +1 IL (+2 rest) +47 196-341

Troy: Sucking away what little momentum I have was a good idea on Bruce’s part, but my eloquence keeps me going. Somehow, speaking makes me even stronger.

Bruce: Well, so much for that idea. Troy gains two Momentum by playing Stump Speech as an event, and we’re back where we started. And I’m still stuck with a bunch of Kennedy cards. I guess I need to play the least damaging ones first and try to tease out those Momentum tokens before I drop the heavies.

Kennedy: Event remove Midwest and East media cubes, -1 Momentum Nixon momentum, down to 1

Troy: Here I activate Herblock, a bastion of the liberal media elite. I’ve learned in the past how much media cubes can bite you in the ass. They are tie-breakers and given Bruce’s strategy of fighting me to draws in every major state, I need to keep the tie-breaking in my favor. It costs me some momentum, but I think it will pay off in the long run.

Phase 3

KENNEDY 3: New England / Event: +2 NY, +1 MA, +1 VT (zero), +1 ME (zero) no change

NIXON 3: Hostile Press Corps 4CP: move to East, +1 PA (zero), +2 NY (zero) no change

Troy: See what I mean? I get the New Englanders to back my radical plans for fairness and equality and Bruce negates it all. Bruce’s play would have been a good event for me to activate, but I think I’ll hold it till later in the turn.

Bruce: I need to keep Pennsylvania and New York close. In a couple of the early games I played, I let my opponent get big leads there which I couldn’t effectively fight. Never again.

Phase 4

KENNEDY 4: Adlai Stevenson 3CP: +1 Def (zero), +1 Econ, +1 Civ no change

NIXON 4: Eleanor Roosevelt’s Speaking Tour 3 CP (+1 rest): +1 Def (zero), +1 Econ, +1 Civ

Troy: Throughout this game, Bruce has been making more headway in the issues than I have. Leading there every turn has a cumulative effect, so I need to either negate him or bet him. I need traction there. But, by making the first move there, I open myself up to a counter move by Bruce.

Bruce: Question is: do I pre-empt this event? Troy has one Momentum left. I can keep him from getting any more on the Issues track (although I don’t know what event he might play to get one). I can tempt him with the Eleanor Roosevelt card, cost him that last Momentum, and have him go into Turn 5 with zero. Or I can pre-empt this one, take myself down to zero, but keep the event out of his hands. I think I’d rather take the hit and go into Turn 5 with a Momentum advantage. Maybe the draw will punish him for being out of Momentum. Assuming he takes the bait.

Kennedy Event: -1 momentum, +2 IL (1 Ken), +2 OH (1 Ken), +1 MI (zero) +72 413-124

Troy: Of course I take the bait. This is a big card for me. I lose momentum, to be sure, but it puts the Midwest back in my corner for very little cost.

Phase 5

KENNEDY 5: Industrial Midwest 3 CP: +1 Def (zero), +1 Econ, +1 Civ (+1 rest)

Nixon activates Event: +2 IL (1 Nix), +2 MI, +1 WI (zero), -1 Momentum +59 183-354

NIXON 5: Late Returns from Cook County 2 CP: +1 Econ (zero), +1 Civ (zero) no change

Troy: I didn’t want to play Industrial Midwest, but if it keeps him spending points on issues and not on the East or South, I’m fine with it. He plays a final card that could have helped me come Election Day, but I’m out of momentum markers. It all leads to an empty issue tray.

Bruce: With no momentum to pre-empt, Troy gives me 5 support cubes, and since I go last, I can zero out the Issues track and lock in no Momentum or Endorsement changes there. So let’s do that.

MOMENTUM: Nixon 1 (no loss), Kennedy has zero

No Issue Support = zero

So no decay

Nixon Campaign Strategy = Sputnik 3 (Civil Rights)
Kennedy Campaign Strategy = Nikita Khrushchev 3 (Economy)

REST: +5 Kennedy, +5 Nixon (18 vs 21)

End of Turn 4: 354-183 +34

On to Turn Five