Your Draft Letter has Arrived. (Patreon)

The time has finally come.

Ever since I started doing all this torture stuff, I've been hearing one thing over and over again: "Hey Vale, when are you gonna play The Campaign for North Africa: The Desert War 1940-43?"

If you're unaware, Campaign for North Africa is a board game developed by Richard Berg in 1979. It's infamous for being the longest board game ever, with an average game taking roughly 1,200-1,500 hours to complete. How you may ask? Well, it's the one of the most in-depth strategic and logistical simulations that exists. Your tasks include incredible, fun-filled activities, such as:

• Managing individual planes and pilots, with both the Axis and Allies controlling between 500-1,000 planes each.
• Moving resources from Italy/Malta into Africa, and then either trucking them or piping them to your troops.
• Keep track of each individual unit and its stats via Google Sheet.
• Lots of Math.

The rules are a lot of fun as well. There are four combined rule books, and when put together with all the reference charts they come out to a combined 192 pages. Some of my favourite rules just for you:

• Italian troops have a higher water consumption and need more rations because they cook Pasta.
• When a unit surrenders, they are taken as POWs and have to be fed, kept safe, and guarded - lest they escape. You are not allowed to, and I quote: "escort Prisoners into the deep desert and then remove their guards in order that the escapees will die of thirst before reaching safety."
• The main source of water for your troops in the game are wells and oases that dot the North African landscape. On your turn, these wells can be "poisoned" - in other words, salted, to prevent their use by the enemy. It's this phrase that I love so much: "Actually, poisoning is a fanciful term. No one actually dropped fifty pounds of arsenic down a well; the folks in Geneva looked askance to that sort of thing."

Now to clarify, we're not going to play the full Campaign for North Africa. Cowardly, I know, but I don't have two years of my life to devote to a full game, let alone another 9 people who can do that too. Thankfully however, the rulebook lays out a number of scenarios for you to play. One of these is the CNA, but it recommends you play the first scenario as a sort of tutorial.

This Scenario, Graziani's Offensive, follows the first six turns - i.e., six weeks (eighteen total OpStages), and takes only 25-50 hours to play. This is actually achievable, if a little painful.

And so, we get to the important part: a call to arms.

At some point, I'm going to need rats to fill the ranks of this game. I don't have 9 other people who can dedicate themselves fully to this, especially since it'll be as boring as fuck. Soon enough I will put out a Google Form, and I expect we will be playing and then finished with the game by mid-december.

Before that comes out though, there will be two bonus episodes: one just for you guys, and another that will come out alongside the actual video. One is a tutorial, since I noticed there weren't really any on YouTube - that will hopefully bring you up to speed should you be drafted and called to service. The other, is a full audiobook of the rulebook, done by me. It started as a joke based on how long it is, but I actually think it might be helpful.

That's all from me on this front. I'm excited to finally be tackling this pile of shit, and hopefully there might be some fun to be had. Otherwise - you better hope your draft letter gets lost in the mail.