Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
Bloody Dawns: The Iran-Iraq War is a two-player grand strategic level card driven wargame depicting the struggle between Iraq and Iran from September 1980 to August 1988.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Action Points
Spend a limited allowance of points across several possible actions each turn.
Campaign Card Play
Play cards to command conflicts and carry consequences through a campaign.
Dice Rolling
Roll dice to introduce uncertainty into actions, production, movement, or resolution.
Point-to-Point Movement
Move along explicit connections between named locations or nodes.
Simulation
Model a real or imagined system through detailed cause-and-effect rules.
Read the full game description
Bloody Dawns: The Iran-Iraq War is a two-player grand strategic level card driven wargame depicting the struggle between Iraq and Iran from September 1980 to August 1988. This terrible confrontation between Saddam Hussein and Ayatollah Khomeini drastically changed the geopolitical balance of power in the Gulf and was the last Total War of the 20th Century. Its events still shape and influence those of today. Each turn represents four months of real time and is divided into two phases; one for the player who has the initiative and one for the other player (see the Sequence of Play in the Chart). The cards constitute the driving mechanism of the game, allowing for the movement of units, offensives or replacements, generating specific events, and influencing combat resolution. Each copy of Bloody Dawns is composed of the following: One 17 by 22 inch point-to-point map One sheet of 98 die cut counters One deck of 54 game cards One 12 page illustrated full color rules book One Players' Aid Sheet Scenarios cover the beginning, mid and late war periods, as well as a full campaign game.