Blog [MKG] - 2640 possibilities

During Soviet-Afganwar, Marat Tischenko, head of the Mil design bureau visited Afghanistan to see what the troops thought of his helicopters, and gunship crews demonstrated maneuvers, such as barrel rolls, which design engineers considered impossible. Marat Tischenko commented: "I thought I knew what my helicopters could do, now I'm not so sure!". If you feel confused now, sorry - but this post will NOT be about Hind Commander.

A few weeks ago I returned from Sweden, where we spent great weekend playing PMC 2640. I designed this game 6-7 years ago, but it never stopped to amaze me. Maybe the rulebook was not huge commercial success but I'm very proud of it because every time I meet some player or group I encounter complete different tactics, different approach to army composition and different gaming styles and every time I have a little surprise.I started to consider what makes PMC 2640 so unobvious game and I think that there are a few main factors:

• Fast gameplay. Not intended to finish the battle quickly, but it allow to play more turns. For me - it's very important factor, which allows to use more complex tactics with a few turns forward in mind. Also it makes that whole table plays, without splitting the game into individual duels.
• The game was designed as compact in rules, but rich in contests. It's not like a christmas tree, but rather spiked ball -  all this extra contest is based in these compact rules to avoid details over details. This allows the players easily understand the rules and quickly find individual approach.
• Clear parameters. Even without playing the game you can see what are the pros and cons of every unit. This not only makes the game much quicker, but also allows to plan how to turn separate units in your army into working warmachine not if the unit is "profitable" or "not".
• "1+1<2" - the game prefers cooperation between different types of the units.
• Random scenarios. If you never know that will be your objective you have to make you army flexible or you dramatically increase your chances of failure.
•  "Gold-silver-ham-becon" balance method, which means that the troops on the same tier are either quite similar to each other or such different what they cannot be compared at all.

But it's not everything. The event inspired us to start something really big connected with PMC 2640! More details soon!

Regards,

MKG