Laughing at the Cold War …

What’s the best part about playing KREMLIN? Hard to say…There’s nothing quite like having the KGB chief purge half of the Politburo, except maybe killing them by rolling low on the health die. A trial that sends the Party Chief to Siberia can give you a warm glow, too. It’s all good.

The WBC Kremlin tournament will be run according to the Advanced Rules from the 1988 Avalon Hill edition. For those who have the Jolly Roger version which came out in 2014, the basic and advanced Avalon Hill rules can be found at BoardGameGeek (the exact path may differ, so I suggest using your favorite search engine with the string "BoardGameGeek kremlin rules" to find where to download copies of the Basic and Advanced rules.

There are differences between the AH and Jolly Roger rules, the most important being victory conditions:

1. The first player whose faction gets three waves at the October Parade wins
2. At the end of Phase 6 of any turn, if there are fewer than eight Politburo members, the player controlling the highest-ranking active Politburo member wins. (If this position is uncontrolled, no player wins.)
3. At the end of the 5th phase of Turn 10.5, the player who controls the Party Chief wins. (If the Party Chief is uncontrolled, no player wins.)

Over the years, we have developed a set of House Rules on the exact meanings of the various Intrigue cards and a list of errata and clarifications for the rules themselves. This will be made available at the tournament, along with a summary of the differences the GM has found between the AH and JR rules (no promises that this is complete!). If you'd like these documents to be emailed to you before the tournament, let the GM know by email and it will happen.

The Tournament will use the Heats Most Wins - Points Standard Tie-breakers for advancement into the Final, listed below. The GM specific tiebreaker has changed from last year, meant to encourage new players to enter later heats. which is included in the Tie-breakers below.

The winner of a game is determined by the game rules as given above. We will use the following scoring system in Heat games for the GM tie-breaker and to determine second and lower places, with highest scorers placing higher in the ranking. Note that scoring depends only on controlling the Party Chief at the end of a turn (in the Parade Phase):

• Each turn a controlled Party Chief waves in the Parade Phase +4
• Each turn a controlled Party Chief fails to wave (any reason) +1
• The Party Chief position is vacant or uncontrolled in the Parade Phase 0

All players tied for second place with a non-zero score will be credited with a second place finish, and similarly for lower places. Non-winning players who have scores of zero will get no points towards Final eligibility from that heat.

The scoring system for Heat games will also be used for the Final, with additional bonus scoring (depending on having the most Influence on Politburo members at game end) to hopefully break any remaining ties without needing a high die roll.

HEATS: MOST WINS - POINTS (HMW-P):

1. Most Wins (e.g., total in all heats entered)
2. Total Points – Players earn the following pints in each heat they entered:
   • 1st Place - 1,000 points
   • 2nd Place - 100 points
   • 3rd Place - 10 points
   • 4th Place - 1 points
   • All other places - 0 points
   • e.g., player has a 1st, 2nd, and 4th in three heats: total points would be 1,101
3. GM Specific Tie-breaker - 1/2 point awarded for winning in your first heat played
4. High dice roll.

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