The Three Musketeers is as much a swashbuckling political intrigue as it is a military campaign. It deals with the events of 1627 when the Cardinal Richelieu was wiping out the Huguenots in La Rochelle. On this level it is a siege game, in which the Royalist army must try to break up the defenses around La Rochelle. On the other hand, the game includes all the characters from the classic Dumas story. The game is thus more about who controls the King rather than whither mass is said in Latin or French. The Cardinal, the Queen and even the English want to take control of the weak Kings favor. Because with his favor comes the reigns of government. As with the Spanish Ulcer, The Three Musketeers uses location cards and the idea of barriers (which are very important in the siege game). It adds to this "Treasure cards" that include such vital things as "The King's Favor" "Chief Ministry" "The Queen's Love" and "Control of Paris". There are more characters than players so players can "recruit" unplayed characters which allows them to move them and increases the likelihood that they will do things they are told to in arguments. La Rochelle is a Protestant strong hold. It is surrounded by a wall - a defense barrier. This blocks people from moving into the town without a fight. Defenders can add to this barrier or create new barriers via their arguments. To enter the two the attacker argues to launch an attack. This "causes a conflict". Conflict in Matrix Games is handled by the referee deciding who is in the strongest position. That player then makes an argument about the outcome of the whole fight. So players must make preparation arguments to assure that they are the ones "in the advantage". In a siege assault, the attacker must win a conflict argument for each barrier of defense to get into the town. It is often wise to use arguments to weaken or even dismantle barriers before attacking. The net result of all this argument is a game of cat and mouse between attacker and defender. Without spending hours meticulously building and destroying models, one can play out intricate sieges. The game comes in a 20 or so page 8 1/2 X 11 photo copied book. It includes a complete set of rules and a multi page example of play. The example of play is a word for word description of an actual gaming session. It is very helpful in showing how the rules actually work. It costs $10 plus postage. You can order it from Hamster Press at http://www.io.com/~hamster Back to Table of Contents -- Matrix Gamer #7 To Matrix Gamer List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by Chris Engle. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com