The city changes (add Vegas and Santa Fe, remove Buffalo and Kansas City) in the upcoming FFG reprint had me curious, so I played a solo game to check it out. I don't know if there will be other changes; I assume so, as one card references Buffalo by name (I shifted its effect to Cleveland for this game). There's also a clue offered in the two visible cards on FFG's description page, where each card shown has a final sentence, "Then discard this card.". That's unnecessary unless there are cards you don't discard. For instance, maybe in the new edition you keep the aircraft reinforcement or airlift cards until you want to use them, instead of tossing them for little to no effect if they hit at the wrong time (something along those lines strikes me as an improvement, as it's always seemed lame and unfair to have any useless cards).

I drove south with Yellow, a bit more west than usual with Blue, and tried to hammer Washington with Red, given the slightly weaker US position up there. As the US, I opted for a more "forward" defense than my usual approach, hoping for casualties and "holes". The die rolls were fairly balanced, with odd runs of luck here and there, but nothing too tippy. As the US, I pressed a bit too hard for city captures, and lost half my bombers early, but cards came out pretty nicely overall (including that miner card that basically saved Denver and the game on T7). "Final stands" were Denver, St. Louis, and Washington, and it was down to the wire. US won after "surprise" partisan retakes of Vegas and Memphis, after invaders were tapped out, but a very near thing.

Preliminary report, obviously, but I liked it. The West and South were more interesting for both sides. The East was more unchanged than I expected, but then, a lot hinges on the card draw, and if anything, it helped the US in the East the most. So no conclusions there.

I apologize for the lack of details. I plan to try again, now that I've (hopefully) shaken off some of the rust. Pretty easy to try, if anyone else is curious and wants to give it a go. Just put something on the map to remind you of the changes.

Oh, oh, include me