Labyrinth: The War on Terror

Labyrinth: The War on Terror (2010) GTM Games

Labyrinth: The War on Terror
This post and the previous one about Flashpoint: South China Sea is both a quick after-action report (AAR) for the 2025 10 Wargame Challenge and a game review. Enjoy!

Labyrinth, designed by Volko Ruhnke, was first published by GMT Games in 2011. It has been reprinted three times, with a fifth printing coming this year. The game has two expansions (and a third on the way, a pre-sequel), and an additional 3-inch box is available to store everything in one place. As always, it’s a massive and visually impressive game.
Labyrinth is one of those games you either love or hate—it’s not for everyone. That said, I don’t have enough experience to judge strongly. I’ve only played it twice (solo and versus), and while I’ve heard from many players who enjoy it repeatedly, I’m still getting familiar with the mechanics and am a little divided. But I’ll definitely bring it to the table again.

Game Overview
Labyrinth is an event-card-driven game featuring a sizeable point-to-point map of the Middle East and parts of China, Europe, Africa, and, of course, the United States. It’s a two-player game where one player represents the U.S., while the other plays the Jihadists, aiming to spread terror and instability.
The game has 120 event cards; an entire game can involve going through the deck up to three times. We only played through the deck once, and it took us nearly eight hours—mainly because we spent a lot of time reading and rereading the rules. First-time playthroughs tend to take longer, but reaching the three-hour playtime listed on BoardGameGeek seems like a stretch, especially if playing through the deck two or three times.
As the Jihadists, you try to destabilize countries by doing plots (terror attacks) and establishing Islamic rule. All the while, the U.S. player tries to stop plots and stabilize governments. This is done through the event cards played or doing operations.

Card Example

How the Game Plays
Each player gets seven to nine cards per round, depending on their current financing situation or how far their military engagement is stretched. The Jihadist player always goes first, playing two cards, followed by the U.S. player, who also plays two cards. After that, any unblocked Jihadist plots are resolved. This cycle continues until both players run out of cards.
At the end of each round, some administrative tasks are handled, a new hand is dealt, and the game continues. The game ends if either side reaches one of its instant victory conditions or the deck has been played through the chosen number of times. If no player wins outright, the game is decided based on who controls the most resource points.
There’s much more to the game, but once you understand the basics, it flows smoothly. The game includes two well-organized reference sheets—one for each player—which are incredibly helpful. There’s also a Playbook with a good example walkthrough and a solo mode that allows you to play alone, which helps you learn the rules. However, the bot player follows different rules, making solo play a unique challenge.

Our Playthrough
We played the first scenario (Let’s Roll, Post-9/11: 2001-?) with a single playthrough of the deck. The game started slowly as we tried to learn the mechanics, and at first, we didn’t really have a clear strategy. We weren’t even thinking about the victory conditions.
However, as the game progressed, we started focusing more on how to win. In the second half, things heated up. It became clear that the U.S. player was unprepared for what was coming. The game turned into a brutal slugfest, which might not have been the most representative experience of how Labyrinth plays with more seasoned players.
As the U.S. player, I initiated the war in Afghanistan in the first turn. However, I later realized that that hampered many other, maybe easier, “take-overs” later in the game. Afghanistan took all my focus away from other possibilities, which was very short-sighted. At one point, the Jihadists even had one of Pakistan’s nukes in the States. So, it was definitely a close call on that one.

Too little, too late

I don’t think you can call a game of Labyrinth a slugfest, but when we played, it was a lot of going back and forth. The Jihadists recruit, and the U.S. disrupts to remove the newly placed cells. Not so sophisticated. The game has more to offer. It comes down to the players.
But we had fun. And as always, we’ll bring the game back to the table. We still need to try the current two expansions, which deserve some playtime. And really, who wouldn’t want the opportunity to shut down Trump’s tweets for good?

Sneaky but no nuke this time

Final Thoughts
Labyrinth is a great game—no doubt about it. But … it’s long.
As my gaming partner put it:
“It’s like eating too much cake. It’s good, but you end up feeling stuffed!”
That’s exactly how it felt. The game was interesting and enjoyable, and we’ll play it again. But it was also overwhelming. I can’t imagine playing through the event deck three times in a single session. I’d love to see shorter, more intense scenarios that use only parts of the deck and have more specific objectives. But then again, that wouldn’t be Labyrinth.

The End - Win for Jihadists