Fate of a Nation

by Tom Burgess

Usually, when I sign up to write a force review article I write about a force that I am playing. For Fate of a Nation, however, I’ve only played Israelis.

I usually am “that guy” who will build and play the “bad guys” when nobody else will.

When it came to building a force for Fate of a Nation I had to draw the line as I had no time to build and paint another horde army. I was also not very interested in the Arab armies because of how they played in the original (V3) release. But the in new Version 4-style (V4) Fate of a Nation, the Arab forces are much more interesting and I’m now excited to build an Egyptian force to oppose my current Israeli collection. Here’s why.

The Jordanians possessed one of the most professional Arab armies in the post-WW II period.  With a long British tradition and friendly relations with the Americans, they had plenty of British and American second-hand equipment for their small army.  However, the Jordanians were not eager for this fight.  King Hussein tried to act as the honest-broker to prevent the war, but when that failed, felt compelled to join the Arab side.  This is reflected in a better than average Remount/ Rally/ Counterattack score, but a morale of 5+ across the board.

A big podcast since we have been so busy gaming!

Your NDNG crew today is Meta Mitch, Chairborne Tom, Glenn G and from humid Canada Matt Varnish.

Act 1 We talk about what we have been doing since we last recorded

Act 2 We go over the new book for Team Yankee; Free Nations

Act 3: It is all Fate of a Nation

Sorry for the Glenn’s static and that Matt is a low talker.

We have regular visits from Israeli students at the high school where I teach.  It started as part of a peace corps style program to allow America students to interact with their counterparts overseas.

As part of their enlistment, these 18-year-old volunteers act as ambassadors for Israel and answer questions about life there. For them, it serves as a gap year and after it is done, they complete their enlistment.

The school where I teach tends to graduate a mix of those interested in military careers as well as college or trades, and the question inevitably comes up regarding Israel’s mandatory enlistment requirements.

“Why do you require everyone to enlist in the military?”

And the best answer I heard one of the Israeli students give was this,

“The first war we lose is the last war we’ll ever fight.”

The folks from have yet another new release that many of us have been waiting for. A few years ago, we saw the first venture into the Arab-Israeli conflict with the original Fate of a Nation book which focused on the 1967 war, now in 2018 we revisit the strife-torn region and expand the conflict beyond the Six-Day War.

While I know many folks who loved the models with the original release, I knew few gamers who seriously played it. A lot of people wanted to see the 1973 conflict, or felt the game was limited to great Israeli tanks against hordes of Arab tanks.

No matter what the rationale for avoiding the game before, the second iteration of Fate of a Nation has a lot of things that you will enjoy and it may be worth a second look. This article will not delve into each list and nation in the book. My more talented compatriots will do that over the next week or two. So, consider this a quick look at this book.