The Struggle for Zorn: The Red Blight is a 1-5 player semi-cooperative fantasy wargame. Players will represent the various Houses of the fictional Kingdom of Zorn, and these Houses have joined together to defeat the rising threat of the vile Red Blight. The Red Blight is an evil entity that has just launched an invasion of peaceful Slumbering Troll Valley, the northern-most province of the kingdom. The monsters of the Red Blight are now holding the citizens of the valley hostage and have absconded with the province’s valuables, treasures, and vital resources. The Houses have been summoned by King Rufus V of Zorn to launch a Royal Crusade to free the valley and rid it of this blight.

The game’s players will each control a Commander, a Magic User, and a House Army, made up of various types of military units. Each player attempts to defeat enemy units and capture Treasure Tokens, and by so doing earn Glory Points. The player scoring the most Glory Points will be awarded with the title “Hand of the Crown” and win the game. However, players must cooperate and assist each other as well. If the Red Blight achieves certain conditions, all the players lose the game, regardless of their situation or amount of Glory Points. If players can stave off The Red Blight’s attempt to exploit the valley for four full days, the monsters will lose access to the malignant power that sustains them. If this evil has been successfully thwarted, peace and freedom will be restored once again to the valley and one of the intrepid Houses will gain the ultimate royal reward.

We published an interview with the designer Hermann Luttmann and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2023/12/18/interview-with-hermann-luttmann-designer-of-the-struggle-for-zorn-the-red-blight-from-blue-panther/

I also wrote a fairly in-depth First Impression style post and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2024/05/14/first-impressions-the-struggle-for-zorn-the-red-blight-from-blue-panther/

-Grant

The June 2026 Monthly Debrief Video, which is the 6th episode in Season 6 of this series, saw us discussing Nostalgia and its effects on the wargaming hobby. I think that nostalgia is generally a good thing but it definitely can be something that holds the hobby back. Too much nostalgia tends to keep us away from new and emerging games and systems and in general can be a suppressor of innovation and progression.

Also, as usual, we covered the games we played in June as well as the games we plan to play in July.

We will remind you here that we are fortunate to be continuing our relationship with Noble Knight Games as the sponsor for our Monthly Debrief Video series. In case you don’t know, Noble Knight Games specializes in hard to find games but also carry all the new releases. But what makes them truly unique is that you can find some of the rarest games, long out of print games, hand made games, imported games from overseas, etc. Thanks to them for their sponsorship and we hope that you will consider them first when looking for the games we cover.

-Grant