We Will Bury You

We Will Bury YouWe Will Bury You


Perhaps the most famous quote of the entire Cold War, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev uttered this immortal line while addressing Western ambassadors at a reception in Moscow. With these words Khrushchev announced a period during which he would probe the West for weakness and opportunity. The Berlin Crisis exemplified this expansionist policy.

Time: Mid War
Side: USSR
Ops: 4
Removed after event: Yes


You often see this played for Ops, because 4 Ops is a lot of Ops, and the USSR ordinarily does not want to drop DEFCON.  If you really wanted to drop DEFCON to 2, you can usually just use the card for a nice coup.

However, there are certain situations where you want to drop DEFCON in the headline phase.  Perhaps the US made an AR7 play and you’d prefer your AR1 to be spent doing something other than couping.  Perhaps you think the US will drop DEFCON in their headline and a DEFCON victory is one of the few ways you can win the game.

And of course, sometimes you just want 3 VPs.  It’s a ton of VPs, and towards the end of the Mid War, if you can lower DEFCON, 4 Ops for 3 VPs is a decent trade. Indeed, what usually pushes me to headline it is the combination of the VPs plus the chance for an instant DEFCON win.

The 3VPs take precedence over any card played by the US, so if you play We Will Bury You on at -17VP, and the US plays a scoring card worth +10VP on its next AR, We Will Bury You goes first and ends the game before the US scoring card is tabulated.

Note that you can almost always headline this safely, since it is a 4 Ops event, meaning the only possible US headline that would take precedence and drop DEFCON is Soviets Shoot Down KAL-007.


A DEFCON suicide card almost all of the time, and even when it isn’t automatic suicide, 3VP is a lot to give up.  I almost always send this to space.  You could theoretically use this as a way to drop DEFCON in the headline if you have UN Intervention in your hand, but you’d probably prefer to just use UN Intervention with this for the 4 Ops.


20 Responses to We Will Bury You

  1. Paul says:

    Great website! But i thought UN Intervention can not be played during headline.

    • theory says:

      If you are US, you could headline WWBY and then on your AR1 play UN Intervention + ____. But usually you’d just prefer to play UN Intervention + WWBY at some point during the turn.

  2. Paul says:

    I took this “You could theoretically use this as a way to drop DEFCON in the headline if you have UN Intervention in your hand” to mean simultaneous play during the HL. I see your point now.

  3. ddddddd says:

    It’s worth mentioning that it’s a far riskier headline if the US have achieved the Space Race level where they look at your headline card before choosing theirs (as they could just choose KAL-007 and win the game).
    Incidentally, has anyone ever lost by headlining WWBY only to have KAL-007 come up from the US?

    • Ioan76_TM says:

      Nope – usually when LateWar cards are included into deck either WWBY is already played as event ( usually by US player ) either USSR player kept it in hand for some ARs because 4 OPs are representing alot … 🙂

  4. Dan says:

    Just used this in an interesting way as the US to coup. I headlined Nuclear Subs. In the prior turn, I did my AR7 play such that USSR needed to place influence rather than coup. He likely assumed that he could just coup on AR2 since I couldn’t lower DEFCON with a coup. So I coup on AR1 with WWBY, which lowers DEFCON, gives me a 4-ops coup, gets rid of a DEFCON suicide card, AND I didn’t give up the VP’s since I also had UN Intvention.

    Pretty narrow situation, so I figured I would post it. I guess I could still have done this and saved the UN Intvention if I didn’t mind losing the 3 VP.

    Note: I actually ended up losing that turn by DEFCON suicide. In all the excitement of making this move, I overlooked the fact that I had Lone Gunman in my hand as well. I really shoud have used UN Intervention to cancel Lone Gunman… Oh well…

  5. Aimer Shama says:

    The problem with this card is that it implies that “USSR gains 3 VP prior to ANY US VP award” and does not specify a duration/ It could be understood as the realistic intention (once) or throughout the turn, or even the entire game!

  6. pietshaq says:

    What happens if WWBY is played by USA in AR7 in Turn 10 and is not sent to space?

    • The Archon says:

      The USA player loses because he dropped DEFCON to 1.

      OK, to answer your question seriously, according to FAQ Version 5.1:
      “Q. What happens if the US player plays ‘We Will Bury You’ as his last Action before Final Scoring? Will the USSR be awarded 3 VP?
      A. No, there has to be a next Action Round for the VP to be awarded. And it does not carry over to either player’s next game.”

  7. Aimer Shama says:

    seriously man, it would have been better if it said: USSR gains bla bla bla in THAT round!
    fuck that!

  8. fantastical says:

    Had a game recently where I was USSR and going fresh into a turn my opponent had this card. I was ready to win, having control of S.America and its scoring card in hand with VP at -15 or so. Defectors was still a possibility so I decided to not headline the scoring and instead decided to go with Missile Envy as my headline (big mistake.)

    Coincidentally US player was quite ahead on the space race and was able to see my headline first before choosing. Naturally he happens to also have an ops granting card for the headline, which he uses to degrade defcon to 2. Missile Envy then kicks in and of course as WWBY is 4 ops it goes right to me, triggers and wins the game for him.

    Never should have headlined Missile Envy….

    • pirateIRL says:

      I just won my first game of TS (playing US) when my opponent took WWBY from me with Missile Envy! I was looking around to make sure we correctly played the cards – hell of a feeling! Haha

  9. Vitaly says:

    Interesting that almost nobody knows that Khrushchev didn`t mean the war or Soviet troops will “bury” USA. No, he meant that socialist movement in the world will bury capitalist regime.

  10. Ruskii says:

    How does it work as response to Missile Envy?

  11. Sloop JB says:

    If the DefCom is higher than 3 at headline and the US has WWBY and another really crappy card & UN Intervention, it can play WWBY during an action round, then use the UN Intervention to cancel out the other bad card. That way, the US player gets the 4 Ops as well as the Ops from the other crappy card, all without losing any VP. Doesn’t happen a lot of course, but when it does, it’s pretty sweet.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Can someone explain how this works? If the US plays a scoring card worth 3 for Africa does the USSR gain 9 points or 3 points?

    • DanielB says:

      Basically, the USSR gets 3 VP when the USA’s next action round happens, unless the USA plays UN Intervention on that round.

      So if the USA plays Africa Scoring for 3 VP, then first the USSR gets 3 VP the instant the scoring card is played, because the scoring card is not UN Intervention. Then, so long as that didn’t end the game, then the USA gets the 3 VP right back.

  13. DanielB says:


    I always hated this ruling. It was a *huge* stretch to rule it that way based on the original card text and rulebook wording, but they just ruled it that way anyway and then in the next edition changed the card to make it retroactively match the ruling.

    Plus, why rule something like that in favor of the side that is already a big favorite in the game?

    Plus plus, part of the replayability of TS is how many bizarre and interesting combinations of cards could potentially happen. This ruling removed several of them – such as the USA using Star Wars or Grain Sales to try and pull out UN Intervention.

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