Sometimes these Monthly Updates are a bit surprising! Either with a new game that has long been rumored or with a new system and a new designer that we know nothing about. I like surprises so this is totally fine with me. But honestly, I was a bit blown away that 2 newer games were getting new content and a reprint as these are really new games. The British Way, which is totally awesome by the way, was released early in April 2023 and The Plum Island Horror was just released last month. These games must be really great if they are already back on the design/production table but frankly I really am unsurprised that they already have either a reprint or a new expansion. With that in mind, let’s take a look at what this month’s update brought us.
This month there were 2 new P500 additions offered including Musket & Pike Dual Pack #2 and The Plum Island Horror: More of a Bad ThingExpansion. There also were 2 reprints offered in At Any Cost: Metz 18702nd Printing and The British Way: Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire 2nd Printing.
Also, as is usually the case, there was plenty of other information shared including updates on GMT One products, development updates, upcoming future P500 additions and absolutely stunning art samples.
I was very interested in the update given by Jason Carr and the work of GMTOne. Lots of good tidbits in there about the progress on some really great looking games that I am definitely anticipating.
GMT One and GMT Development Department – Jason Carr. Happy 2024 to all who celebrate! At GMT One, we’re back to high gear and I have some exciting updates on projects. Make sure to read all the project updates later in the newsletter to get even more information, sneak peeks, and other updates from Ken, Joe, and the Fields of Fire Team.
Joe and team are done with development on Red Dust Rebellion, including the solitaire system. Thank you to everyone on the COIN Discord that participated in playtesting these last few months as we did some last minute tweaks to the game, the map, and the victory conditions. We also had Liz Davidson help with editing the rules to ensure that everything was as clear as possible so you can start playing right away.
Ken, Peter, and Marco Poutré have finalized all the materials for I, Napoleon, and the game has been sent to proofreaders. That’s the last step in our production chain before sending it to the printer, which will happen immediately after our printer reopens from Chinese New Year.
We also have made major progress on Fields of Fire Deluxe Edition – be sure to read Andrew and Colin’s update later in the newsletter and check out the Normandy and Naktong Mission Books. They’re also looking for a Few Good Playtesters for Colin’s Fields of Fire: The Parachute Regiment, so if you’re interested in Arnhem, go check that out.
Finally, I spent the holiday working on the solitaire bot for The Bell of Treason. Working on the bot let me fully explore the design space and I have to say, I am very impressed! Much like Red Flag Over Paris, the gameplay in The Bell of Treason punches far above it’s complexity. I can safely say that if you enjoyed Red Flag you’ll enjoy The Bell of Treason.
There’s much more that we’re working on, and it never fits in the space I have for my updates. Until next time, enjoy the games! ~ Jason
They are also looking for folks interested in playtesting. This month’s opportunity is to playtest for Fields of Fire: The Parachute Regiment designed by Colin Parsons.
Fields of Fire: The Parachute Regiment. Series Developer Andrew Stead says they are ready to begin testing the Arnhem campaign. We’re looking for people who already know how to play the game to take on the whole campaign, or just one part of it, over the next couple of months and let us know how it plays. Please sign up here.
New P500’s
As shared above, there were 2 new P500 additions offered this month including Musket & Pike Dual Pack #2 and The Plum Island Horror: More of a Bad ThingExpansion. There also were 2 reprints offered in At Any Cost: Metz 18702nd Printing and The British Way: Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire 2nd Printing.
Musket & Pike Dual Pack 2(Under the Lilly Banners and Gustav Adolf the Great)
These multi-pack games, such as the American Revolution Tri-Pack and Men of Iron Tri-Pack, are such a great value as you simply get so many great games and scenarios included for a very reasonable price. Such is the case with the Musket & Pike Dual Pack#2, which includes two games Under the Lilly Banners and Gustav Adolf the Great.
From the game page, we read the following:
Following the successful Musket & Pike Dual Pack reprint of This Accursed Civil War and Sweden Fights On, we are excited to offer Musket & Pike Dual Pack 2 on P500 that includes the reprinted and updated Under the Lily Banners and Gustav Adolf the Great. As with the first Dual Pack, it has eleven battles in one box! The award-winning Musket & Pike Battle Series was launched in 2002, and Volumes III and IV have been out of print for years. In that time, the series had two more installments, and the Dual Pack reprint of Volumes I and II have attracted many new players. In this box, you will get the most popular volumes of the MPBS including:
An additional battle for Under the Lily Banners, Wittenweier 1636
For all battles, counters will not be shared between battles for ease of setup and storage
The battle specific cards introduced in Saints in Armor with be provided with Turn Track, Victory Conditions, Dead and Pursuit boxes to improve their utility (5 backprinted cards)
The counters will feature formation icons as seen in the first Dual Pack and requested by so many players over the years!
In the award-winning Musket & Pike Battle Series, armies are divided into several wings. Each has a commander and an order that limits the types of actions that units of that wing may perform. Victory goes to the player who can coordinate the actions of their wings in the heat of battle. Units are infantry battalions or brigades, cavalry regiments, and artillery batteries. Rules include cavalry charges, cavalry pistols for skirmishing or close combat, Polish lances, musket salvo fire, and grazing artillery fire. Play is highly interactive, and most battles can be played through in one sitting.
Value and interesting games on a very interesting topic and period in history designed by the incomparable Ben Hull. You can’t go wrong with that!
The Plum Island Horror: More of a Bad Thing Expansion
The Plum Island Horror was announced in June 2021 and have come to production pretty quickly. I have my copy still sitting and unplayed but we did do an unboxing and have rifled through the box. Looks great. It is not a wargame but designed by a wargame designer who also just happens to have a knack for great designs that are cooperative such as Dawn of the Zeds. This concept and system just looks and sounds very fun. Plus who doesn’t like zombies? And with the success of the game they have decided to add content to make the game even better and more versatile with the announcement of The Plum Island Horror: More of a Bad Thing Expansion.
From the game page, we read the following:
Well, well, well…you just couldn’t get enough of The Plum Island Horror, could you? And now you went and asked for more “stuff.” Well, to quote AC/DC, “if you want blood, you got it.” Despite my better judgment, the GMT bigwigs have harassed, cudgeled, and shamed me into emerging from my quiet, peaceful retirement and designing more pain and agony for you to enjoy. Bang the drums and sound the trumpets! The More of a Bad ThingExpansion is here.
And this time, we’re not taking it easy on you. We’ve asked our elite research team to dig even farther into the historic archives regarding this event, and they’ve uncovered some interesting elements to the story of Plum Island that are not included in the original game (P.S. They’ve all since been fired for not uncovering this stuff for the game in the first place).
NEW FACTIONS We’ve discovered additional anecdotes and accounts of other groups that were present at the catastrophe and who have their own unique (and quite exciting) stories. To honor them, we’re adding three new Factions for players to choose from:
Oceanside Construction Company: This faction has a personal connection to our developer, Ken Kuhn. Digging deep (pun intended) into his family history, Ken realized that his family owned a construction company on Plum Island during the event! What a coinkydink! So, he has taken the time from his busy schedule and designed this faction for the game.
Rarely does one’s line of work prepare them for an apocalyptic disaster, but once Oceanside’s Supervisor, Becky, got wind of the chaos ensuing on the Island, she steeled her nerves, channeled her favorite actor Ven Dresel, and quoted “YYY” (her favorite movie of his)—”I was born for this sh…”
As a Faction, the Oceanside Construction Company has a “control” style of play. In other words, they focus on controlling the movement of Horrors units and tend to excel in dealing with those really big Murder of Horrors stacks. As can be seen in the Faction Spoiler graphic, Ty “Tuff” Murray’s special ability fully activates when in Close Combat with a Murder of Horrors Stack that is at least seven Tiles tall.
Monkey Island Cult: Secluded on the nearby islet of Monkey Island, the Monkey Monk Cult has been living there for years in preparation for the apocalypse. Their banana-fevered brains initially convinced them that, yes, the arrival of the super-storm and resulting chaos on nearby Plum Island was the sign for which they had been waiting. Jumping aboard their numerous Gilligan’s Island-style rafts, while being escorted by their specially-trained Rhesus monkeys riding even more specially-trained dolphins, they landed on Plum Island to partake in the festivities. Unfortunately, their definition of “partaking” became somewhat fuzzy when the first monk to land on Plum Island was eviscerated by a wandering Horror. Thus, they decided instead to assist the Plum Islanders in fighting off the oncoming hordes. Unfortunately for the islanders, the cultist monks and their entourage were not very well practiced in their preferred method of fighting—the summoning of demons from the Old World.
The sample unit from the Monkey Monk faction is their intrepid leader, Elon Monk. A former billionaire entrepreneur and inventor, he personally trained the monkeys and dolphins on the island (but he had nothing to do with those silly novice cultist monks). And his power of precognition is demonstrated by his “X-Factor” Leader Ability, which allows him to re-draw a Fate Card if adjacent to a faction unit during the Monkey Monk Cult’s Follow action. Pretty cool!
Z.Z.’s Big Top Circus: Hey, who wouldn’t welcome some friendly clowns into their boardgame, right? They’re not scary at all. Our researchers found out that the circus was in town during the catastrophe! We missed it the first time around because, well, frankly, very few people attended this rather dismal and low-budget circus (for example, they only had two rings instead of three). The Z.Z.’s Big Top Circus faction has an interesting variety of characters who will each perform their specialty acts in an effort to rid Plum Island of the Horrors as quickly as possible, so they can re-open the Big Top…to almost no one.
You’ll notice this faction has two sample units. The first is the eagle-eyed Fannie Oakley who can run and still shoot the eyebrow off of a cockroach (yes, she actually did that while fighting a hideous new Mutation unit—see below). The other unit is the faction’s Compound, the Clown Car—another Compound that can conduct movement. It has great handling and thus can dodge the Horrors niftily and has an unlimited capacity for housing Civilians Units (of course).
In addition to the additional factions, there is a new Nightmare Mode, that ratchets up the action, additional cards, new short scenarios and more. This looks like it adds a lot of additional flexibility and options to the players and options are never bad.
Hermann Luttmann is a special designer. He knows how to inject chaos into a game and create a very interesting and fun experience. Such was the case with his At Any Cost: Metz 1870 from GMT Games. At Any Cost is a game simulating the situation west of the Metz fortress during those few days of August 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. The game is designed to be a playable, two-player brigade-scale game that allows players to experience the unique tactical warfare matchups that characterized fighting during the this time.
From the game page, we read the following:
This era, though generally overlooked in the gaming industry, is a fascinating study in Napoleonic tactics (and uniforms) slamming head-on into modern killing technology. The Prussian military juggernaut is armed with the new steel Krupp breach-loading artillery pieces that far outclassed the French guns. Prussian doctrine, adapted to the lessons learned during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, allowed junior officers to exercise initiative and aggressiveness. The French army, meanwhile, was armed with the modern and deadly Chassepot rifle, a firearm so advanced that many argue its deployment alone should have won the war for the French. In addition, the French army was now equipped with their ultimate secret weapon: the Mitrailleuse, which was the first machine gun used en masse. Moreover, the game system makes clear that the French soldier, despite misconceptions to the contrary, fought valiantly during these battles. By all rights, they could have—and should have—won many of these engagements. But leadership, morale, and tenacity won the day for the Prussians.
All these factors are seamlessly embedded into the At Any Cost game system, and players will be challenged to utilize their advantages and minimize their disadvantages throughout the game. Will YOU as the Prussian player be able to withstand an early severe numerical disadvantage and use the brave audacity of the Prussian soldier and artilleryman to win the day? Can YOU as the French player overcome the lethargic and uninspired command structure of the Army of the Rhine and allow your tough and well-equipped infantry to fight unhindered?
At Any Cost: Metz 1870 also features the Blind Swords chit-pull system which emphasizes the three “FOW’s” of military conflict: fog-of-war, friction-of-war, and fortunes-of-war. With each chit pull, players will be challenged to make tough decisions based on their assessment of the current situation. Unlike traditional chit-pull mechanisms, the Blind Swords system ensures that no combat units can be counted on, or conversely, counted out. This yields an environment of tense action and constant surprises—an environment that will challenge each player.
From one of my recent favorite designers Hermann Luttmann, this game is awesome and crunchy and tough and fun all in the same box!
Here is a look at our review video from many years ago but it still holds up:
I also wrote a few Action Point posts a few years back and you can read those at the following links:
The British Way: Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire 2nd Printing
I have said it before but Stephen Rangazas is a rockstar! Plain and simple. He has done some yeomen’s work over the past few years with games like Fall of Saigon: A Fire in the Lake Expansion, Sovereign of Discord: A Fire in the Lake Expansion and the recently released The British Way. The British Way is a really clean and quick playing 2-player COIN in a quad pack and we just love it. And it is now getting a 2nd Printing.
The British Way: Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire covers four British counterinsurgency campaigns during the process of decolonization immediately following World War II. These include campaigns against larger insurgencies that sought to contest territory and topple colonial rule through armed conflict, such as in Kenya and Malaya, but also smaller more clandestine armed groups that sought to wear down British prestige to force a withdrawal as in Cyprus and Palestine.
From the game page, we read the following:
The British Way: Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire is the first of several COINSeries Multipacks, containing four separate games exploring a series of thematically related insurgencies. Between 1945 and 1960, the British fought four major “emergencies,” as they referred to their counterinsurgency campaigns, each trying to manage their retreat from empire. The four games in this pack focus on exploring British counterinsurgent responses to a variety of different opponents, including communist insurgents in Malaya, militant nationalists in Kenya, and smaller and more clandestine terrorist organizations in Palestine and Cyprus. The games adjust the core COIN Series mechanics to provide a compelling new way of handling two-player conflicts, while also streamlining several mechanics to quicken gameplay. The British Way offers an approachable introduction to the COIN Series for new players, while presenting experienced players with four mechanically distinct games to explore and compare.
The four games in one box is a tried and true method as in the old SPI Quads and recently has had somewhat of a return with not only this new COIN Series Multipack format but with other publishers such as Compass Games and Brief Border Wars I, Brief Border Wars II and Brothers at War: 1862.
The British Way and the COIN Series Multipack has the following highlights:
Four full games in one box: Explore four different conflicts set during the twilight of the British Empire in the 1940’s and 1950’s. Each game uses a unique ruleset building on the same general mechanical structure, ensuring that they are easy to pick up while still offering a distinctive experience.
A new adaptation of the classic COIN system: Improved two-player sequence of play and a versatile Political Will track for determining victory.
Unique mechanisms reflecting the British approach to each conflict: New Villages in Malaya, the ‘Pipeline’ in Kenya, Curfews in Cyprus, and Mass Detention in Palestine.
Small board footprint with quick-but-deep gameplay: Each game plays in under 90 minutes and takes place on a single 17×22” board.
An “End of Empire” Campaign: A campaign scenario allowing players to play the four games in a linked series with a cumulative scoring system, random ‘external’ events relating to British decolonization, and new mechanics to integrate each game into the campaign.
As you know, I love the COIN Series, and this new multi-pack format is very exciting as it provides us more access to smaller, lesser gamed subjects that are fast playing. It also provides to us as players a comparable view at different types of conflict and how they affect the populace and the overall success of these efforts. I think this type of approach won’t work with every conflict and many conflicts will be better served in the framework of the larger COIN Series as their own standalone games. In speaking with Stephen on this very subject, he has shared that his “…hope is that a series of multipacks might provide new ways for wargamers to think about conflict and help cover some topics that would be difficult to design or sell as standalone products”.
Vijayanagara (I am very much excited about this one!)
Next Charges/Shipments: It’s likely we won’t have a new batch of P500 games to ship until late February or early March, so we’ll get you details in our February customer update. If something changes and games arrive sooner than expected, we’ll send out a special update to let you know charge and ship dates.
New P500’s on the Horizon
One of the features that I have always enjoyed about these Monthly Updates has been the New P500’s on the Horizon where Gene Billingsley shares a few very cryptic comments about an upcoming project and we are supposed to somehow decipher his meaning from these “clues”.
Here is a brief tease for P500 additions lining up in the coming months. This month’s Musket & Pike Dual Pack #2 was teased in November as “Another Multi-Pack game in a popular series.” And this month’s “More of a Bad Thing” TPIH Expansion was mentioned last month as “More content for The Plum Island Horror.” Note that this is not a comprehensive list (nor will I preview EVERY game we have planned), so I will switch these up a bit from month to month. Over the coming 1-6 months, I anticipate that we will add:
A new 18xx game – not my bag baby but I am happy for all your rail heads!
A new space strategy game from a well-known designer – the well known designer part is throwing me off here. Could it be something new from John Butterfield? Or maybe this is Sam London’s Microverse?
A 194x expansion from Mark Simonitch – my guess is that is Cassino ’44 which is the 2nd game in the 3 game series covering the Italian Peninsula Campaigns of WWII. The next game should be Anzio ’44. I am very much looking forward to this one!
Another expansion for Labyrinth – we love Labyrinth and can’t wait to get new content but I have no idea about this expansion.
Not great this month….batting .250 at best I would guess! That is just good enough to stay strapped on the bench and not sent back down to the minors. Gene, how did I do?
Project Updates and Sample Art
One final thing that I wanted to share this month is all of the great sample art that has been shared as a part of the update on various games as they run up to production.
The first piece of art that they shared was near the beginning of the update and was the components for the upcoming Card Conquest Series game called Hannibal’s Revenge designed by Mark McLaughlin. This is a nice looking mockup of the board and the cards and looks really great! I love the pictures of the elephants moving across the river shown in the background and cannot wait to give this one a try. As you know, we played the first game in the series Hitler’s Reich and enjoyed the mechanics and what was trying to be done but ultimately the problems with the rulebook at the time (has been corrected since) really turned us off to that game. With renewed vigor, I am hotly anticipating this one as I do love me some Ancients and the Card Conquest Series had some pretty fun elements and lots of dice rolling.
Next, we were shown the box back for the upcoming solitaire game I, Napoleon designed by Ted Raicer. This game is very intriguing to me and I am very excited to learn more about it and how it operates. The cards shown on the box back look really great, and as you might know, they are the backbone of the game.
We then were treated to some really great looking final covers with Space Empires: All Good Things being the first. If you didn’t know, this will be the final planned expansion for Space Empires, which is a very cool 4X style space game where the player will control a civilization and will go about building up their infrastructure like Ship Yards, Exploration vessels and Colony Ships, send them out to discover and colonize new worlds to build up their economy all the while trying to improve their technology to do things better and more efficiently and ultimately to exterminate all resistance in the galaxy. The expansion will include revised solo rules and a combined rule book for the base game as well as the Close Encounters Expansion and Replicators Expansion and lots of different options such as variable but balanced Home Systems, Scenario Cards, Resource Cards, Crew Cards and new buildable facilities. This will be the crowning piece to a great game that we love very much!
Next we were shown the magnificent final cover for the upcoming Red Dust Rebellion, which is Volume XIII in the vaunted COIN Series. I just love how prominent the red planet is in the photo surrounded by the beautiful art from the cards in the game. Marcos Villarroel Lara is the artist and he has done a fantastic job.
They also shared a look at the final board for Red Dust Rebellion and once again knocked it out of the park with the rusty red hues. Also, very functional but beautiful all in the same simplistic mode.
Next was the final cover for the Congress of Vienna, which is a very cool looking game that uses a similar system to Churchill designed by Mark Herman. The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.
They also shared some final card images and counters for Congress of Vienna and they definitely look really good!
Next up were some very nice looking Ship and Treasure Cards for the solitaire adventure style game called Zheng He: Admiral of the Ming Voyages designed by David Thompson and Geoff Engelstein. Definitely love the thematic Eastern look and feel of the card art!
I want to end this post by sharing our recent content on the blog and YouTube Channel for GMT Games products including reviews/interviews/unboxing videos:
Yes. Me too! I think that a non-historical COIN Series game will show the merits of the system and probably expand its reach and utility as a system for other non-historical games. Should be really great! And it is very beautiful.
Grant, really enjoy your commentary — and look forward to it right after reading the Monthly Update.
I too am excited that Vijayanagara is shipping soon — should be excellent for my new three-person group. Red Dust is eagerly anticipated, as is the seminal Space Empires AGT (sad to see the end, but what a great looking capstone!). I have Metz (sadly not gotten to the table yet…) but happy to see it getting a second edition.
I agree, the 194x must be the sequel to Salerno 43 and that is welcome; France 40 should be shipping soon too!
All in all, a great start to the year. Cheers, James
Hello everyone. Great content and read, thank you for sharing. There’s one thing i’m not getting, though. Can someone tell me what will be the next COIN game to come out? Still don’t understand if it’s Red Dust Rebellion or China’s War. Which one will be Vol. XXII?
Mr Luttmann doth quote Acker Dacker, maybe in the expansion he can have a reanimated Bon banging out ‘A Highway to Hell’ that incites the horrors into a frenzy and increases the damage they do! Played it in the last month and love what he designs.
The Players' Aid 
I’m so excited that Red Dust Rebellion is completed. It’s going to be awesome, and the cover looks sensational!
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Yes. Me too! I think that a non-historical COIN Series game will show the merits of the system and probably expand its reach and utility as a system for other non-historical games. Should be really great! And it is very beautiful.
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Grant, really enjoy your commentary — and look forward to it right after reading the Monthly Update.
I too am excited that Vijayanagara is shipping soon — should be excellent for my new three-person group. Red Dust is eagerly anticipated, as is the seminal Space Empires AGT (sad to see the end, but what a great looking capstone!). I have Metz (sadly not gotten to the table yet…) but happy to see it getting a second edition.
I agree, the 194x must be the sequel to Salerno 43 and that is welcome; France 40 should be shipping soon too!
All in all, a great start to the year. Cheers, James
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Hello everyone. Great content and read, thank you for sharing. There’s one thing i’m not getting, though. Can someone tell me what will be the next COIN game to come out? Still don’t understand if it’s Red Dust Rebellion or China’s War. Which one will be Vol. XXII?
Thank you in advance.
Have fun, everyone!
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Red Dust Rebellion is next up and is Volume XII. Should be a few more months.
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Mr Luttmann doth quote Acker Dacker, maybe in the expansion he can have a reanimated Bon banging out ‘A Highway to Hell’ that incites the horrors into a frenzy and increases the damage they do! Played it in the last month and love what he designs.
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Nice.
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