I have been anxiously awaiting the Monthly Update this month as I know that they are going to be announcing several very interesting looking games prior to the end of the year…and this month didn’t disappoint. We got 2 games that I am very much excited about including one in the Irregular Conflicts Series, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite new series with games like A Gest of Robin Hood and Vijayanagara, and a new entry in the Labyrinth Series, which was one of the first games we played from GMT Games and is a system that we love and have played each volume numerous times. I am very eager to dive into those games more but also know that there are some others being announced soon as well. But we will have to wait for those!
There were 2 new P500 additions offered this month including Echo from the Dark and Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda, 1993-2001. There also were 2 reprints offered in I, Napoleon 2nd Printing and Skies Above Britain 2nd Printing.
But that wasn’t all as there was plenty of other information shared including updates on GMT One products, development updates, upcoming future P500 additions and the usual gorgeous art samples!
GMT Talk! The dynamic duo of Rachel and Luke Billingsley have been doing their GMT Talk thing for a while now and have a built a very good library of interviews with GMT designers such as Volko Ruhnke, Ted Raicer, Mark Herman, Dan Bullock and Joe Schmidt. They are also now adding these to downloadable Podcast formats. On Episode 10 of GMT Talk, Rachel and Luke and Gene chat with legendary designer Mark Herman. Well worth a listen!
If you’d like an audio-only version of recent episodes on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, click the links below:
We then got a look at the P500’s that are kind of languishing a bit and are in need of more orders. Here are those games:
We have interviews on our blog for Hannibal’s Revenge and Napoleon in Egypt that you can check out. I hate to see a game languish so give them a look!
GMT One – Jason Carrgave us some updates on several projects that are ongoing with the studio. These are his words:
Fields of Fire Deluxe Edition is at the printer, and the white sample was approved by Kai, so we’re just waiting for advance copies to arrive. If you’re waiting for the Deluxe Edition Update Kit, that will ship at the same time as the Deluxe Edition, and you can get a sense of the scope of the kit by checking out the counter guide that Andrew and Colin put together.
Similarly, we’re waiting for advance copies of In the Shadows. Once those advance copies arrive, we’ll post pictures on social media.
Solo development is about wrapped up for Bell of Treasonand China’s War with just the usual tweaks remaining as people continue to play for fun. Those two projects are entering the home stretch. Similarly, there isn’t much left to do for Cross Bronx Expressway, and we’re excited to get those done and printed.
We appear to be getting pretty close on several of these anticipated games. I am keenly interested in the last 4 discussed and am really looking forward to playing China’s War in particular as well as a Cross Bronx Expressway.
Big Status Update on Frank Chadwick’s ETO from Developer Alan Emrich – GMT doesn’t really say much about upcoming games that aren’t yet announced on the P500 list. But a few years ago, GMT committed to work with Alan Emrich (formerly with Victory Point Games) and Frank Chadwick on these WWII ETO games. Their design and development process is nearing completion now, and GMT has made some decisions about how it will be produced and published. Alan has all the details in his latest ETO Update on InsideGMT. If you have any interest in the ETOSeries or in WWII Operational/Strategic games in general, you’ll probably want to read this update. Check it out here!
SDHistCON Summit – As you may know, the SDHistCon Summit 2024 is just around the corner. We will be attending this year and look forward to 3 1/2 days of gaming and carousing with many of you. The San Diego Historical Boardgame Convention (SDHistCon), a gathering created by Harold Buchanan and his team, is a convention created by historical board gamers, for historical board gamers. SDHistCon Summit 2024 will be held Friday-Monday, November 8-11, 2023 in beautiful San Diego, CA. It will feature four full days of gaming and many guest designers, including numerous GMT team members. We are very much looking forward to attending and already have about 5 or 6 games lined up!
Now onto the main event with the new P500’s.
New P500’s
As mentioned above, there were 2 new P500 additions offered this month including Echo from the Dark and Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda, 1993-2001. There also were 2 reprints offered in I, Napoleon 2nd Printing and Skies Above Britain 2nd Printing.
Irregular Conflicts Series Volume 4: Echo from the Dark
In case you didn’t know, the Irregular Conflicts Series is a spin-off from the COIN Series and attempts to adapt the core mechanics to model different kinds of historical (and now non-historical) irregular conflicts beyond counterinsurgencies. The previous 3 announced volumes include Vijayanagara, which is a look at Medieval India and a struggle between the Delhi Sultanate, Bahmani Kingdom and Vijayanagara Empire, A Gest of Robin Hood which is an asymmetric fight between the forces of the Sheriff of Nottingham and Robin Hood and his Merry Men and Cross Bronx Expressway, which looks at the philosophical battle that raged between stakeholders in the 1970’s when the interstate cut through the city of New York. All of these games are based in history/myth and now we have a new volume that is a sci-fi epic called Echo from the Dark designed by Adam Blinkinsop.
From the game page, we read the following:
Echo from the Dark is the fourth game in the Irregular Conflicts Series, depicting an interstellar struggle between divergent factions after humanity discovers a material that allows for faster-than-light travel and communication. Players will use this material to deploy unique technologies that shape their faction identity across the course of the game, meaning that every playthrough is a unique experience. As they expand across the galaxy, the human population will follow, providing new incentives and opportunities. Eventually, their visions for the future will prove to be irreconcilable: only one player will be able to determine the fate of humanity.
Highlights:
A highly variable setup: Choose from a selection of different factions to arrange on a modular map. As the game goes on, players will discover valuable Salt and dangerous anomalies that further change the texture of the map.
A shifting population: At this scale, population grows, moves, and declines over time, encouraging factions to consider the longer-term ramifications of their actions.
Technology: Every round reveals a new technology that can be researched to shape each faction over the course of the game.
Unique non-player opposition: Aliens, artificial intelligence, and disease form some of the possible opposition factions that each act through their own special system.
Streamlined sequence of play: Every faction may act on every round, with smaller actions allowing a player better initiative in the next round. Player factions all have access to the same basic actions and can use researched Technology no matter what action they take.
Echo from the Dark is a streamlined take on the COIN/ICS formula, where each faction acts on every turn and the event deck is replaced with 48 unique Technologies for them to research. Setup is quick and easy, with a modular map and eight factions to choose from, providing a new experience every game.
All factions have the same set of actions available to them at the beginning of the game, plus a unique special bonus action that uses Salt. All factions have the same set of forces, the same collection of population markers, and the same way of choosing and paying for actions. They also have the same access to Technology, gated only by presence on the map.
This is a lot more to read about the game but it looks so very interesting and I have been following its design over the past year or so after seeing a few pictures of the game in action at Circle Con put on by Fort Circle Games (which we are hoping to attend in 2025!)
If you are interested in Irregular Conflicts Series Volume 4: Echo from the Dark, you can pre-order a copy for $85.00 from the P500 game page at the following link: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-1144-echo-from-the-dark.aspx
Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda, 1993-2001
We love Labyrinth and have played each of the expansions many times. We love it and I am very much interested in this new expansion, which is a prequel of sorts called The Rise of Al-Qaeda, 1993-2001. Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001-? is just such as juicy and amazing asymmetrical Card Driven Game that pits the mighty and powerful United States military and all of its various antiterrorist agencies against the Jihadists in the Middle East whose sole goal is to spread terror, sow the seeds of deceit and ultimately destroy Western civilization.
From the game page, we read the following:
Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda, 1993 – 2001 is the third expansion for Volko Ruhnke’s acclaimed Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001 – ?, a 1-2 player card-driven boardgame depicting the geopolitical struggle in the Middle East between revolutionary Islamists (mostly Salafist) on the one hand (represented by the “Jihadist” player) and the US-led West plus their supported regimes on the other (represented by the “Coalition” player).
This is the prequel to the original game, but it builds on the more sophisticated mechanics provided by its first sequel, Labyrinth: The Awakening. The Rise of Al-Qaeda requires ownership of Labyrinth to play, but it is a full expansion in its own right—you don’t need a copy of Awakening. It can be played with the base game alone to provide a satisfying experience, but it’s also possible to use it as part of a “campaign” spanning all of the expansions.
I very much enjoy this conapt of a large campaign merging all of the various expansions together in a large ongoing game. I can see Alexander and I spending an entire weekend playing this and just can’t wait!
The Rise of Al-Qaeda takes the series back in time to cover the period following the World Trade Center bombing, mere weeks into Bill Clinton’s first term, and invites players to compare the dynamics of this earlier period. Despite some obvious differences in how the US fought against Islamist terrorism in the 1990s, the Labyrinth series mechanics are a perfect fit for the era given their strategic, geopolitical scope.
As a series, Labyrinth has always been about the bigger picture—as much a game about the insurgencies that have raged across an unstable region as combating terrorism per se. With hindsight, this is not surprising: we can now see that an ambiguity between counterterrorism and counterinsurgency lay at the heart of Bush Jr’s “Global War on Terror,” and also that Russia and China have faced a similar blurring of boundaries in their conflicts with Islamist groups.
As such, The Rise of Al-Qaeda uses the same rules, victory conditions, map, components, and charts as the other games in the series not because the system has forced this as a constraint on the design, but because the existing ruleset fits the period so well: the Coalition player seeks to wipe the Jihadists’ cells off the map, establish Good Governance in enough countries, and secure more Resources than the Jihadist. The Jihadist player still wins by securing a sufficient Resource base, reducing enough of the region to Poor Governance, or by mounting a major terror attack on the US homeland.
The operations of both sides followed similar patterns—the Coalition will still Disrupt cells, and the Jihadist player will still place Plots and carry out Jihads. “Regime Change” may be a phrase for the future, but the US military is actively nation-building in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo and very recently deployed to defeat Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. It’s harder to achieve the Posture needed to overthrow an Islamist Rule, and the world won’t be as ready to accept such a Hard power approach, but it remains possible in extremis.
I do think that there have been a lot changes to the game and you don’t need to worry about it feeling the same there are new dynamics included from the era. As with the other expansions, The Rise of Al-Qaeda provides players with new Event Cards and rules relevant to the period covered, as well as several new components that expand its strategic model.
In The Rise of Al-Qaeda, the Coalition player still represents the US-led West but one operating much more through the United Nations than American unilateralism. The “Global War on Terror” track remains a key mechanic and still represents the Coalition’s ability to work multilaterally in pursuit of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency efforts. The Coalition player still has to navigate between “Hard” and “Soft” power strategies but will face the challenge of operating in a predominantly “Soft” power world whilst the US military is committed in Bosnia and Somalia.
The Jihadist player still represents a disparate, international movement of revolutionary Islamists but one not yet symbolically united behind the leadership of Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda. Alongside their internationally mobile cells, the Jihadist player will have to work with local guerrilla pieces—which can’t move but will contribute to Civil Wars and “Jihad” operations.
The result is a set of modifications giving players a new experience with the Labyrinth system, appropriate to the different era of the 1990s. More than this, though, several of the new systems can readily be brought “forward” in time, into the later games, should players wish.
Sometimes a game is designed that creates a new experience. Creates a new paradigm about what games can be and how they can help you experience a historical situation. A few years ago, I, Napoleon from GMT Games was announced and it was marketed as a historical role-playing game. Not with polyhedral dice, magic and dragons but more as a “choose your own adventure” style of game where you could make choices about the life of Napoleon Bonaparte as he made his way to infamy from his humble beginnings as an artillery officer, to staging a coup d’état in 1799 and becoming First Consul and then to dominating much of Europe and being crowned as Emperor of the French Empire. This was the promise of I, Napoleon and I was very much intrigued by the concept but more importantly about how this game planned to do just that.
As you probably know, normally Ted Raicer designs hard core hex and counter wargames such as The Dark Valley: East Front Campaign, 1941-45, The Dark Sands: War in North Africa, 1940-42 and The Dark Summer: Normandy ,1944. These games are fantastic experiences that are true wargames. But, he also has an eclectic side to him and has designed one of the classic card driven games on the subject of World War I in Paths of Glory. So when I heard that he was designing this interesting looking card based historical role-playing game the first thought that came to my mind was “How is he going to accomplish this feat?” And recently, I was finally able to get the game to the table for a few plays and I want to let you know that this one is good. I am not good at it, and still haven’t really made it past First Consul, but I have enjoyed what it is doing.
From the game page, we read the following:
I, Napoleon is a solitaire historical role-playing card game in which you step into the boots of Captain Buonoparte (as he still was) in the year 1793. Louis XVI has just gone to the guillotine, the brothers Robespierre control the destiny of France, and all Europe has joined French Royalists to take down France, end the Revolution, and restore peace and safety for the hereditary principles that have underlain society for 1,000 years.
As an ambitious but unknown young artillery officer, who speaks French with a Corsican accent, you would seem to be an unlikely agent of destiny. Can you harness a brilliant mind, titanic energies, and a sometimes terrifying charisma to leave your mark on history? Or will you die a minor footnote in the story of France?
In I, Napoleon, your fate lies in 220 beautifully illustrated cards, divided into three decks: Commander, First Consul, and Emperor. Overlaying a map of early 19th Century Europe are a series of Card Boxes, where you play out the events of your life and career, along with various tracks and tables to record the yearly passage of time and the events affecting yourself and France. The choices you make with the cards you are dealt will determine success or failure. You will have to manage politics, military campaigns, diplomacy, and the domestic well-being of the French while pursuing the Glory that lures you on. You will also have to manage your family, your wives, your mistresses, and your children, legitimate and otherwise.
Your path may lead you from the Americas to the Near East, from Spain to Russia, from a throne to exile. You will be the target of assassins, coups, and coalitions. You will deal with bad harvests and plague, face Wellington and Nelson, Kutuzov and Blucher. You will rely on—and perhaps be betrayed by—the slippery Talleyrand and unleash the secret policemen Fouche on your opponents. As you progress, your options will increase, along with the stakes.
Lead your men into battle and risk an early end to your life? Sail to Egypt or Ireland? Sell Louisiana or send an army to hold it? Marry a Habsburg or a Romanov? Create the Duchy of Warsaw or revive the Kingdom of Poland? Invade Russia or try to pacify the Tsar? Every choice will affect your legacy.
But there is not one version of a life here, but many. Every game will provide a different narrative, based on both luck of the draw and the decisions you make. In addition, you can start the game as a Commander, as First Consul, or as Emperor, each with its own starting situation and challenges. The story is yours to discover, and the decisions you make may just change the course of history.
I have played the game and have very much enjoyed it. It is not perfect, and takes a bit of patience as you have to continually build the deck by adding and removing cards each year, but is very interesting.
After we played Skies Above the Reich in 2018 we both were hooked on this system and looked forward to the next volume in the series Storm Above the Reich. The next volume in the series from Jerry White, now teamed with Gina Willis, that uses the system to cover the Battle of Britain from the Allies perspective as the player now controls a Royal Air Force squadron of Hurricanes and Spitfires fighting off the Luftwaffe as they attempt to bomb southeast England.
From the game page we read the following:
Skies Above Britain is a solitaire game depicting a Royal Air Force squadron of Hurricanes or Spitfires waging a desperate effort to disrupt and destroy German daylight bombing raids over southeast England in the summer of 1940. The player’s individual aircraft—each represented by a stickered block—must locate the incoming raid, intercept it, and evade or defeat swarms of escorting German fighters that usually outnumber you and whose pilots have superior experience and tactics. The game simulates the dogfighting and fighter-vs.-bomber action at an individual aircraft level using a card-assisted system that simulates key tactical decision-making without losing the feel of fast-paced aerial combat. A player can fly scenarios representing an individual patrol or use the patrol generator to create an endless variety of realistic individual patrols, multi-patrol campaigns, or larger campaigns covering the entire Battle of Britain. Each patrol will take a half hour or more to play, while a campaign can last anywhere between 6 and 28 patrols.
One of the features that I have always enjoyed about these Monthly Updates has been the New P500’s on the Horizon segment 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 Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda was teased last month as “A prequel to one of our Top 10 All-time best-selling games.” And Echo from the Dark has been previewed several times, most recently last month as “Something new for our ICS series.” 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:
THREE new Combat Commander products! – Combat Commander: Spanish Civil War, Combat Commander: Pacific Islands and Combat Commander: Afghanistan. I got this information from Kai Jensen and I still feel bad about it because I feel like I was not above board. With that being said, I cannot wait to get these to the table!
A new series game from Ben Hull – Fields of Fire First World War. Oh yes! Alexander will be a very happy man with this one!
A massively cool Sci-Fi Game Experience from Sam London – Microverse. We played this one at SDHistCon last November and had a great time. See the modular board below.
Another “governing” game from Paul Hellyer, designer of Prime Minister – The system is going to Mother Russia with Tsar.
I really feel like I have knocked this one out of the park. I think that I am 4-4 with 2 doubles, 1 HR and 7 RBI. How did I do Gene?
Charging & Shipping
The following information for Charging and Shipping was copied directly from the Update:
Charging October 28. Shipping first week of November. This shipment will include:
Next Charges/Shipments: The next shipment should arrive at the warehouse in later November or early December. We’ll let you know details in the November customer update.
To avoid any delays in your game shipment, please make sure you’ve updated your charge cards on our website before we charge. If you use the “Pay by Check” P500 option, please send your checks in to arrive by the charge dates. Thanks!
Here also is a bit of a note from Kai Jensen with an update on her work with the Production Schedule:
We are unwinding the tangled ball of string that the production queue looked like in the “more than a month out” category and have a much better view of how the projects line up now. As we are still making some shifts internally with respect to the responsibilities of various team members, I don’t want to make predictions for what that long-term line-up looks like just yet. While we are making these changes, I am also seeking to better define the categories to provide a more accurate look at the production pipeline so you can track your favorite games from P500 announcement all the way to arrival at the warehouse. (That’s my hand-off point, so Gene will take it from there to let you know about the charging and shipping, as always.) Thank you for continued patience as we work to improve our reporting on the production cycle! – Kai
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. There is not near as much as normally but what they showed was pretty amazing!
The first item they shared was the final cover for the upcoming The Bell of Treason designed by Petr Mojžíš. I like the cover but I am not sure we needed Hitler on the front. Not really a big thing but sometimes I just don’t know why we have to highlight the negative when there are other great leaders on both sides that we could showcase.
We next got a look at several different components from Baltic Empires: The Northern Wars of 1558-1721 designed by Brian Asklev. We saw some sample units, which look really great and also some of the Dramatis Personae Cards. These are illustrated by Nils Johansson and look just fantastic!
The first units we were shown were the different nations Cavalry Units.
We then got a look at different Infantry Units. As the period covered by the game is during the Musket and Pike era, we see lots of polearms and arquebusiers.
For what seems like an age ago, this one was announced and was described in that announcement as “…an approachable 2-5 player strategy game about conflicts between the states of the Baltic region during the early modern era, a transformative period of religious conflict, large scale warfare, and constant struggles for power. Players will have to develop their economy, strengthen their administration, secure trade hubs, and finally build armies to become the dominant power of the Baltics”.
I don’t know about you guys and gals but when I read that a wargame includes all of those elements in one box I sit up and take notice. Any war must be supported by a robust economy as well as by great commanders leading well trained and disciplined troops on the battlefield. They go hand in hand but are so often overlooked or not included in a good wargame. Not to mention that my father’s maternal line comes through Lithuania as my grandmother’s family name was Orlak and I have roughly 26% Baltic DNA in my makeup. We agreed to host q series of quick articles on the History Behind the Cards involved in the game, which are called the Dramatis Personae Cards. Each turn, 5 Dramatis Personae Cards are randomly drawn from the deck and become available for purchase by the players in the Production phase. These cards have a wide variety of effects, but can be broadly divided into 4 types: those that have permanent effects, those that have one-time effects, those that affect victory conditions, and those that provide a special leader unit. Here we get a look at a few of these finished cards and they look really good.
You can check out these posts by following the below links:
We were also given the following update from Brian Asklev:
Baltic Empires is progressing nicely. The standard 2-5 player game is done at this point, but along the way we got the bright idea of adding scenarios each covering a specific war. The game now includes three additional scenarios: Scanian War (1675-1679), Time of Troubles (1606-1613), and Great Northern War (1700-1721)—each with their own setups and victory conditions. It was a blast designing these scenarios and seeing just how versatile the Baltic Empires engine is. Besides having a vastly different map situation, these scenarios also have a shorter playing time and are easier to play with lower player counts. Work on the final art by Nils Johansson is also ongoing, and the results so far are truly spectacular, promising to set a new standard in the boardgame industry for the use of period artwork and styles.
We then got a look at the near final counters from the Combat Commander Minor NationsBattle Pack.
I’m pleased to give an update on China’s War 1937-41. Playtesting was completed some time ago, and we’ve signed off on map art, counter art, and Event Card graphics. Final touches on the non-player system and tutorial scenario have been made thanks to the assistance of GMT One’s crack testing squad, and now there will be final formatting of rules book, playbook, and player aids. With luck, this game should be printed in early 2025. Thanks to COVID and various life events, this game has had a relatively long development period for me, and I’m happy to see it come out, thanks to the invaluable work of Jason Carr and Joe Dewhurst.
We then went back to The Bell of Treason and got a look at several sample cards. I like the simplicity of the design and the colors are nice as well. I think that this game could be pretty good and am very much looking forward to playing it.
We were then given a look at the Strategic Map for Next War: Taiwan 2nd Edition.
We then got the following small update from the developer Peter Evans Veteran:
Artist Don Hegarty has been working hard over the summer bringing Jules Félisaz’s vision to life with the map board for 1848: The Springtime of Nations. We’re really pleased with the direction Don’s taken with this and are thrilled to be able to share an advanced draft version with you today! This isn’t final art but probably something close to it—the artwork and placement of the Battle of Ideas track for example is very much a placeholder for now. We hope you approve as much as we do!
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:
The Players' Aid 
Avidly looking forward to China’s War, In the Shadows (resistance warfare slowly getting its due) and 1848.
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