It seems that things are continuing full steam ahead at GMT Games. They just keep churning out new games and giving us plenty of information to make decisions about their products and that is one of the things that sets them apart in the wargaming hobby. This month, we got a host of good info and with some new games, announcements about upcoming digital games and more.
There were 2 new P500 additions offered this month including Over the Hills and Far Away: Bayonet & Muskets Series Volume II and Red Storm: Southern Flank. There also was 1 reprint offered in The Last Hundred Yards 3rd Printing.
But that wasn’t all as there was plenty of other information shared including updates on GMT One products, development updates, new digital games news, upcoming future P500 additions and the usual gorgeous art samples!
One of the first items shared by Gene this month was information about the death of one of GMT’s “family” members in Carla Horger co-designer of Thunder Alley and the wife of Jeff Horger. Here is more information:
Here at GMT, we build rich relationships with our co-workers and fellow team members while we work together to create great games. So it’s always a shock to our systems when a team member passes. Last month it was Alan Emrich who left us suddenly, leaving a hole among his friends at GMT and in the broader gaming community. And this month, the GMT family is mourning the recent sudden passing of Carla Horger, co-designer with her husband Jeff of our Thunder AlleySeries of racing games. As Jeff noted on our GMT Facebook Group: “Carla loved all the guys at GMT Games. She cherished her acceptance into the community.” And we cherished her as well. Both her talent and her spirit will be missed.
I don’t think that I need to say this but as we all age, and I am now officially nearing senior citizen territory as I recently turned 52, we will begin to lose people who are important to us in our lives. This is a sad part of our mortal experience here on Earth and something that we all need to understand and embrace. My heart goes out to Jeff in this difficult time and I would remind him not to focus on the loss, but to focus on the good times and memories of Carla as they will bring peace to his mind! We are with you Jeff!
Always tough to transition from this type of news to gaming news but here we go.
Rebel Fury on Steam
A few months ago, we learned that we would be getting a digital adaptation on Steam of the fantastic Civil War Heritage Series Volume I Rebel Fury.
The work on the digital version of Rebel Fury is wrapping up, with the focus now on final AI improvements and refinements to the tutorials. The expected release date is February 27th, assuming no issues are found. If you’d like to be notified when the game is released, be sure to add it to your Steam wish list. If you’re interested in exploring the development of the rules, consider the Mark Herman Rebel Fury bundle—it will include the RBM Studio’s Gettysburg and Waterloo games published in C3i Magazine as well as Rebel Fury at a 20% discount. If you already own one of the other games, don’t worry, you’ll only pay for games you don’t already have, but you’ll still get the bundle discount. Once the game is launched, you’ll see the offer for the bundle when you visit the Steam store page for Rebel Fury at https://store.steampowered.com/app/3072160/Rebel_Fury/
This is a low complexity, low counter density system that is very much focused on maneuver and positioning of forces on the American Civil War battlefields and is really fun to play. The game has done very well and been a hit and they recently announced a 2nd Printing. If you are interested, here is a look at our video review for Rebel Fury:
Digital Version of Mr. President
Continuing along with this digital adaptation theme, we got news that Mr. President is also getting its own digital offering. It was announced this month that Exia Labs is publishing a Digital Version of the award-winning boardgame Mr. President for PC’s also on Steam.
From Gene, we get the following remarks:
We are tremendously fired up about this! You’d probably imagine that personally I’m keen to see a digital treatment of a game that consumed about nine years of my life! And that’s certainly true, but there’s more. I’m excited about the QUALITY of team members that Exia has brought to this project. They have definitely brought the heavy-hitters to this one—a tremendous group of experienced game coders, interface designers, artists, and professional producers. Check out the last part of this article in GamesBeat where they lay out some of the backgrounds of the various team members (team members with experience on Call of Duty, League of Legends, and Apex Legends, to name just a few).I honestly never imagined we’d be lucky or blessed enough to get to work with a crew this skilled and this experienced to bring digital Mr. President to life.
And the best news (for me and for all of us, I think) is that they hired Ananda Gupta—massively experienced and accomplished as both a computer game producer (most recently at Riot Games) and an incredible boardgame designer—to work with their team as lead designer on the digital game. Ananda has been the bridge between me as the boardgame designer and the team of UI and gameplay coders that he is leading at Exia (THEY are doing all the heavy lifting—I’m mostly advising and making sure they’re up to speed with 2nd Edition Mr. President). And it is AWESOME to get to work with him and all the team at Exia as we bring what is certainly my magnum opus game design to the digital world on Steam.
We then got the following comments from Ananda:
Hi everyone – I’m Ananda Gupta, co-designer of Twilight Struggle and Imperial Struggle for GMT. Some of you also know I work in the video game industry, at Riot Games—there, I work on Riot’s top strategy game, Teamfight Tactics. I’ve never been much of a solo boardgamer, but Mr. President really caught my imagination with its scope, ambition, and variety. So, when some Riot alumni founded Exia Labs and wanted to collaborate on a meaty political sim for PC, Mr. President came immediately to my mind.
One of the things I love about both GMT and Riot is how player-focused they are. I feel lucky to be connected to game-makers who put the player at the center of everything they do. And when I read what players have to say about Mr. President, they see what I see—an ambitious and immersive sandbox sim about being POTUS, but one that’s hard to get into. From table space to chasing down rules to curating the Crisis deck for each scenario, there are barriers in paper that a well-executed digital version can sweep away.
As with any game project, the fate of digital Mr. President is in the hands of you, the players. If you’re interested in a PC version of Mr. President, please visit our Steam page and add it to your wishlist. This won’t cost you anything—it’s an even smaller commitment than a P500 preorder—but it will help bring Mr. President to a wider audience so they too can enjoy the game!
I can attest that the game is very interesting and unique as Alexander and I played together cooperatively a year and a half ago (2023) and I have posted a First Impressions written post on the blog.
Here is also a link to our initial impressions video on the game:
Winter/Spring Sale
We got the following short update from Gene on the upcoming Winter Sale:
We’re waiting to announce an exact sale date until we finish shipping our current huge batch of P500 orders. Our plan at this point is to have the sale—likely sometime in March—about 7-10 days after we finish shipping the P500’s (so the warehouse folks have time to ship the distributor and store copies of the games). We will update you on timing either in next month’s newsletter or in a special Sale email if the sale is going to happen earlier in March. What I can tell you now is:
the sale will last for a week, and
it will be for EVERYONE, not just for P500 orderers like our yearly sale is.
The discount will be slightly less (40%), but everyone can participate and there will be no limits on quantities ordered as long as stock lasts.
I said this a few months ago when this was first brought up but this is a great chance for us to get great games at a deep discount but also to help GMT as they maneuver the difficulties they are experiencing right now. If we support them, as I know that we all do, they will continue to remain strong and be able to continue making the games that we crave!
Playtesters/Help Wanted!
As you know, GMT uses their Monthly Update to communicate about many things and ongoing projects. One of the ways they use the Update is that they aske for volunteers to assist with the playtesting of their ongoing projects. The following projects and design teams currently need extra testers. If you are interested in helping out, please contact the team members for the game you are interested in at the links below.
Microverse. Designer Sam London is asking for testers for Microverse, which is a cool and fast playing 4X space game. The game uses hex tiles that are laid out to create the board which includes unexplored areas of space that contain planets that can be colonized, dead space, asteroid fields, wormholes and super novas. Testing will be via TTS and Discord. Please sign up here if you’d like to help out.
GMT One Development Update – Jason Carr
We also got the following updates from Jason Carr, the head of the GMT One studio on several ongoing projects.
The main focus on the development side of the house at GMT has been streamlining our development pipeline to send games to the printer on a more regular cadence. Just in this last month we have sent ten games to the printer (3 new games and 7 reprints)! We have a solid pipeline of new games to send to the printer over the next month as well—Hubris, China’s War,Cross Bronx Expressway, and Combat Commander 20th Anniversary Edition, plus a few more by the end of the quarter. We don’t expect to continue at this rate into Q2; some of this glut is due to the large number of reprints of Space Empires and Combat Commander and their expansions/Battle Packs that were printed. But we do expect to consistently deliver multiple new games to the printer each month.
This streamlining has come with a focus on games that are ready for art and have the most orders. If you read the updates (in the Designer Updates Section) below you will see a few places where games are ready for artwork but just don’t have enough orders to get prioritized for art. As we explain on our “How does Project 500 work?” page, we generally start artwork and layout around 750 orders. So games like Napoleon in Egypt, which is done with development and ready for artwork, sometimes have to wait to get the orders that they need to justify art. This is not a perfect formula: sometimes games get a component or two done for marketing the game or for playtesting purposes before they hit 750 orders. And sometimes games with many more orders are not ready to move into art because they are still being developed or for personal circumstances with our designers. But hopefully this helps make a bit of sense about how we are prioritizing projects.
With all of those items being shared, it is now time to take a look at the meat of the update; the new P500 offerings!
New P500’s
As mentioned above, there were 2 new P500 additions offered this month including Over the Hills and Far Away: Bayonet & Muskets Series Volume II and Red Storm: Southern Flank. There also was 1 reprint offered in The Last Hundred Yards 3rd Printing.
Over the Hills and Far Away: Bayonet & Muskets Series, Volume II
While attending the World Boardgaming Championships a few years ago, we had the chance to interview many designers about their current and upcoming projects. One designer that Alexander always seeks out is Ben Hull who has designed such games as Fields of Fire, This Accursed Civil War and Sweden Fights On. At WBC, Ben discussed his new Bayonet & Musket Series and the first game called Banish All Their Fears and we were both very intrigued with the subject and the approach of the design. Now they have a new volume in the series upcoming called Over the Hills and Far Away.
From the game page, we read the following:
The Bayonet & MusketSeries is a tactical system that covers the most important battles of the late 1600’s and early 1700’s with an emphasis on battlefield command and the military changes brought about by the abrupt dominance of firepower. Infantry units are battalions, cavalry units are regiments, and artillery units are batteries.
Volume II provides the same level of historical research and analysis as its predecessor and contains these two battles:
Steenkirk, August 3, 1692, War of the League of Augsburg. English King William III takes command of the Allied army in Flanders and launches a surprise attack against the Duke of Luxembourg’s French army encamped near the village of Steenkirk.
The French are caught completely flat-footed, and the Allied attack, led by the English and Scots Guards, drives through the first three lines of French defenses. But Luxembourg refuses to panic and stands his ground until the initial Allied attack, strangely un-supported, is halted and King William’s army forced to retreat.
Steenkirk includes two scenarios, one for the historical battle and another that supposes a more aggressive, better coordinated Allied assault.
Ramillies, May 23, 1706, War of the Spanish Succession. Urged by King Louis XIV to avenge the French defeat at Blenheim two years before, French Marshal Villeroi marches to engage the Duke of Marlborough in Flanders. Villeroi’s army contains some of France’s best regiments, including the French and Swiss Guards and the elite Maison du Roi, and occupies a line of high ground anchored on a series of stout villages. “Have a particular care to receive the first shock of the English troops,” warns King Louis, but in vain as an undaunted Marlborough attacks and wins a sweeping victory, routing the French army and capturing most of the Spanish Netherlands—modern-day Belgium—in the aftermath.
Ramillies includes two scenarios, one for the historical deployment and another that allows players free deployment to better keep an eye on the valiant redcoats.
Cold War Gone Hot games are very popular right now and one that is based on an iconic system (the Downtown Series) is going to make it even more popular. Such is the case with Red Storm: Southern Flank which is the 2nd addition to the Red Storm family since it was announced in 2021. Unfortunately, we have yet to get this series played but after getting our first taste of Next War late last year, we have identified Red Storm as our next milestone.
From the game page, we read the following:
Red Storm: Southern Flank includes two full expansion modules—one covering southern Germany (Red Storm: Bavaria) and one covering northern Italy and Yugoslavia (Red Storm: Adriatic). Together, these two expansions greatly expand the original Red Storm game, providing players new air forces, with unique aircraft types and variants, and adding aircraft to air forces already represented in the original Red Storm game.
Players will deploy these forces on new maps across more than fifty scenarios, including solo and campaign scenarios, confronted by new ground and naval forces—all based on the same detailed, but playable, operational air warfare rules pioneered by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood’s acclaimed Downtown game system.
In addition to Red Storm veterans like the MiG-21, MiG-23, Su-22, F-15, F-16, and Tornado, many new aircraft appear. New NATO aircraft types include the Mirage 2000, Mirage F1, Mirage IIIE, Mirage IVP, C-160 Gabriel, F-8E(FN) Crusader, Etendard IV, Super Etendard, C-130 Hercules, OV-10 Bronco, AH-64 Apache, UH-60 Blackhawk, FB-111A Aardvark, EF-18A Hornet, AV-8S Matador, F-104S, G.91, MB.339, G.222, and PD.808. New Warsaw Pact types include the Su-7 Fitter, LZ-39A Albatross, Mi-24 Hind, Su-15 Flagon, and MiG-31 Foxhound. Finally, for Yugoslavia the J-21 Jastreb, J-22 Orao, G-4 Super Galeb, and G-2 Galeb are available.
The Red Storm: Bavaria expansion adds the air forces of France, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Italy to the game system. Featuring a two-map play area encompassing southern Germany and parts of western Czechoslovakia and Austria, Red Storm: Bavaria includes 22 new core scenarios, one new campaign scenario, and four new solo scenarios. From air superiority sweeps, close air support missions, deep strike raids, helicopter operations, airborne drops, and nuclear weapon attacks, this expansion delivers true “meat and potatoes” Red Storm action, with the new combatants and forces fighting over the rugged Bavarian battlefield.
The Red Storm: Adriatic expansion takes the air war to a unique and rarely simulated theater. While the main combatants are the air forces of Italy, the United States, and the Soviet Union, the expansion also adds the air forces of Spain and Yugoslavia to the Red Storm game system. As a mixed air and maritime theater, the expansion provides all the rules and counters needed for scenarios involving NATO and Yugoslav naval forces operating in the northern Adriatic, including the naval air elements of the Italian, French, Yugoslavian, and Spanish navies. Red Storm: Adriatic provides another 22 core scenarios, a campaign scenario, and four solo scenarios covering the operations in this area, including air superiority sweeps, long-range strikes, airborne operations, convoy raids, amphibious assault support, close air support missions, and more.
One of the parts of the design that I really like is that players have to plan both their air and ground forces prior to a scenario. Raid forces must be generated, targets and routes mapped, and aircraft loadouts determined. SAM, AAA, and radar units must be placed. Both sides have to figure out how to handle the rough terrain and frequently poor weather of central Germany. This one looks very interesting and while we have yet to play Red Storm: The Air War Over Central Germany, 1987, we are going to look at getting it to the table this year.
You can check out our unboxing video of the 1st Printing of Red Storm: The Air War Over Central Germany, 1987 at the following link:
*Important: Play of the expansions requires ownership of the original Red Storm: The Air War over Central Germany, 1987 game. All other rules, counters, charts, and materials needed for play are provided, including the full set of naval rules and counters first introduced in Red Storm: Baltic Approaches. In total, Red Storm: Southern Flank adds 54 new scenarios, four maps, 560 new counters, and many new aircraft and data charts to further explore a potential air war in 1987 between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
The Last Hundred Yards 3rd Printing
If you didn’t know we really enjoyed The Last Hundred Yards. The system is very interesting and uses some novel elements in regards to how victory points are scored. Really an excellent system! They have a 3rd Printing that they are adding to the P500 and in my opinion the fact that the first 2 printings sold out should be a sign to you about how good this system really is!
From the game page, we read the following:
The Last Hundred Yards is unlike any tactical wargame published to date. It introduces innovative systems intended to model Small Unit Behavior in Combat during WW2. It is fun, fast-paced, and provides a very good simulation of what it was like to command combat units at the platoon or company level. The game is purposely designed to deliver a brisk yet intensive gaming experience that forces many decisions upon you as you take command of an infantry company in Western Europe after the D-Day landings.
Here’s a look at the major innovations and the designer’s thinking behind the systems featured in The Last Hundred Yards:
Initiative and Advantage: In The Last Hundred Yards only the player winning the initiative has a proactive game turn; his opponent is limited to reaction only. Generally, the attacker has the initiative or momentum at the beginning of a small unit combat as the result of plans and preparation, so he generally dictates the action. The defender will generally react to the attacker’s actions, hoping at some point to blunt or take away the attacker’s momentum. This is represented in The Last Hundred Yards by player advantage and the importance of winning the initiative.
Simultaneous vs Sequential: In small unit combat, things are happening simultaneously. In an attack on an enemy position, some units of a formation provide cover fire to suppress the enemy, while other units maneuver against the enemy position. These actions take place simultaneously. But, in most current tactical games, opportunity fire is sequential and is typically represented by the Phasing Player moving a unit or stack of units a single hex at a time, giving the non-phasing player an opportunity to fire. Then he moves into the next hex, again giving the non-phasing player an opportunity to fire, etc. Once he has finished moving one unit or stack of units, he selects another and repeats the process until he has moved all of his units. Not only is this very time consuming, but it’s often unrealistic as well. First, the phasing player can adjust his move depending on the opportunity fire result. In reality, all these things are happening at the same time. Each player’s units would be moving and firing simultaneously and may not know or see where the enemy maneuvered. In The Last Hundred Yards, simultaneous movement and opportunity fire are modeled primarily through the Action/Reaction Cycle and Fire Mechanics.
Action/Reaction Cycle: “Where there is action there is always a reaction.” In The Last Hundred Yards, the Action/Reaction Cycle is the engine and the heart of the game. The Player winning the Initiative is the active player. He conducts actions (fire, maneuver, or recover) with the units of the active platoon. After all units of the active platoon have completed their actions, units of the non-active player may react (fire, maneuver, recover or do nothing) to units of the active player if units of the active player conducted actions in their LOS. Once the non-active player completes his reactions, the active player may react in turn to those units of the non-active player that conducted actions in their LOS. Or, the active player may instead activate the next platoon, repeating the cycle. A key aspect is that unless a unit sees an enemy unit conduct an action in his LOS he may not react. In essence, units that saw no action will most likely do nothing as they were most likely to hold their position until notified otherwise.
Fire Mechanics: Fire mechanics in The Last Hundred Yards are based on the premise that during the short span of a few minutes in a game turn, fire is focused on a specific enemy unit as it fires or maneuvers. To reflect this, DRM markers are used to represent the enemy unit or units under fire and the amount of fire power placed on them. A different color DRM marker is used for each type of fire (green for small arms fire, yellow for anti-tank fire and red for indirect fire). Note that neither player will see the results of his fire until the Fire Resolution Phase occurring after all platoons of the active player have been activated. The following Fire Resolution is extremely fast and simple. The firing player rolls a single sided 10 die for each of his DRM markers in play, adding or subtracting the DRM of this DRM marker to the die roll, then comparing it to the defensive value of the enemy unit. Combat results are Disruptions or Casualty Reductions.
Tank Combat: Tank combat at this scale is the most difficult aspect of modeling small unit combat. In most tactical games, vehicle combat usually has taken the form of defensive fire or motion activity by the targeted vehicle during the “I go” player’s turn. But there are some problems with this approach. First, defensive fire suffers from the “perfect knowledge” problem. The targeted vehicle always spots the menace. Sometimes, even often, the target vehicle has no opportunity to fire at its assailant for the simple reason that the crew of the target vehicle does not know the enemy is there. One cannot see much out of a buttoned-up tank on a battlefield erupting with booming explosions and the life-threatening zip of high velocity shells. The tank that kills yours is often one that was never seen. Second, humans do not possess vision thru 360 degrees. The act of “looking all around” takes time and in that time, a projectile may be on its way to kill your vehicle. Looking right means you are not looking left for a segment of time and in that time segment death may come your way. So in The Last Hundred Yards, the traditional defensive fire concept has been replaced with a reaction sequence that might allow the target vehicle to escape its hunter, and, in some cases, turn the hunted into the hunter.
Winning the Game: In each mission or operation, an attacking player must achieve a specific objective. Once accomplished, the attacking player’s score is based on the time required to complete the mission, additional mission objective points, and the casualty differential between the sides. The mission objective points and the casualty differential are added or subtracted from the time required to complete the objective. Based on the final score, the attacker will either win, lose or draw.
Simplicity of Rules: The rulebook for The Last Hundred Yards should be less than 20 pages. Any veteran wargamer will appreciate the brevity of the rules and the elegance of the game systems. The designer has created a relatively short set of rules, using simple but innovative solutions to capture the concepts of tactical wargaming well. As a result, The Last Hundred Yards is a fairly simple game to play…although it is challenging to master.
You really can’t go wrong with a good tactical system and this one is definitely truly interesting and would be a good game for those that like the minutiae of small squad tactical engagements.
Here is a link to our review video for The Last Hundred Yards:
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 Over the Hills and Far Away was teased last month as “A new battle game set in the late 17th/early 18th century.” 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 game set in Southeast Asia – oh man. I am excited about this but have no idea at this time.
Something new from Volko – hhhhm I am not sure on this one but it could be the new Recon Series Volume II called Drachen—Reconnaissance at Verdun, 1916.
Combat Commander goes to a new WWII Theatre – I know that this might be a stretch but could this be Combat Commander: Spanish Civil War?
A new 194x game from Mark Simonitch – this could be Anzio ’44.
How did I go Gene? I could be 0-4, 1-4 or even possibly 2-4. But, I actually feel like I was right with at least 2 of my guesses. But who knows?
Charging & Shipping
The following information for Charging and Shipping was copied directly from the Update:
Charges/Shipments. The following items are shipping now:
GMT estimates it will take about 5 weeks to complete all the P500 shipments for this huge batch of games. After these games are all shipped, they are going to have the March Sale. After that is finished, they will get back to charging and shipping P500 games. Currently, they anticipate the next charge will be in late March for the following P500 item:
It’s still possible, if another shipment arrives during the next month, that they will add more games to this shipment. They will keep us updated online and in the March newsletter.
Designer/Developer Updates
I also wanted to share a few of the project updates that were included in the email as they are just chock full of great information.
The final print run for CC: Europe and CC: Mediterranean are underway at the moment. The second printing of CC: Resistance was sent in at the same time. The CC 20th Anniversary Edition is in the final stages of layout. The rulebook remains the same, but the playbook has been extended to include all scenarios, charts, and tables for Europe and Med, the full Random Scenario Generator, and the point values and Chad’s advice for DIY scenario building. The minor nation unit and weapon images have been placed in their scenarios.
Because the print protocols have changed over the years, I am redoing the layout of the 440 cards to bring the art files up to modern standards. The 24 map files all got checked over in detail to be sure there were no missing layers. As there was a bit of overlap in the countersheets between CC:E and CC:M, I consolidated the RSG counters and fit in the new minor units and weapons. The remaining work will take me another few weeks to complete, barring any real life difficulties getting in my way. We will do a proofing pass to be sure nothing was missed, and I plan to have this game wrapped up and off to the printer in March.
There has been a lot of work on Cross Bronx Expressway since the year started, all tied to finalizing the artwork so that it is ready for print. Beyond checking that the box contains everything players need to dive into the game, we have been making sure each of those things are presented in a way that helps with the immersion. The GMT art department has been diligently working on those touches so that all of the components and supporting materials carry the theme. In particular, I am pleased with the amount of supporting content we’ve managed to get into the Historical Records booklet to contextualize the gameplay. We are at the end of the road now with only spot copy editing remaining. It has been quite the journey, but I am so excited by what the result will be. Thanks everyone for your patience.
Firstly, we’re very excited to see Fields of Fire Deluxe and the Update Kit finally start to ship! It’s been a long old road, but Andrew and I are looking forward to hearing and seeing what you all think of it.
Volume 3 development is going well too. Over this last month we have seen a few more of our excellent playtesters completing the last of the three campaigns to go into testing; Afghanistan. We’ve had over 60 post-mission reports from the testers so far and it has mostly been really positive feedback. Players have had good things to say about how the campaign feels, and have liked the variety of missions too: you will be patrolling into the Green Zone; escorting resupply trucks; raiding Taliban strongholds; and ambushing (and being ambushed by) the local Taliban.
We have had some comments and discussions around how IEDs – Improvised Explosive Devices – feature in the campaign. It seems that I was initially too nice, and didn’t put enough bombs in, so we have rewritten the IED rules to make them much more common now! Some of our testers are now running through the missions again, along with some later arrivals who are completing their first tours. So when you’re playing your boxed set after release, you can blame them for your explosive experiences! You do get minesweeping kits and search dogs in the campaign though, that can negate the IEDs, so it’s not all bad!
Image at right: Playtester Antonio Ruiz sets out on the first mission, with his company waiting patiently whilst two teams deploy their VALLON mine-detectors to look for IEDs. Whilst using the VALLON kit the troops are very vulnerable, but they give you a half-decent chance of detecting and marking any IEDs you might come across (VASSAL playtest art).
Other positive comments we’ve had have been around the medevac procedures, which are a bit different to what has gone before. In this campaign, as soon as you take casualties you need to scramble the rescue helicopter, to get them to the field hospital quickly. Getting the casualties to a Terrain Card that can take helicopters, with the incoming Chinook bearing down on you fast, often whilst you’re still under fire, can make for a stressful experience!
Image Above: The Medical Emergency Response Team (MERT) Chinook comes in to pick up a casualty from the desert, covered by its escort of two AH-64D Attack Helicopters. Meanwhile a civilian pickup races onto the LZ – is everything as it seems, or could that pickup have been misidentified, and it’s actually Taliban? <Spoiler> It was, and then things got very lively! </spoiler>
Outside of Afghanistan we’ve spent a fair chunk of time in the last month or so getting all the art for the whole Volume (counters and cards) catalogued and described, ready to go to an artist, to upgrade my playtest art to ‘proper’ art . That is quite important for us because we can then finish laying out all the mission books and training manuals, as we need the finalised art for all the diagrams etc in those.
We’ve then ‘just’ got to go back and re-do the Arnhem and Falkland books to Deluxe standard (we’ve been playtesting with a ‘near final’ version of the Afghanistan one already – it looks great), and finish writing and laying out the Training Manuals and the Standalone Mission book. Oh, and finalising how we can fit all of the Player Aids onto the cards we have budgeted for!
So overall, we’re pretty busy but it’s looking really good and progressing nicely. We’ll hopefully have some of the final art to show you before too long.
Development on Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda continues apace. A round of playtesting with veteran GMT Developer Joe Dewhurst revealed some issues that Marco and I hadn’t spotted. These were to do with the logic of how the Israel/Palestine space works—it turned out the rules Marco and I had in mind are really difficult to make watertight. This spawned a new version of the rule and ended in my creating a new “Hybrid” space type, combining elements of being a Muslim Country with being a Non-Muslim Country.
Once we had this concept, I realized it applies in all of the new spaces added in the game (i.e. Bosnia and Chechnya as well), so Marco and I are going through another round of mechanical and card design. At this point, we’re making sure the rules overhead of the new elements is being handled in the most elegant way and that they’re properly integrated into the game. We’re both feeling really good about these changes, but it does mean playtesting is on hold a little longer than I thought it would be.
When I was offered the opportunity to develop the solo bot for Lenin’s Legacy, I jumped on it. When it’s your turn, you pick a card among the five showing and then play its event or move 2 issues on your side, how hard could it be to automate?
Well, like each of these quick tension-filled CDGs (look no further than Matthias Cramer’s Watergate for a prime example), it’s not about the number of choices you have but about agonizing over these choices! I had to dissect my entire thought process when selecting a card to make the bot behave like a human opponent.
A nifty interface suggestion by solo design Jedi Master Joe Dewhurst and an invaluable amount of testing and relevant feedback from John-Paul Pizzica helped put the finishing touches to what I hope will be a worthy continuation of theGMT One team’s awesome work. Devious Stalin and Trotsky bots are ready to challenge you for Lenin’s Legacy!
While we wait for the final flurry of preorders to push us above 500, Pascal, Tom, and myself have refined the system that models the scientific discoveries of the Armée d’Orient as well as tightened Espionage actions to make them less frequent but more punchy! At this point, the game is ready for art and layout but lacks the orders it needs to be assigned an artist.
My work on Resisting Revolution is mostly on pause while I prepare The Pure Land for art and layout, although testing is continuing in the background. I have also been conscripted to help get the Calixto card-based non-player system for Cuba Libre finished off, with many of the Resisting Revolution testers pitching in to put that through its paces. The sixteen new Cuba Libre events included in Resisting Revolution will also be compatible with Calixto, so this will give me an opportunity to make sure that all of the non-player factions “know” how to use them correctly.
The Seljuk rulebook is now complete and laid out by Charlie Kibler! We want to extend our gratitude to everyone who helped with proofreading and refining the rules. The background book is currently in the layout phase with Charlie and should be finalized soon. March will mark the final step before the game enters production as we go to proofreading and finalize the materials.
NB and I (Evan, the developer) have been going through and expanding the rulebook significantly. He sent me a playtest kit, which I played like crazy in order to generate a thousand questions that NB patiently answered. Based on that information, NB is in the process of updating the rules, as well as tweaking how certain systems work.
For example, tanks were a bit too capable in melee, so their strength in melee has been dialed back. Or, for example, the withdrawal rules for the standalone, historical scenarios have been removed: in the campaign game, which links the tactical scenarios together into an operational campaign, it’s important for the player to decide when too many casualties have been taken and therefore when it’s best to withdraw the remaining forces to fight another day. We realized that in the one-shot scenarios, however, withdrawing didn’t really make sense since there’s no need to preserve the force. And speaking of the campaign, I personally am really looking forward to playing that next!
This month, Joe and Adrian have kicked off their first full playthrough of the “extended” End of Empire campaign, which includes the Arab Revolt and Japanese Occupation prequel scenarios to Palestine and Malaya. The outcome of these scenarios can affect the initial setup for the subsequent games, reflecting the impact that previous British actions had on their later colonial conflicts. Most notably, in both cases the British formed uneasy alliances with their future opponents, so the British player must weigh up their immediate need for these alliances against the future risks of arming Jewish paramilitaries and Malayan communists. Integrating these prequel scenarios into the full campaign is the perfect way to make the British player really aware of the consequences of their actions and to help them understand the historical decisions made by the British.
So far Joe’s British have had a rough time of it: quickly capitulating to the Arab rebels in Palestine, which will embolden and radicalize the Jewish groups fighting against British rule a decade later; and narrowly failing to undermine the Japanese occupation in Malaya, although this was more of a mixed result where their one-time allies the Malayan Communist Party were also left without much local support. Joe is planning to write up his notes from these games into a short narrative report, so you should be able to hear more about his experiences with the extended campaign soon.
There is steady progress on the art and layout of the Thunderbolt components. The maps, counters and displays are complete. Work on the Player Aid Cards is underway. Development of the Thunderbolt Deluxe Vassal module, which includes Thunderbolt, Carthage, RRR games, has its functionality and the completed components in place, with continuing progress on the scenario setup. Playtesting will remain open until we go to print.
There have been no significant changes to the rules over the last six months. We revisited the Carthage Agathocles scenario and modified the initial deployment to reflect a more robust Syracusan army and the Carthaginian order of battle preserved in Diodorus. For RRR, we have added an extensive Example of Play (there was none in the original version) based on the opening Game Turn of the Eagle Has Landed scenario.
Triumvir– Designers Geoff Engelstein and Mark Herman
The last few months have seen a redesign of parts of Triumvir to address playtester feedback, and we’re feeling good about the new version of the game. Mark is putting together a prototype of the game to take around to conventions and do some late stage playtesting to confirm that everything is working properly. After that is complete, we will hand the game off to Jason’s development team to finalize the rules, do usability testing, and get everything ready for art and layout late this year.
Project Updates and Sample Art
As is usually the case, I wanted to share last 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 has been a ton of activity over the past few months with the newest upcoming volume in the COIN Series called China’s War: 1937-1941. This has been a long time in the works and I am frankly really ready to see this get finished. This month, they shared both the box back and the final cover. I love the color palette they have used here with the burgundy. red and yellow and I love how the board looks on the back of the box. I am very interested in this game and cannot wait to get it to my table!
The final cover also carries over the chosen color scheme and now that I see it on the front it looks even better. I like the image of the Great Wall but do wish that they would have gone down the route of the other new volumes with some original art. This one is firmly based in history and that works but what could have been?
Next up, we got a look at a wide array of materials from Volko Ruhnke’s Coast Watchers. They shared the various cards from the game and their card backs, which look really good. Here is another example of a great use of colors to create some interest and attract the eye to the product. This one is going to be a looker and I also know that the game will be good as well.
They then provided a look at the box back for the 2nd Edition of Next War: Taiwan. We recently got a taste of this great series when we played Next War: Poland.
We next got a look at the cover for the Combat Commander: Minor Nations Battle Pack. Functional but not overly inspired. I know that not every item can have the best art but I would like to see more.
They have also made some progress on the art for the upcoming COIN Series Multi-Pack II: The Guerilla Generation: Cold War Insurgencies in Latin America. We loved the first entry in this series and really cannot wait to get a look at this next 4-pack. The board below is for El Salvador. I have an interview with Stephen Rangazas scheduled to post in the next few days.
We have also been shown some of the counter art for the upcoming Firefight Tactical. These counters are really clean and filled with an absolutely ton of important information for the game. This one is going to be a great one. When we played it at SDHistCon a few years ago, we really had a blast with it.
The final item shared was the Display Cards for the new edition of Thunderbolt.
I will end this post by sharing our recent content on the blog and YouTube Channel for GMT Games products including reviews/interviews/unboxing videos:
I am very excited about Coast Watchers. It looks to be a fun game on a subject that is not covered as much as it should be. IMHO. I agree with you about folks passing. I am 60 and just lost my mother, I know it is the process of life, but it still sucks. The wargaming/gaming community has had more than it fair share of wonderful people passing. It is a shame.
Thanks again for doing such a great job on the blog and channel. i love drinking my coffee and reading your blog. Have a great Monday!
Thanks Jerry. Death is inevitable and it visits us all. Both of my parents have passed (Dad 14 years ago and Mom 4 years ago) and I also lost a brother to cancer a couple of years ago. I hate it but understand it. Thanks for your content as well. It is great to see new blood joining the brotherhood.
So much goodness finally hitting the printers – COIN, COIN-lite, CC:deluxified! Excited for them all.
I’m not quite sure I understand the decision making process for Cuba Libre Resisting Revolution AND Calixto as a standalone card bot seems redundant since RR is supposed to also provide a card bot system AND expansion stuff. Regardless, with the smaller decision space, the card bot is easy to pick up for solo or missing players especially for Cuba Libre.
Super sad to hear about Carla Horger and then Rodger MacGowan last week. Losing talent in a small community is hard and they will be missed. Rodger’s art is so prominent in wargaming that his loss is especially going to be felt for a long time. I hope C3i is able to continue in his absence.
The Players' Aid 
I am very excited about Coast Watchers. It looks to be a fun game on a subject that is not covered as much as it should be. IMHO. I agree with you about folks passing. I am 60 and just lost my mother, I know it is the process of life, but it still sucks. The wargaming/gaming community has had more than it fair share of wonderful people passing. It is a shame.
Thanks again for doing such a great job on the blog and channel. i love drinking my coffee and reading your blog. Have a great Monday!
Jerry
Cardboard Commander
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Thanks Jerry. Death is inevitable and it visits us all. Both of my parents have passed (Dad 14 years ago and Mom 4 years ago) and I also lost a brother to cancer a couple of years ago. I hate it but understand it. Thanks for your content as well. It is great to see new blood joining the brotherhood.
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So much goodness finally hitting the printers – COIN, COIN-lite, CC:deluxified! Excited for them all.
I’m not quite sure I understand the decision making process for Cuba Libre Resisting Revolution AND Calixto as a standalone card bot seems redundant since RR is supposed to also provide a card bot system AND expansion stuff. Regardless, with the smaller decision space, the card bot is easy to pick up for solo or missing players especially for Cuba Libre.
Super sad to hear about Carla Horger and then Rodger MacGowan last week. Losing talent in a small community is hard and they will be missed. Rodger’s art is so prominent in wargaming that his loss is especially going to be felt for a long time. I hope C3i is able to continue in his absence.
LikeLiked by 1 person