This month was not as exciting of an Update as we are used to but there was still lots of good information on the games we all are wanting to play. There were no new P500 games offered this month but there were 2 reprints in Paths of Glory Deluxe Edition 3rd Printing and The Last Hundred Yards Volume 4: The Russian Front 2nd Printing. They also added a P500 Upgrade/Mounted Map and a 2″ box for Italy ’43. This upgrade is already At the Printer and is being included here so that those of you who want it can get it at the P500 discount.
And 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!
I will first share the general news from Gene that appeared at the top of the Update. Nothing shocking or frankly that new but it is good to hear how things are generally going for GMT.
First off, I want to thank all of you who have helped us with your orders for games during our just-concluded Loyalty Appreciation Sale and via orders for our Digital games over the past couple months. You have helped us greatly, and thanks to you and your orders/gifts we can now see that the light at the end of the cash flow tunnel is PROBABLY not an oncoming train! 🙂 Seriously, we can’t say enough how much your orders and your expressions of kindness and support have meant to us during this tough period. Because of you, we are definitely stronger than we were two months ago and are making progress on all the fronts that I mentioned in my detailed look at our situation back in the April newsletter.
New European Boardgames in Stock Now! As part of our ongoing operational plan to keep GMT healthy, I noted back in April that we are increasing our commitments to importing more games from European boardgame publishers to make them more readily available to our US customers. We’ve made quite a lot of progress on that front. So our update this month features a new section that highlights our new games that are in the warehouse that we are importing from high-quality European publishers. This month, we include a large listing of an entire new line of excellent games that we have imported from Sound of Drums. We’re really excited to make these great games easily available to our US customers! Enjoy!
Operations Update – and Charge and Ship Schedule. We are still making progress on getting our direct-from-the-printer shipping operations set up for all of our international customers. But it is taking some time as it is a very complicated process. We still think we’re 4-5 weeks away from being ready to do our first international charges and shipments. So, rather than hold off on shipping all of our games until then, we’ve decided to switch up our plans a bit and make a US shipment first.
To enable that, we now have a large shipment of games heading across the Pacific. The games in this “Batch 1” that we’ll charge and ship are the following:
This shipment will arrive in port on July 11. We’ll have to pay the tariffs at that point (see the Charging and Shipping section later in this update for exact tariff charges for each game—we’ve done our best to keep them small), so we’re planning to do our next P500 charge for US customers only on Friday, July 11, and start shipping to US customers within a week or so thereafter.
Meanwhile, Jason and Tony and their support team will continue working with our international partners to finalize the shipping, tax, and VAT costs for all the new direct international shipping rates. As soon as those are ready, we will publish them on our website and let you all know they are there (hopefully by the time of the July customer newsletter) so that our international customers can update their orders and shipping choices. Once we have those in place, we will announce a charge date for Batch 1 for our international customers. Then we’ll charge and ship Batch 1. When that is finished, we’ll rotate back to charging Batch 2 for our US customers.
I really like that GMT is partnering with some of these other great publishers in the European Markets and I hope to see more of their products included on the GMT site in the future.
We then were given an update on the counter errata for The Battle for Normandy Deluxe Edition from Kai Jensen:
June Counter issue Update for The Battle for Normandy Deluxe Edition As we’ve noted in the past two newsletters, there were unfortunately 91 out of the 3,080 counters in The Battle for Normandy Deluxe Edition that were incorrect in some respect. Designer Dan Holte and artist Mark Simonitch exhaustively reviewed all the counters for the game and compiled the final list of corrections to be made. Those counters have now been sent off to the printer.
Mark has created an instruction sheet (shown and linked in the image below and also available for download from our website) defining which countersheet the errant counters are located on for those of you who have not punched your copy yet and has also included notes on the corrections made to each counter.
For those of you who ordered this game via P500 or direct from GMT, you don’t need to do anything to get a free counter update shipped to you when they are ready. If you bought your game from somewhere other than GMT, please contact our office folks with your name and shipping address, and they will get you on a ship list for your free counters.
We expect that these counters will take approximately 10 weeks at the printer from start to finish. Providing tariff wars, container shortages, factory holidays, ship groundings, or high seas pirates don’t interfere with my schedule, we should have these replacements in hand and ready to ship to you around early-mid September. – Kai
We have not done anything with this game and look forward to the counter errors being fixed so we can clip it, organize it and get it played!
Playtesters/Help Wanted! On an ongoing basis, we’ll use this section to let you know which of our 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. We greatly appreciate you helping us test our games and make them better! Thank you!
Bear Trap Solo Playtesting – Joe Dewhurst is issuing a call for solitaire playtesters for Bear Trap. If you are interested, please sign up here: https://forms.gle/
Fields of Fire Volume III: The Parachute Regiment – Arnhem Playtesting. Playtesting signup is still open (and will be until we actually get going). You can find it here: https://forms.gle/S8mYcXkEwZoa9uYH6
Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda – The time has come to recruit the playtesters for Labyrinth‘s prequel expansion: The Rise of Al-Qaeda! Apply now if you are interested to help with this project. We are initially looking to playtest the 2-player default scenario in Tabletop Simulator, but will eventually broaden the testing to further scenarios, the campaign linking the whole shebang together, and the 1-player bot. Playtest feedback and coordination will be conducted via Discord. If you’re up for it, join the server: https://discord.gg/m9k8gYbTUA.
Tsar – We plan to begin another round of playtesting in a week or two using Tabletop Simulator. If you’re interested in participating, please visit our sign-up page.
I always like to highlight this section of the Update as I know that many of you out there love to do playtesting. I want to let you know that we as the players of these games really do appreciate your efforts and would encourage you to do more. So sign up for those games that you might be interested in helping along in the development process.
I already mentioned this a bit above but you can learn more about the games that GMT is carrying from Europe:
As we mentioned in our April update, we are going to be expanding and accelerating the number of International games we add to our line over the coming months. Here is what’s new in our warehouse and available to order this month.
HISTORY OF THE ANCIENT SEASSeries (All 2nd Editions). The History of the Ancient Seas game series is the ultimate journey through the Mediterranean Sea region during ancient times. Build new fleets in your city to explore unknown lands, conquer islands, and build a great empire.
In HELLAS 2ND EDITION, the first installment in the History of the Ancient Seas game series, you will lead one of two great City States: Athens or Sparta. Your goal is to become the leading empire in the known world. To achieve this, you will need to build armies and fleets to increase your military might, expand trade routes, conquer islands and provinces, develop your military skills, economic efficiency, and culture, while always keeping an eye on the wealth, happiness, and stability of your people.
HELLAS 2ND EDITION is originally a two-player game, but the “Archimedes” solitaire bot allows you to play HELLAS in full solitaire mode! 36 Copies in Stock.
In DIES IRAE 2ND EDITION, the second installment in the History of the Ancient Seas game series, you will lead one of the great Empires like the Greek City States, Egypt, or Persia and fight for dominance in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea! The people from all of these empires see the Gods as their allies and trust them as supporters for their cause! DIES IRAE is originally a three player game, but the “Archimedes” Solitaire bot and the “The King is dead” static empires feature allow you to reduce the player count if needed.
DIES IRAE 2ND EDITION is a 2-3 player game. It does include an “Archimedes” Solo Mode Rules & Cards. 24 Copies in Stock.
In MARE NOSTRUM 2ND EDITION, the third and final installment in the History of the Ancient Seas game series, you will lead one of the great Empires like the Roman Empire, the Mighty Seafarers of Carthage, the Greek City States, Egypt, or Persia.
MARE NOSTRUM 2ND EDITION is by default a five player game, but there is an optional rule for 4 players, as well as the “Archimedes” Solitaire bot and the “The King is dead” static empires feature, which allow you to reduce the player count if needed. 32 Copies in Stock.
EXPANSION 1: NEW MARKETS 2ND EDITION. With New Markets, players have the opportunity to create a completely new distribution of merchandise. Instead of using the merchandise printed on the map, players will now place the merchandise token randomly on the map. Included are a couple of options. An open distribution and the option of placing the merchandise face down are some of the options. This expansion brings a lot of variety, fun, surprises, and new strategies to History of the Ancient Seas.
NEW MARKETS 2ND EDITION includes 158 Merchandise Tokens and one Rulebook. Players: 1-5. 36 Copies in Stock.
EXPANSION 2: PIRATES & BARBARIANS 2ND EDITION. With Pirates & Barbarians, players can add a new party to the game that will challenge the players for sure. The playing pieces of the barbarians and pirates are brought into play by the players and will then continue to be played by AI. Players place them but can’t control them. So, a player needs to be careful what they wish for. To call for the pirates and barbarians at first might seem like a call for help to threaten your opponents but they can turn their attention quickly towards you. If not opposed right away, the hordes of barbarians and pirate fleets can become a real threat to your empire. This expansion brings a lot of variety, fun, surprises, and new strategies to History of the Ancient Seas.
PIRATES & BARBARIANS 2ND EDITION includes 20 Wooden Barbarians, 15 Wooden Pirate Ships, and one Rulebook. Players: 1-5. 36 Copies in Stock.
EXPANSION 3: NEW ARMIES 2ND EDITION. With New Armies, players will replace the wooden playing pieces in the three games with wooden blocks that will provide a huge amount of fog of war to the game. Fully-colored stickers of Ships and Legions are put on top of the blocks. On the back, there are stickers of their strength. Information of strength will only be revealed at the moment of combat. This expansion gives the military aspect of the game a completely new approach to History of the Ancient Seas.
NEW ARMIES 2ND EDITION includes 156 Wooden Blocks, 312 Fully-colored Stickers, and one Rulebook. Players: 1-5. 36 Copies in Stock.
BATTLES OF NAPOLEONSeries. The Battles of Napoleon game series is an epic game series that simulates the most famous battles of Napoleon on a tactical scale, sharing an elegant and cohesive ruleset. The series portrays the most important aspects of battles of the Napoleonic era with easy-to-learn and remember rules and intuitive mechanics and procedures.
EYLAU, 1807.Eylau, 1807 is part of the Battles of Napoleon series focused on the 1807 Battle of Eylau. Thanks to the successful funding on Gamefound and the unlocked stretch goals, the components of the game are upgraded: the dice are customized, the charts and tables are deluxe (printed on 2mm grey carton), and the game includes 280 alternative counters.
The game includes five scenarios:
The fight for night quarters (small scenario)
Murat’s massive cavalry charge
Davout’s attack
Lestocq saves the day
The Grand Battle scenario
50 Copies in Stock.
EYLAU SPECIAL DICE SET. Four beautiful customized dice for your Eylau, 1807 experience. These dice are made in Germany and are of the best CHESSEX® quality! 50 Copies in Stock.
1793: PATRIOTS & TRAITORS recreates the chaos that tore up France in the years 1792-1794 as it has never been done before! Relive the bloody years of the French Revolution in this thrilling and highly communicative CDG! Each of the players belongs to a political faction, each with their own objective. Although engaged in a brutal political tug-of-war, they WILL have to work together to prevent the armies of Austria, Prussia, and Sardinia-Piedmont from reaching Paris, thereby crushing the Revolution and ending the game for everyone!
1793: Patriots & Traitors is a very compact CDG game that makes use of multi-functional playing cards to allow the players a broad range of decisions. Be prepared for a warm and asymmetrical game of high replayability that will allow you and your fellow patriots to relive the French Revolution: from the heated discussions in the National Convention to the angry streets of Paris and from the cheering crowds around the bloody guillotine to the gun smoke filled battlefield of Fleurus!
1793: Patriots & Traitors is a true aristocratic banquet for 1 to 5 lovers of history. 75 Copies in Stock.
1795: THE THERMADORIANS. This is an expansion for 1793: Patriots & Traitors. It includes one Location Tile, 15 Tarot-sized Playing Cards, Four Customized Wooden Pieces, and One Rules Manual. Play time: 30-120+ minutes. Players: 1-5. 48 Copies in Stock.
ASSAULT – SICILY ’43 – GELA BEACHHEAD is a tactical wargame system which leads you into the allied landings at Gela Beachhead in 1943. The game comes with 40 scenarios. EPlay a single battle OR dive into an epic and extensive dynamic campaign. This campaign game simulates the first two critical days of the Allied landing operation at Gela and the airborne troops in the rear, as well as the counterattacks by Axis Italy and Germany.
Assault – Sicily ’43 offers you intense tactical battles and a huge selection of historical units. This box provides you with a unique gaming experience. Thanks to your formation card deck, no game will be the same. The replay value is infinite. The unique dice system specifically developed for this game system ensures fast and action-packed gameplay. Know the strengths and weaknesses of your units and use them cleverly to decide the battle in your favor.
Components:
Three Factions: USA, Italy, and Germany
12 Double-sided Geomorphic Maps
700+ Unit Counters and Markers
40 Scenarios in the Campaign and Scenario Book
One Dynamic Campaign Game “Gela Beachhead”
64 Different Unit Types and Unit Cards
57 Command Cards Used to Bring in Leaders and Heroes Behavior
90 Formation Cards
72 Tactical Air and Off-board Artillery Cards
16 Customized Dice
Four Player Aid Cards
Play time: 60-180 minutes Players: 1-4
72 Copies in Stock.
SMALL WARS: MOHICANS is the first game of the Small WarsSeries. Mohicans starts in 1754 and continues to 1760. In Mohicans, the powerful regular forces of Britain fight for control of northeastern North America against the mixed regular and irregular forces of the French and their Indigenous allies. The forces of both sides are bolstered by local militia units and other irregular forces, such as the famous French Courriers de Bois and the British Rangers, and the arrival each year of more regular reinforcements from Europe.
While the British have the edge in firepower, the French have better mobility and their Indigenous allies can make effective use of terrain, particularly the massive forests that covered eastern North America at the time. The British are also more vulnerable to having their supply lines cut off.
To win the game, the British must hold three of the French cities and towns of Louisbourg, Frontenac, Duquesne, Montreal and Quebec (and at least one must be Montreal or Quebec). If they don’t do this by 1760, the French win by default. The French can also win by holding the British cities of Albany and either New York, Boston or Philadelphia.
Components:
One Rulebook
One Game Board
Two 6-sided dice
15 Battle Dice
200 Counters
Play time: 60-90 minutes Players: 2
36 Copies in Stock.
New Hexasim Game Available for Sale! We were so excited to announce that we had Hermann Luttmann’s latest solitaire game gem, Hexasim’s The Twelfth Battle, the Caporetto Campaign, 1917, in our warehouse and available for sale that we jumped the gun a bit last month and sold about 90 copies before we were supposed to (our apologies to our friends at Hexasim). So, we’re back this month, ON SCHEDULE this time, with a little over 250 copies remaining in stock. Hermann’s games sell very quickly, so get them while they last!
Now onto the main event with the P500 offerings!
New P500’s
As mentioned above, there were no new P500 games offered this month, a bit of a bummer I agree, but there were 2 reprints offering in Paths of Glory Deluxe Edition 3rd Printing and The Last Hundred Yards Volume 4: The Russian Front 2nd Printing. They also added a P500 Upgrade/Mounted Map and a 2″ box for Italy ’43.
Paths of Glory Deluxe Edition 3rd Printing
This game was solidly on our Shelf of Shame until a few years ago during our Guns of August Event! I know that it took us a while and that it was preposterous that we hadn’t played it but we had just not been able to get to it….until we were and we didn’t regret it at all!
Paths of Glory is widely thought to be a masterpiece on WWI and after just our initial play of the introductory scenario I can definitely see why people feel that way. Even though we just played the introductory scenario, it took us nearly 4 hours to get through 3 turns. This game is long and you generally are going to have to play this one over a long weekend to get it all in and enjoy it properly.
We are not done with this one and have plans to play it again but this time taking on the entire campaign game. But, after our play I really enjoyed the mix of historical events and the choices that I had to wage the war in a way that I felt was appropriate. But, my message to everyone who plays this game is beware of supply. Even in our short game, supply was an issue and we had to make sure we didn’t make a fatal mistake that would get us in trouble.
From the game page, we read the following:
Paths of Glory, designed by six-time Charles S. Roberts Award winner, Ted Raicer, allows players to step into the shoes of the monarchs and marshals who triumphed and bungled from 1914 to 1918. As the Central Powers you must use the advantage of interior lines and the fighting skill of the Imperial German Army to win your rightful “Place in the Sun.” As the Entente Powers (Allies) you must bring your greater numbers to bear to put an end to German militarism and ensure this is “The War to End All Wars.” Both players will find their generalship and strategic abilities put to the test as Paths of Glory‘s innovative game systems let you recreate all the dramatic events of World War I.
Note on 3rd Printing: This product will be the same as the 2nd printing of the Deluxe Edition, with any known errata corrected.
Here is a link to our initial impressions video of the game:
The Last Hundred Yards Volume 4: The Russian Front 2nd Printing
If you didn’t know we really enjoyed The Last Hundred Yards very much as well as Volume 2: Airborne Over Europe. The system is extremely interesting for a tactical game and uses some novel elements in regards to how victory points are scored including a focus on time and casualties. Really an excellent system! They are doing a 2nd Printing of Volume 4 in the series called The Russian Front, which sees fighting on the East Front.
From the game page, we read the following:
The Last Hundred Yards Volume 4: The Russian Front is the fourth game in The Last Hundred Yards Series. It covers major campaigns and missions from the second half of the war in the east, introducing the Russian army to the series for the first time. A series of missions simulates actions from the October 1943 fighting in the Ukraine near Krivoi Rog, while others feature fights during the Russian 1944 summer offensive, Operation Bagration. All major Russian armor from late 1942 onward is covered, plus some additional late war German armored vehicles.
In October 1943, elements of Konev’s Steppe Front (redesignated 2nd Ukrainian Front on 20 October) broke out of their bridgeheads across the Dnepr River toward the town of Krivoi Rog. Spearheaded by Rotmistrov’s 5th Guards Tank Army, the Red Army drove a salient 50 miles deep and 20 miles wide into the positions of the German 1st Panzer Army. A major German counterattack in panzer corps strength, including the rebuilt 14th and 24th Panzer divisions (whose originals had been destroyed at Stalingrad), stopped this penetration but not before its threat to neighboring positions to the southeast forced the abandonment of Dnepropetrovsk by the Germans. A series of module missions illustrates different phases of this fighting.
Operation Bagration was the Soviet main effort in the summer of 1944, with five fronts participating to eject the Germans from white Russia. Led by Stavka coordinators Marshal Zhukov and Marshal Vasilevsky, it destroyed much of Germany’s Army Group Center and advanced 400 hundred miles to the outskirts of Warsaw. Bagration enabled the follow-on Lvov-Sandomierz offensive to the south by Konev’s 1st Ukrainian Front, which pushed across the Vistula east of Krakow before the Russian summer offensive paused. Portions of this fighting are also covered in module missions, showcasing some of the late war armor on both sides.
If you are already familiar with playing the Germans and the Allies in the previous LHY modules, you are on firm ground. However, be forewarned that the unique feature of this module is how Russian army behavior is modeled at the tactical level, particularly in its lack of local command-and-control flexibility and general indifference to casualties when fulfilling its missions. Make no mistake, playing the Russians will require a different mindset. The challenge will be in understanding the Russian behavior modeled in LHY and transitioning that into solid tactical applications. The Russians need numbers to make up for their lower tactical flexibility, but “quantity has a quality all its own,” and they generally do get those numbers. While the period of the war covered by the module was one of overall Russian initiative, it still featured numerous German counterattacks, and module missions feature plenty of German attacks against Russian defenses as well as the reverse. Another set of new tactical challenges in the module stem from the frequently more open terrain found in the western Ukraine.
Note on 2nd Printing: This will be identical to the 1st Printing, except that any known errata will be corrected.
P500 Upgrades/Mounted Maps and 2″ Box for Italy ’43
As you know, we have really enjoyed our plays of games designed by Mark Simonitch, including Holland ’44, Stalingrad ’42, Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul and most recently North Africa ’41. He has an amazing ability to boil down all the elements involved and come out with a very playable simulation of the historical event. A few years ago, his focus on the Italian campaigns of WWII started with his game called Salerno ’43, which covers the Allied invasion of mainland Italy in September 1943. Since that time, we had heard rumors of his plans with the game to include a few additional volumes as the Allies moved north up the peninsula towards Rome. The next volume in the series is called Italy ’43 and they are offering some upgraded components to buyers.
From the game page, we read the following:
Because so many of our customers bought mounted maps for Salerno ’43, we are also producing mounted maps (and a larger box) for the 2nd game in Mark’s Italy series, Italy ’43. This item is At the Printer already. We offer it here so that you can all get the discounted price by ordering before we ship it.
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”. If you remember, last month this was not included in the update and I was a bit saddened by that but this month they brought it back with a vengeance.
Here is a brief tease for P500 additions lining up in the coming months. 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 game about The Battle of Verdun – Gene is getting tricky here and trying to switch up the hints on the same games to throw me off the trail but this one is a solitaire game on the Battle of Verdun called The Price of Glory.
Something tactical and very cool from Jim Day – I am not sure on this one.
A Deluxe Edition East Front game – my guess on this one is that they are bringing back the first game in the East Front Series called Typhoon! and giving it their Deluxification treatment.
A new game set in WWII Spain – another sleight of hand by Gene. I know that this might be a stretch but could this be Combat Commander: Spanish Civil War?
I think that I might have got 2 correct but possibly a 3rd. Gene how did I do?!?
Charging & Shipping
The following information for Charging and Shipping was copied directly from the Update:
Last Charge/Shipment: GMT started shipping May 6th for the five games listed below. They have now finished shipping all of these P500 items:
Next Charge/Shipment: GMT is planning and preparing for their first SPLIT charge/shipment. US Orders (w/ small tariff charges) will be charging and shipping first, followed by international orders (no tariffs) charging and then shipping direct from the printer. They’ll charge US customers on July 11th to get the US charge/ship process started for the following six “Batch 1” items:
Tariff Surcharge: GMT has also noted the amount of the Tariff Surcharge (at far right) for each game. These Tariff Surcharges are per game and apply to all US orders (P500, distributor, and retail) for these six games. For website orders, they are applied automatically when your credit cards are charged.
Production Outlook
Also we got the following production update from Kai Jensen:
Getting back into the swing of things, we have 19 games, one mounted map/box set, more counter trays, and a set of replacement counters all at the printer right now.
We found two U.S. printers who, between them, can handle the components for Next War: Taiwan, so that is finally, officially at the printer. While chagrined that it took so long to set up, I am delighted to be able to check that off my “pending items” list!
Because I am not satisfied with a multi-printer arrangement, I am continuing my search for other print options for us. Current candidates are in India and Brazil, but I am working the “printed in U.S.A.” angle still as well. Option #57 is now getting wobbly, but #58 just landed on my desk this morning so I am holding onto my optimism and reaching out yet again for details.
We have a few more projects that will possibly go to print this month, only a few for next month, but completions for August and September are looking solid at over a dozen items headed to print in each of those months if the current pace holds.
I have kept Q4 a bit vague for now as it is possible a few of those late summer projects may slide a little; the political arena is still an ever-changing battlefield of international tariff wars, adjustments, and lawsuits; and late summer family schedules for our art and development teams might just slow things down a bit as people take time for real life.
Overall, I think we adapted fairly well to this year’s mayhem in terms of production and shipping. I believe the next incoming shipment to fulfill U.S. orders, followed by the trial run of our new international shipping, will have us back on solid footing and set up well to finish this year strong.
It may sound odd that I am looking at year end when we are only in June, but anything sent to the printer later than August is most likely to be a 2026 release. – Kai
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.
The first item they shared was the Box Back for the upcoming Italy ’43, from designer Mark Simonitch. I am so very much looking forward to this game as we really enjoyed Salerno ’43 and also love the ’40X Series.
Next up, they shared the new cover for Stalingrad ’42 2nd Edition. The only change that I notice from the 1st Edition cover is the fact that they have added the “includes the Little Saturn/Winter Storm Expansion” box in the lower right hand corner. I like this look though and think it is good to point that out.
Next we got a look, at some of the card art for the very interesting looking 1848: The Springtime of Nations. This could be a very interesting game and I am very much looking forward to it. I love the look of these cards and their use of period art.
We next got a look at a Situation Sheet from the upcoming Coast Watchers designer by Volko Ruhnke with art by the supremely talented Wouter Schoutteten. This Situation Sheet is for 1 of 15 scenarios in the game.
Hey folks! As hinted in previous updates, I had the opportunity to showcase A Fading Star during two North American conventions last month: GMT East in Schenectady and Stack Académie in Montreal. It was a very enlightening experience, and I was blown away by the kindness and warmth of the reception from both audiences. We had the opportunity to play half a dozen games over the course of the two events, with both returning and new players, and it was also a nice opportunity to meet other designers and interact with fellow COIN enthusiasts. I thank everyone who joined those sessions and provided feedback, and I look forward to returning ASAP! – Yann
The three Circle DC games and several currently-active playtests have been very helpful in refining the systems underpinning Technology use and the lifecycle of Salt. Recent changes and developments include:
Replaced the randomness of anomaly generation with players deciding to risk Sol going nova (among other disasters).
Removed “Resources” to make room for complexity in other areas of the core system.
Adjusted Technology systems to reduce big combinatorial mazes of decision-making.
Did another pass on all Technology and Faction effects for clarity and balance.
Preparing art briefs for the lead up to release in 2026!
Work is continuing on Volume 3 of Fields of Fire; over the last few weeks we’ve been getting regular feeds of art from the excellent Donal Hegarty, and we’re pleased to be able to show you some hints of where we’re going with the art style for the counters (but do note that these are our early draft concepts and are still being tweaked; some of the values need correcting, for example).
The counters for each era reflect the uniforms of the time where possible. For the Arnhem 1944 campaign, the British units are sporting a ‘Khaki Battledress’ look. The Germans you will face are (mostly) from an SS Panzer Division, so they are in a mix of Feldgrau (grey) and their distinctive ‘Pea’ camouflage.
Arnhem: a British Bren LMG Fire Team, a German Submachine Gun Gruppe, a British PIAT Anti-Tank launcher team, and a weakened British Airborne section.
By the 1970’s, the British had moved onto a ‘Disruptive Pattern Material’ (DPM). It was made up of quite dark greens and browns, designed to be effective on the north German plains, where they were expecting to face the onrushing Soviet hordes. This is reflected in the British units for the Falklands campaign. For the Argentinians, we’ve gone with a light blue, to reflect their national flag, and to help them stand out from the British.
Falklands: an Argentinian Fire Team and a British MILAN Anti-Tank Guided Missile team, and then the two units who make up 2 Section of 2 Platoon; the 3-step Rifle Group and the 1-step Gun Group.
And lastly Afghanistan in 2008. The British were wearing a desert version of the earlier DPM. Shortly afterwards they would move on to a new, lighter, camouflage design called ‘MTP’ (Multi Terrain Pattern) that is still in use today. The British units are therefore a mix of sandy browns. Taliban units are a predominantly white and black colour scheme, whilst Afghan Civilians are a distinctive Green. Unidentified units (that may turn out to be civilians or Taliban) are a similarly distinctive dark yellow.
Afghanistan: an Apache Attack Helicopter, a British half-section, a Civilian Pickup (or is it?!), and a Taliban Leader.
Two Assets from either end of the tech scale – a Bugle for Arnhem for when your radios fail, and a Laser target Designator for calling in precision air support in Afghanistan.
Arnhem Playtesting
The second-phase playtest of Arnhem has been slightly delayed by development work. Urban Combat is about as complex as Fields of Fire gets, and we want to present it in a straightforward way without players having to cross-reference several sections of rules at once. There are a few player aids and an Urban Combat Training Pamphlet to prepare for this one too. It’s coming along, and we’ll hopefully be underway by the time you read this.
Fields of Fire: The Bulge Campaign on Tabletop Simulator
The popular Tabletop Simulator module for Fields of Fire now includes the expansion pack The Bulge Campaign. Built using the new Living Rules (available at GMT website) and thoroughly checked over by the Fields of Fire development team, this module automates the complex maps from this campaign leaving you to focus on setting up your company and tackling the missions.
We’ve been streamlining the non-player bots for each faction by introducing special bot-only action cards that balance and improve the bots while keeping their rules as simple, fast, and easy-to-manage as possible. The bot action selection remains a simple deck shuffle of a limited set of cards, but the special new action cards have a basic action which allows the bot to perform multiple functions, such as adding troops and removing Agitation/Nationalism with its basic action, while also providing a long-term action that improves the faction’s long-term position, for example by increasing Foreign Aid. There is also another die-roll which potentially repeats the basic action, on a 1/3 chance. Like other die-rolls, if the “ally” of the bot is a human player, they could risk one of their few re-rolls to influence their “ally” to re-roll that die if they feel the 1/3 chance is worth repeating the powerful basic action. (The “ally” of a bot Bolshevik faction would be the Anarchists, or the “ally” of a bot New Nations faction would be the White Army, for example, following the Revolutionary/Counter-Revolutionary alliances.) – Alex
Henry: The Agincourt Campaign, 1415 had a great showing at SDHistCon, where attendees got a look at the game mechanics in action. Development is now complete, and Henry should enter Final Art shortly. – Christophe
I have finally returned from a very long summer road trip, including Guadalcanal campaign testing in Hanford and a visit with developer Jack Beckman in Michigan. The biggest change for IE is that instead of recording and tracking carrier flight operations on log sheets, we’re going to try using counters on a card for each carrier. Here’s a sample of my decidedly non-professional art we’ll use in testing:
To keep the footprint reasonable, each card is 4.25 x 3.66”. The circled numbers show when in the sequence of play counters should move. And there are additional half-size cards for Combat Air Patrol (CAP) aircraft showing altitudes above the Carrier Task Forces and other forces.
Smaller logs will still be used to track damage to carriers and other targets as well as aircraft losses. – Chris
Joe and I have been working on testing a fairly fundamental change to the game, replacing the unique army cards with generic ones for each nation. My motivation for this is to streamline the game, which I was finding could begin to drag a bit, especially towards the end. With this change the new version of the full scenario is coming in at under three hours, which fits much better with my original vision of “WW1 in an afternoon.” Our latest wave of testers has been enjoying the new version as well, so we’re feeling confident about this and a few other small changes we’ve made. – Edgar
Mr. President 2nd Edition and the Mr. President Update Kit are in the final stages of proofing starting this week. Once all comments from the proofers are reviewed by developer Marco Poutré, I will make the last set of edits and we’ll be ready to print. At our current rate of progress, I expect to have the files to the printer before the end of this month. – Kai
Seljuk: Byzantium Besieged, 1068–1071 is officially at the printer! Production is underway, and we’re one step closer to bringing the game to your table. Stay tuned—preview articles are coming soon to GMT Inside! – Christophe
Over the past couple of months, I’ve been busy refining the game while Jason Carr brought the physical prototype to CircleDC in March and the Weekend at the Warehouse in April. Jason reports that the revised interface is running smoothly. In April, the game made the cut with over 500 preorders—thank you to everyone who helped make this happen. I’ve written two more InsideGMT articles about the game (“Historical Events in Tsar” and “Deciding the Fate of the Tsarist Regime“), and I plan to finish another article shortly. In the next week or two, we’ll start the third (and probably final) round of playtesting. If you’d like to participate, please see the “playtesters wanted” section earlier in this email for the sign-up link. – Paul
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:
RAW Video for Fighting Formations – US 29th Infantry Division:
Unboxing Video for Congress of Vienna:
Thank you for reading along this month. Please let me know what caught your interest from the update this month and what GMT Games products that you have been enjoying lately.
4 thoughts on “June 2025 Monthly Update from GMT Games – Reprints of Great Games, International Game Offerings and The Battle for Normandy Counter Errata News…Oh My!”
First, I realized that I get most of my new (war game) information from either the GMT monthly, The Player’s Aid, or ZillaBlitz. Even if this is a re-hash of GMT’s newsletter, I always find something I missed, when you cover it, so thanks!
Quite an update for a “less interesting” one 😉
I’m glad they found a US printer for NW:Taiwan – I hope the quality is series standard. I’m guessing that the costs alone will keep this from being a regular option (and while I’d be happy to see the money just stay in the US, I also have no illusions about the cost and quality vs China and the inability for the US to compete at this). Again, I’d be happy to be wrong and see the other reprints in the series hit faster (and/or other straight hex and counter games). <cough>Though I really don’t need them ATM<cough>
Designer Dan Holte and artist Mark Simonitch exhaustively reviewed all the counters for the game and compiled the final list of corrections to be made.
Shouldn’t that happen BEFORE the game is printed?
Maybe this tariff stuff will be the impetus for wargame publishers to finally crack down on mistakes…
The Players' Aid 
First, I realized that I get most of my new (war game) information from either the GMT monthly, The Player’s Aid, or ZillaBlitz. Even if this is a re-hash of GMT’s newsletter, I always find something I missed, when you cover it, so thanks!
Quite an update for a “less interesting” one 😉
I’m glad they found a US printer for NW:Taiwan – I hope the quality is series standard. I’m guessing that the costs alone will keep this from being a regular option (and while I’d be happy to see the money just stay in the US, I also have no illusions about the cost and quality vs China and the inability for the US to compete at this). Again, I’d be happy to be wrong and see the other reprints in the series hit faster (and/or other straight hex and counter games). <cough>Though I really don’t need them ATM<cough>
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Designer Dan Holte and artist Mark Simonitch exhaustively reviewed all the counters for the game and compiled the final list of corrections to be made.
Shouldn’t that happen BEFORE the game is printed?
Maybe this tariff stuff will be the impetus for wargame publishers to finally crack down on mistakes…
LikeLiked by 1 person
I think that is definitely the goal.
LikeLiked by 1 person