I do love a good Ancients focused wargame! We have played many, with some of my favorites being from the Great Battles of History Series. This month, there were 2 new Ancients focused wargames announced and they both look very interesting. I always love that these games seem to go in cycles and this month we get Ancients!
This month, there were 2 new P500 games offered called Ancient Civilizations of the East Sea designed by Mark McLaughlin and Christopher Vorder Bruegge and Punicus: The Second Punic War designed by Carlos Olivares. There was also 1 reprint offered in Fields of Fire Deluxe Edition 2nd Printing.
And as usual that wasn’t all as there was plenty of other information shared including updates on GMT One products, development updates, shipping updates, upcoming future P500 additions and the usual gorgeous art samples!
Here is what Gene had to share, which included several areas such as tariffs and shipping, the recent Weekend at the Warehouse event and a history of GMT Games video series:
I hope you are all well and getting at least a little time to enjoy playing a few of our games amidst your busy lives. Here at GMT, we have just finished our Fall Weekend at the Warehouse, where we hosted almost 150 customers and friends for four days of gaming fun! I love these events for the gaming, the food, getting to host all of you in our “home space,” and especially because it marks a couple times each year when I get to spend some time with long-time friends and make a few new ones. This has also traditionally been a place where 20+ GMT designers and developers congregate to catch up, play each other’s games, show off their current P500 products to customers, and eat prodigious amounts of food together! It’s a good time!
I love what one of our first-time attendees, Brian Hunt, wrote about this Fall’s Weekend on BGG (read his entire note here) a few days ago:
“I always hoped to make it to the weekend at the warehouse, and moving nearly 1000 miles this summer made it a possibility, and it did not disappoint. Now GMT weekend is not your normal CON in a lavish hotel/resort convention center, with events, panels and vendors, it is a hangout for friends. Everyone was amazing, checking out games, giving out pointers, asking questions and not one snub about what we were playing, even if it wasn’t a GMT, or war game. Again, thank you for the great weekend and I plan on attending again in April.”
… it is a hangout for friends. (emphasis mine – GB) You probably couldn’t have said anything that would make us feel any better than that, Brian! We aim to have an environment for the weekend where all the attendees are either already our friends (and friends with other attendees) or soon will be. It was great to see you among the roughly 20 new attendees this time! Thanks for your kind words, and I’m SO happy that you enjoyed our Weekend at the Warehouse. Looking forward to seeing you again in April!
On that note, we have established the dates for the Spring Weekend. We’ll hold the event on April 23-26, 2026. Mark your calendars and come join us for some fun!
The Games That Built GMT Games – Video Interview Series with Gene from Legendary Tactics
I mentioned very briefly back in August that I was doing a series of interviews with our friends at Legendary Tactics on the topic: “The Board Games That Built GMT Games.” Well, the series of six interviews is now complete, and provides my take on the people and teams most responsible for building GMT through the lens of some of our most influential, innovative, and successful games over our 35 year history. This is as close to a “History of GMT” piece as I’ve done to date. I hope you enjoy it!
A FREE Campaign System for Tank Duel!!! We realize that these are tougher times for gamers, with inflation cutting into our buying power and causing rising game prices. So when we find a place or a product where we can give our players great value at little or no cost to you, we jump at it. Such is our situation today, where we’re providing a FREE campaign system for Tank Duel, courtesy of our friend Paul O’Connor, and officially approved by designer Mike Bertucelli. We hope you enjoy it! – Gene
Tank Duel players have frequently requested a campaign system that expands on the narrative that develops during each game. This is a great idea but harder than you’d expect when you get into the details. Paul O’Connor created a rudimentary campaign system for the East Front that looked promising so Mike Bertucelli and Jason Carr requested a more polished version that supports both the East Front and North Africa. It took longer than expected but is now ready for prime time.
The campaign system focuses on generating interesting, balanced games of Tank Duel that can be played against other players or the Robata. The rules can be used in a number of different ways, ranging from quickly throwing together a single game all the way up to crafting dueling battle groups and fighting it out on a point-to-point virtual map. A simple, but unpredictably sneaky, campaign AI handles the details outside of games as the defender for solitaire gamers.
The campaign system covers all the major campaigns on both fronts and includes:
details about each of the campaigns, including the Soviet use of Lend-Lease tanks
additional weather conditions, such as “Extreme Cold” for the winters of 1941 and 1942
an additional scenario for games set in small towns
integrating anti-tank guns and infantry for a full “combined arms” feel if players are willing to deal with some extra complexity
5 new tank variants and a new anti-tank gun that can be played using slight modifications to existing tank boards or home-made boards that can be found on the BGG page
an Excel spreadsheet that can be used to manage campaign histories, improving crew experience, and the location of each unit in both battle groups
One of the things we enjoy about the campaign system is watching the evolution of tanks and tactics that occurred as the war progressed. Playing a full campaign is an investment of time but the players frequently find themselves challenged in new ways.
Another nice feature is that the campaign system does not require any additional pieces, so we are able to offer it for free as a set of electronic files on our website and BGG. Click here to get yours!
Operations Update/Tariffs/Shipping
Overall, as I told many customers who asked me about the health of GMT last weekend, overall, we are doing MUCH better. After very tough 1st and 2nd quarters, we had a terrific 3Q in terms of both current sales and future orders (P500). The result of that is that we have better cash reserves than we’ve had in a year, Kai and Jason are keeping a full slate of games heading to and back from the printers so we can deliver them to you, and we are working our strategic plan with the cash we need to implement it relatively quickly. We are not “out of the woods” yet, as we are living in uncertain economic times, but the trajectory of our recovery is really good. And I should note here, that this would have been impossible without the awesome amount of ongoing support and orders from all of you. So from all of us here at a “much-more-healthy-than-six-months-ago-GMT-Games,” THANK YOU!
Tariffs. The impact of tariffs on our overall health is, so far, not a huge factor. As you’ve seen, the combination of larger print runs, re-working our international shipping process, and directly subsidizing the tariff amounts from GMT funds have allowed us thus far to keep all tariff surcharges on games well under $5 per game (that’s our goal). If tariffs rise substantially, of course this might change. As long as they stay roughly in the ballpark where they are now, we think that with this threefold approach of managing print runs, running direct-from-factory international shipping, and directly subsidizing tariff costs, together with our customers continuing support, we can manage the small extra per game costs even if they continue over a long period.
International Shipping Transformation. We’re still making considerable progress on establishing and improving our direct-from-the-printer international shipping. Last month, I noted that we are in the “Watch and Learn” part of the process now, as we learn how quickly and efficiently these new processes work with both our office in the US and our seven fulfillment partners for worldwide shipping. We do now have some data from our first two shipments, and we are learning a LOT – and thankfully rapidly improving areas where we saw problems with those first two shipments. Tony was in town this past weekend for the Weekend at the Warehouse, and he and I and Mary got to sit down and do some evaluation, status updates, and strategizing for how to improve the process as we move into our third batch charge in about a week. Here’s a synopsis of where we are:
East Asia (not Japan or Australia/NZ). I’ll lead with the worst news. We have one shipping area (Asia – not Japan or Australia/NZ) that had BIG problems in getting rolling with the first two shipments. This was a huge surprise to us, as we thought these would be the quickest and easiest games to get to customers. And that will likely be true starting with the next batches. But for the first two batches, due to integration and communication problems with our fulfillment provider, customers in this region will be getting both the 1st and 2nd batches TOGETHER from the fulfillment center. Tony has identified the combination of problems that led to this dysfunction and was confident when we spoke on the weekend that he and Mary and the fulfillment partner have solved the issues heading into this third shipment. If there is any silver lining to the problems here, it’s that we don’t have a huge number of customers awaiting games in this region. Still, for those of you who have had such a long wait, please accept our apologies. We just got notice today that that our fulfillment partner now has both the first and second batches. So you should have your orders from both batches of games very soon.
Canada, US, and International customers shipped from our US Warehouse. For customers in these countries/regions, All of the shipments for both the first and second batches have shipped out.
Europe, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Japan. The first batch shipments have all been delivered to customers, to the best of our knowledge. The second batch shipments are nearing arrival at the fulfillment centers. Our latest update is that they should be arriving there in the coming 2-7 days, varying a bit between fulfillment partners.
Timing of Distributor Orders. The plan was that distributor orders were supposed to go along with our P500 orders to the fulfillment centers (and to our warehouse in the US) so that they’d have plenty of games to fill their retail orders and some initial restocks. Well, we had a universal problem across all the shipments where some of the distribution orders for those regions got in later than our customer orders and delayed the entire shipment, sometimes by as much as a few weeks. This was very frustrating, but Tony has now put timing deadlines on orders from all of our distribution partners to address this, and we believe this should lead to us being able to cut a couple weeks off of our ship times.
We’re definitely still very much “watching and learning” so that we can improve our shipping times and the efficiencies of our interactions with our fulfillment partners on the next shipments. We believe that this upcoming third batch shipment (Charging on October 30 – see the Charging and Shipping section later in the newsletter for all the details) should go much smoother and quicker than the last two batches. This has been a non-trivial operational transformation for us, and I’m sorry that it hasn’t gone more smoothly to date. But we’re definitely getting there. I want to thank all of you again for your ongoing patience and understanding and support as we make these challenging operational improvements. – Gene
I do apologize for my brevity in commenting on the update as we have just returned from an 11-day European Trip to attend SPIEL Essen and also tour historical sites. We had a great time and played lots of good games, saw and met a lot of great people, saw some amazing history and had a good time! I just don’t have the energy today to go on and on and am going to be a bit more brief than usual. I hope you will forgive me!
Now onto the main event with the P500 offerings!
New P500’s
As mentioned above, there were 2 new P500 games offered called Ancient Civilizations of the East Sea designed by Mark McLaughlin and Christopher Vorder Bruegge and Punicus: The Second Punic War designed by Carlos Olivares. There was also 1 reprint offered in Fields of Fire Deluxe Edition 2nd Printing.
Ancient Civilizations of East Asia
Do you like a little bit of chaos and unpredictability in your game play? Or do you prefer a game with scheming, subtlety and a little bit of turnabout? I may have a game for you that has a bit of both in it. Ancient Civilizations of East Asia is a lite civilization building game that sees 1-6 players take on the role of an ancient power to see if they can build up their civilization and conquer the opposing great civilizations of the ancient East. The game uses the same system as the first 2 games in the series called Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea and Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East but does add some new tricks. The game is about competition to gain the most area in the ancient world, spreading your cultures influence and religion and reaping the economic benefits of your conquests. This competition comes in the form of gaining Victory Points through building cities and acquiring gods and sacking and looting cities through war and domination of the sea.
From the game page, we read the following:
When getting ready to play the next game of GMT’s Ancient Civilization Series, check your feelings at the temple door as you and up to five other players hurl floods, plagues, volcanoes and earthquakes of truly karmic proportions at each other and then send hordes of rampaging ravenous barbarians to loot and pillage what remains in this “Take That!” game not of merely civilization BUILDING but primarily of civilization SURVIVAL!
With Ancient Civilizations of East Asia , you will struggle to build, conquer, and most of all SURVIVE this epic clash of cultures and peoples on a map that stretches from Java to Japan, and from the shores of the Philippine Sea to the slopes of the Himalayas. It is a “Take That!” game, which simulates the historic forces, both natural and man-made, which so ravaged and stultified civilizations’ progress.
Four Epochs and 19 Civilizations to Choose From (or design your own Civilization). Just as with Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea, Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East, and now the forthcoming Ancient Civilizations of East Asia , there are many civilization options within China and its peripheral areas through four Epochs from the Bronze Age to 1000 A.D. As one of far flung East Asian civilizations who are able to expand towards one another, or with a scenario placing player civilizations in close proximity (a kind of “steel cage match”), each gamer may choose whether to directly compete with one another or intensify their own internal development (more to come regarding that).
ACEA provides nineteen (19!) civilizations to choose from. Each has one or more unique attributes. Here’s a table listing them with their optional Epoch alignment(s):
Customizable Game Length. ACEA’s game length is customizable. Players set the length of their game. They need not play all four Epochs but may instead choose to play until an agreed upon amount of time, number of turns or Epochs completed, a chosen level of victory points reached, a “sudden death” optional victory condition met, or if one player achieves the “Mandate of Heaven.” No matter how long or short your game is, it is a COMPLETE game.
What’s New (and different) from previous GMT Ancient Civilizations Games? Please note ACEA has differences from its two series predecessors: although it shares the same basic game structure. Steppe land is “normal” terrain along with Mountains, Fertile, Desert, and Sea areas. The game adds rain forest (jungle), mainly in SE Asia and its surrounding islands. There is the option to improve mountains with terracing for better disk growth, build workshops to increase income from cities (for luxury goods like silk and porcelain as well as weapons of all sorts). ACEA money is identified as “taels”: the measure of fungible wealth in this game versus ACME‘s “mina” and ACIS‘ “talents”.
The game allows players to compete to build a Great Wall or Grand Canal, although they’re not required to be placed in their historic locations. There are buildable fortified zones to protect Land Areas from barbarians as well as discourage encroachment by other civilizations. Also included is the famous Silk Road which can generate player wealth.
Raise Your Culture to Defend Your Civilization. Culture Tracks, an optional feature for the previous two games of the series is intrinsic to ACEA‘s basic rules. It is no longer an option but an intrinsic and vital part of gameplay. Develop your civilization’s culture to gain benefits as well as better fend off disasters and your opponent’s card play. For example, should a civilization sufficiently advance on at least one of the three Culture Tracks, it can “Culturally Absorb” a Barbarian (Black Disk) controlled land area or, with requisite wealth (tael), simply avert an area’s Barbarian invasion through bribery. You can learn more about the “Ancient Civs” Culture Tracks, currently an optional rule for ACIS and ACME, here.
No Wonders or Deities – but Philosophies! This game does not have the Wonders (ACIS) or Deities (ACME) of its predecessors. Instead, with Ancient Civilizations of East Asia players have a choice of philosophies that provide their civilization with better growth or income, or a hybrid of the two. This game adds a lot more options for players.
Entirely New Cards (and Concepts). The game’s Fate Cards, called Karma Cards in ACEA, remain a major factor in inflicting chaos as well as rewards. These include a new design concept of “Persistency”: that is, a card’s good or ill effects could be sustained into a second turn or more.
Last Place is Not Necessarily a Bad Thing – or a Losing Position. As with the previous games of the series, the player in last place is the one who decides how the really bad “Must Play” cards are used (e.g. where a Barbarian Invasion strikes!). Furthermore, if your civilization is succumbing to decay and/or a host of manmade and/or natural disasters, do not despair! A player can invoke ACEA’s “Golden Egg” Rule to re-enter the game as a different civilization while keeping, and building upon, the player’s accumulated VPs up to that point.
Many Games in One. Ancient Civilizations of East Asia includes pre-set scenarios. Alternately, players can set up their own game parameters. ACEA is a “sandbox” design offering much flexibility with one to six players in terms of play style and circumstance.
There are FULL SOLO RULES for every setup and scenario allowing for solitaire play as well as games with a mix of human and non-player civilizations to choose from – along with options to “design your own” civilization. Recreate the epic wars from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms and the Unification of China, fend off (or be!) invaders from the steppes or from the seas, carve out an empire from the jungles around the mighty Mekong, or try an Exploration scenario that begins with an empty map luring you to search for new civilizations and great treasure and to boldly go where…you know.
We have played both of the games in the Ancient Civilizations Series, and while they are interesting, I have always felt that they are too lite and a bit too random for my tastes. I am looking forward to this volume as it seems they have made some changes and additions that might ratchet up the game.
While I have not played a bunch of games focused on the Punic War, the few that I have are very good and I am always interested in a good Ancients combat game. This month they announced a new 2nd Punic War game called Punicus: The Second Punic War designed by a newcomer in Carlos Oliveras. I am very eager to learn more about this one and will be reaching out to Carlos for an interview.
From the game page, we read the following:
Punicus recreates one of the most dramatic and pivotal conflicts of the ancient world: the epic struggle between Carthage and Rome during the Second Punic War. From Hannibal’s legendary crossing of the Alps to Scipio’s decisive victory at Zama, this strategic block wargame immerses you in the fierce battles and diplomatic intrigue that shaped the destiny of the Mediterranean. Players take on the roles of Carthage and Rome, commanding armies, managing resources, and competing for control of key cities and territories. Victory hinges on accumulating Prestige through tactical brilliance, diplomacy, piracy, siege-craft, and military conquest.
Punicus is a two-player historical strategy game based on the mechanics and concepts of Craig Besinque’s Hellenes, adapted specifically to the theater of the Second Punic War. Cards can be played for their Events or to generate Action Points used to recruit new unit blocks and maneuver armies across the map to engage in battle and besiege enemy cities. In addition to these core systems, players will engage in new actions such as piracy and diplomacy, and manage special projects on their player boards that shape the strategic development of their side.
Players are constantly faced with choices that carry lasting consequences—for instance, will they commit their limited resources to military efforts on the map, or invest in strategic projects that may shape the outcome of the war in later turns? Will they play the Catapults card to begin constructing siege weapons, or spend the card’s Action Points immediately instead? Building on the clear and elegant rules of Hellenes, Punicus balances deep historical flavor and narrative immersion with streamlined gameplay, providing an engaging experience for both veteran and new wargamers.
Each game year in Punicus is divided into five seasonal turns—Spring, Summer, High Summer, Fall, and Winter. At the start of the year, players draw a new hand of cards and resolve the New Year segment, each secretly playing a card as an Event, a Sacrifice, or for Research. During each seasonal turn, players alternate taking actions after determining initiative. Cards can be played either for their Event effect—triggering historical or tactical shifts—or for their Action Points, which are spent on Movement, Building, Diplomacy, or Production. As the year progresses, players must carefully manage limited resources across a wide range of operations, culminating in Winter, when all units must return to safe locations or be disbanded if not maintained.
I have played several of Craig Besinque’s block wargames, including T&T and C&C and the systems are great so I would expect this one to also be good as it uses them.
Fields of Fire is a solitaire game designed by Ben Hull that allows players to simulate squad level actions on various battlefields in different wars such as World War II, Korea and Vietnam. The game is very complex and has a rulebook that is around 60 pages in length. The common complaint over the past 15 years since its release in 2008 has been that the rulebook is hard to follow and the game suffers because of that problem. Well, in the Monthly Update, we found out that they are working on the 2nd Printing of the new and improved and expanded Deluxe Edition for Fields of Fire Volume I.
From the game page, we read the following:
Fields of Fire Deluxe Edition is an expanded and improved edition of Fields of Fire Volume I. Based on the past 15 years of feedback, hundreds of hours of playtesting, and long discussions with the design team, the Deluxe Edition presents Ben Hull’s masterpiece of tactical infantry command in a way that is accessible to the modern gamer while retaining all of the deep complexity that veteran players have grown to love over the years.
New features include:
A Rewritten Series Rulebook. The Deluxe Edition comes with a rewritten 3rd Edition ruleset, packed with examples, diagrams, and clarifying notes while maintaining continuity with the 2nd Edition rules. Series Developers Andrew Stead and Colin Parsons have worked to eliminate ambiguities and edge cases throughout, creating a much improved reference manual for play.
Training Material. While Fields of Fire has a reputation of being difficult to learn, the Field Manuals make it easy. Each chapter in the Basic Training Field Manual incrementally introduces new rules through training exercises that teach you the basics of infantry combat. In the Advanced Operations Field Manual you’ll find guides on setting up for air assaults, defensive missions, and making the best use of supporting vehicles.
A Full Stand-Alone Mission. Keep Up the Fire! is a WWII based stand-alone mission tailored towards easing new company commanders into the full game. This mission can be played repeatedly with a variety of simplified rules to allow you to adjust to the full historical campaigns.
Four Fully Redesigned Mission Books. Refining and improving the new campaign book format that began with Fields of Fire: The Bulge Campaign, the Normandy, Heartbreak Ridge, Naktong River, and Vietnam campaigns are presented in a clarified and expanded manner featuring newly written background notes and additional features for this edition.
Over 200 updated counters plus various additional reference markers and new units.
New elevation cards to enhance the Heartbreak Ridge campaign.
A completely new set of redesigned player aids including new charts, logsheets, Command Display, and air assault planning cards.
A 3.5″ Game Box
I have now finally played this one and I can say that it was amazing and really surpassed my expectations. While I had Alexander to hold my hand and guide me through the game, teaching me the rules and the system as we went, I really feel like I have it down and will be able to continue playing again.
Here is a link to our joint RAW video after our mutual play:
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. BOTH of this month’s new P500 games – Punicus and Ancient Civilizations of East Asia, were teased last month as “a new block game set in the ancient world.” (Yes, I am occasionally tricky! 🙂 ) 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 GBoH expansion/module – hhhhm I have nothing…unfortunately!
A solo module for one of our popular game series (allowing solo play of the whole series) – I think that this is a Combat Commander solo mode that I have heard rumored.
A new edition of a favorite GBoH title – The Great Battles of Alexander. If I say it with confidence, do you think that would will it into existence?
A new GBACWSeries game – I have nothing.
Well, my guesses (or lack thereof) this month were pretty lame! Not my best effort. How did I do Gene?
Charging & Shipping
The following information for Charging and Shipping was copied directly from the Update:
Current Charge/Shipment: We charged BOTH US and international customers on September 15. This charge and shipment (“Batch 2”) were for the following EIGHT items:
We will charge both US and international customers on Thursday, October 30 for the following items. Our P500 pricing will be good through Monday, November 3, when all pricing on the games below will revert to retail prices. On November 4, we’ll begin processing and then sending order/shipping data to our fulfillment partners, and we’ll begin shipping games from our warehouse roughly November 6. Depending on the Tariff situation, this MIGHT be our final P500 charge/shipment of 2025.
It is like the faucet has been turned and broke and now we can’t turn it off (not as if we would want to!) but there are just so many great games on the way that I am amazed and a bit overwhelmed as we already have a ton of GMT Games from 2025 that we just haven’t gotten around to playing just yet.
Production Outlook
Also we got the following production update from Kai Jensen:
This year’s printing has been slightly disrupted by tariffs but I’m feeling pretty good about what’s lined up for the remainder of this year and the beginning of 2026.
We have seven items that just came back from the printers. By this time next week, we’ll have 17 projects at the printer in various stages of production. For November, I expect we’ll be sending just two new games and two reprints off to print. And December has about another ten to send off if the holiday season doesn’t significantly delay the final push through proofing and art.
There are 26 projects currently looking to be ready during Q1 2026. Not everything will stay on schedule – that’s just the reality of production – but even a fraction of that will keep us on track for the year, so I’m feeling good about the line-up headed into the new year. – Kai
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.
First up was a look at the final cover for the upcoming Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648 designed by Franciso Gradaille.
Next we were shown the final board for the upcoming Baltic Empires: The Northern Wars of 1558-1721 designed by Brian Asklev and it looks very period and fitting for the subject. The artwork is by one of my favorite wargame artists in Nils Johannson and it is just as gorgeous as his usual work is! I am very much looking forward to this game and have appreciate the slow trickly of art samples we have enjoyed over the past few months.
Finally, we got a look at some card samples of the Turn Zero cards from Twilight Struggle 20th Anniversary Hall of Fame Edition. Here are two of the promo cards from the upcoming Twilight Struggle 20th Anniversary Hall of Fame Edition!Non-Aligned Movement is one of the cards from the Promo Packs, now updated for the 20th Anniversary edition. At times, the Non-Aligned Movement opposed both nuclear powers, and the card reflects this with it’s neutral alignment. NATO Referendum is an English language version of the Referéndum OTAN promo card from the Spanish Language version of Twilight Struggle, thanks to Devir Games. Now you can resolve the 1986 Spanish NATO Referendum in your games of Twilight Struggle.
In case you didn’t know, Twilight Struggle: Turn Zero is a mini-expansion that lets players explore alternate starting situations for the two superpowers. These alternate starts change the opening setup in Twilight Struggle and add some new tricks and dilemmas for players to deal with.
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.
While we didn’t get traditional text updates on the design progress, we were given these images that expound on the detail known about the game and share some key information.
I think that I have said this since this was announced a few months ago, but I want more information. This is better, and is giving me a better understanding of what the game is and is trying to do, but I still would like more.
It’s been a very busy few months on Away Team, with a lot of progress. In August, we finished a round of testing that took playtesters through Star System 4 (of 7). The playtesting provided valuable feedback, which we used to review and tweak the rate at which Discovery Points, the currency of exploration success, are gained. We also adjusted a play mechanic to increase immersion, based on player feedback. Now the rules give players more latitude in deciding how much time to spend on each site. This creates a decision space where players must balance their desire to extract all of the game’s secrets against an impatient ASO (Alliance of Space-Faring Organizations) that has a timetable for your exploration.
While that was happening, John Butterfield and Greg Costikyan completed writing on the remaining systems, allowing us to start a new round of playtesting earlier this month. As you read this, playtesters are working their way through all seven of Away Team’s systems!
At the same time, work continues on the artwork for the game’s many environs and encounters. We’re excited to share some examples with you this month (below), courtesy of Javier Bahamonde and Adam Narozanski. Enjoy! – David
Good news everyone! This will be the final designer update on Baltic Empires, as we are (more or less) at the finish line. The layout of the rulebook, playbook, and player aids are done, and final proofreading on them is underway.
We showed you Nils’ amazing work with the box cover in the last newsletter, so this time we wanted to show you the box back (near the top of the newsletter) as well as the map in full (above in this section), as I realized you have only been shown snippets of this thing so far. And while these snippets have been amazing, they do not in any way do justice to the full experience of Nils’ map for Baltic Empires – a map that I consider to be the most beautiful, and most thematic, map in wargaming.
My design goals for Baltic Empires were for a fun multiplayer game that was rich in historical detail but still easy to play in terms of both complexity and playing time. The process from the start of the design, to getting it on the P500 and now soon to be published has been quite a ride, and I am super excited to hear the response from players once it gets back from the printers and onto your gaming tables.- Brian
Decisive Action has now completed all design and playtesting work — a major milestone for the project! Every game component has been delivered to GMT for final layout and production preparation.
Our outstanding artist, Antonio Pinar, has completed the maps and counters, which look fantastic and capture the modern battlefield with clarity and precision. You can see some of his work in the Sneak Peek section, and he’s now turning his attention to the first two of the game’s four card decks, bringing the same professional detail and visual consistency seen in his map and counter work.
As the project transitions fully into GMT’s capable hands, the focus now shifts to final layouts, component integration, and packaging design — including the charts, the other card decks, and box art. It’s exciting to see the final touches coming together as Decisive Action moves closer to production.
Looking ahead, design work is already exploring a possible Decisive Action supplement featuring a NATO Enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group, a Russian BTR Battalion Tactical Group, and a new Ukraine map — as well as a second Decisive Action title centered on a U.S. Marine Corps Battalion Landing Team and Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy Marine Corps (PLANMC) clashing across key terrain in the first island chain.
Thanks again to everyone who has followed this journey from early prototypes to a complete, tested, and fully realized design. I’m thrilled with how far it’s come — and can’t wait for you to see the finished product on your table soon! – Joe
Following our latest round of playtesting, Epipolae is now entering the fine-tuning and balancing phase. We’re excited about how the different victory paths are shaping up for both players, and we’re especially pleased to have successfully adapted the Levy & Campaign system to the ancient world and its unique dynamics. – Christophe
The big news this month is that Fields of Fire Deluxe2nd Printing is on our P500 list today!
There won’t be any big changes compared to the first printing, but of course we’ll be adding clarifications, fixing a couple of errors, and making sure all our NVA units are the right shade of brown. All updated books will be available to grab at GMTGames.com just as soon as they’re done.
Fields of Fire III: The Parachute Regiment is entering the final stage of production. A second round of playtesting for the Arnhem campaign is now complete. The latter stages of this campaign feature Fields of Fire’s most complex layer, Urban Combat. We’ve been focused on ensuring the campaign book, and the Urban Combat rules are crystal clear so you, the player, are concentrating solely on the situation and not the rules. Working out the best way to defend your pocket of the city with a handful of men, no radios, and an umbrella is where the fun lies after all.
One of the three Training Pamphlets will be dedicated to Urban Combat. It will teach you in easy steps about movement, space, and close quarters combat through a series of assault courses and an extended example of play.
Packed into the Fields of Fire III box you’ll find four Mission books, three training pamphlets, 1068 counters, plenty of player aids, and over 300 cards. We have three artists, Donal Hegarty, Terry Leeds and Mark Mahaffey hard at work on the new counters and cards to ensure everything is as new and fresh as the campaigns that we’re introducing here. We’re confident that this volume pushes the system further than it’s been before, and although veterans of the game will still recognize it as Fields of Fire, it offers players a completely new experience. – Andrew
We’ve been working hard on getting the new carrier rules and all the game materials updated to begin rigorous testing, and I had hoped to be testing down in Hanford this month. Regrettably, an event at home forced me to cancel the trip to California literally the day before I’d planned to leave — shucks and other comments. But developer Jack and I tested via VASSAL instead and agree that we’re close enough that the new version should be going out to the test team by the time you read this.
An issue we discussed at length was the power of anti-aircraft in the carrier operations. To reflect how this increased in most navies as the war continued, campaign special rules for the1942 battles in IE dramatically reduced the AA ratings of all carriers. Attacking bombers survived attacks at a historical rate while still inflicting realistic damage on their targets. But when you attacked a cruiser or destroyer, these now had stronger flak defenses than a carrier in a task force – obviously unsatisfactory.
We’ve decided to ditch the special rules for now and go back to using the published anti-aircraft ratings, but with one major difference: in these naval missions only, Out of the Sun cards will no longer inflict Hits on aircraft attacking naval targets. Jack and I tested this in a couple Eastern Solomons attacks, and it worked out in that limited sample. I’ll go into this decision in more detail in an upcoming Inside GMT article for those interested.
We’ll incorporate this change in the first round of testing the new carrier operation system and see how it affects balance. If you’d like to be one of those making this determination, contact Developer Jack Beckman and volunteer to play on VASSAL or face-to-face. – Chris
Coast Watchers: Allied Field Intelligence in the South Pacific, 1942-1943 – Recon Series, Volume I
Coast Watchers test and development have wrapped up, and we are headed to all art being done. Artist Wouter Schoutteten has the hefty background Playbook almost done and is well into solitaire materials art, completion of which will leave only the box back yet to do. Then we are off to GMT internal proofers to catch whatever I have missed and we are print-ready.
Drachen: Reconnaissance at Verdun, 1916 – Recon Series, Volume II
With Volume I almost in the can, the test and development team has turned to the second Recon Series project – Drachen. We recently launched a Discord server dedicated to this volume and have weekly-plus playtest sessions underway on Pete Wagner’s excellent Tabletop Simulator module. In addition to my physical set, another test set is under construction.
Even before our Discord, Drachen has seen a fair amount of playtest and demos over the past year. The systems are working to my intentions, and development now aims mainly to tuning mechanics for balance and realism and then ensuring that the 8 main scenarios are in 2-way balance. I have presentation work to do in completing a fully explained Rulebook and filling in some Situation historical synopses. Solitaire development remains in the future.
If you are interested in trying out Drachen on TTS or print-and-play, please join us on our Discord! Email me at volkoruhnke@gmail.com to volunteer. Thanks for reading! – Volko
I’m very excited to say that The Pure Land has finally reached the top of my stack to get finished! This means that I am now working on polishing off the non-player system, which hopefully only needs a few adjustments after my initial work on it a few years ago. In the meantime I have sent Nils some more edits to the map, and we are just waiting for Terry to become available to work on the rest of the graphic design and layout. It’s been a long road, and I can’t wait for my first design to finally be published sometime next year. – Joe
The Weirmar Republic team has been hard at work putting the finishing touches on final game materials. All game art is by Terry Leeds, and he has done a terrific job creating materials that make this complex game accessible, including over 100 event cards that capture the chaos of interwar Germany. Joe Schmidt has designed a full non-player system, with a distinct bot for each faction, so you can play The Weirmar Republic with any number of players. His bots, based on the card-based bots used in recent COIN games, provide a challenging opponent but are not difficult to run. Finally, we are polishing the Playbook, complete with several scenarios, a full tutorial example of play, and comprehensive faction and historical notes by designer Gunnar Holmbäck and Richard Hecker. It’s a big package, but the story of the rise and fall of democracy in Germany is an important one, deftly told by The Weirmar Republic. – Bruce
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:
First Impressions Video for The Napoleonic Wars 2nd Edition:
Unboxing Video: Battles of the American Revolution Tri-Pack II:
Video Review: Battles of the American Revolution Tri-Pack II: Germantown:
Thank you for reading along this month. Please let me know what caught your interest from the update and what GMT Games products that you have been enjoying lately.
The Players' Aid 
Do you need two Goober calendars ? Bill
Sent from the all new AOL app for iOS
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Sure if you are willing!
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