GMT Games

I've finally taken the plunge. Not typically one for super heavy games or war games, I wanted something somewhat on topic to celebrate Bastille Day, and ended up with Imperial Struggle. It's my first dive into the pillar that is GMT Games, and I'm interested to hear everyone else stories of walking down those hollowed halls.

To help mark , we’re hosting a series of great giveaways from some of your favorite designers, publishers, and retailers!

Today’s giveaway comes to us courtesy of **, the longtime masters of all things wargaming and a giant in the board game industry. GMT has generously donated the following prizes:

• A copy of the latest printing of , fresh off its recent P500 run

• A copy of , the 2-player game of Cold War intrigue and former No.1 game on BGG.

Additionally, each winner will receive a collector’s edition copy of the latest issue of , which has covered war games for more than two decades. The includes the standalone wargame “The Battle of Wakefield.”

To enter

To be eligible to win, you must have previously commented in prior to Sept. 15.

To enter, all you have to do is leave a top-level comment answering the following question:

What’s your favorite theme? It can be a theme from a single game, or a theme that appeals to you and will make you consider any game with that theme.

Winners will be randomly selected from qualifying comments.

Shipping

This giveaway will ship to the US ONLY. This one will be run similarly to the previous giveaway for Root; GMT shipped the games to me, and I will ship to the winners. I will cover some of the cost out of my own pocket, but the winners will be required to transfer $10 via PayPal to cover the remainder. If you are unable or unwilling to do this, please do not enter. The copies of C3i magazine will be shipped separately.

The fine print

Each day, I will make a new post announcing the winners of the previous day’s giveaway. They will be tagged in the post, and notified via private message. WINNERS WILL HAVE 48 HOURS TO RESPOND. If you don’t expect to be able to log in for two days after a giveaway, please do not enter. If a winner does not respond within 48 hours, another winner will be selected.

To simplify things for the companies who have donated prizes (and to help prevent the same person winning multiple prizes), I will be collecting shipping information and passing it on to the donors. This will include collecting a valid name and shipping address, and in some cases, a phone number. If you aren’t comfortable providing this information, please do not enter.

Before anyone accuses the mod team of being too , we were not contacted by any of these companies for any form of publicity. In fact, everyone who replied to our outreach was exceptionally cool about the whole thing, and grateful to for the community we provide. This is not the time to disparage or air grievances with the company providing the prizes for this giveaway.

Mods are not eligible to win any of these giveaways.

I’ll be turning notifications off on this post, in order to prevent a relentless barrage of orangereds, so if you have additional questions, please , or send me a PM.

Good luck!

I recently fell into a rabbit hole of Command and Colors youtube reviews.

Is it even possible to get Napoleon at a reasonable price? Does this publisher do reprints?

Me and my friend recently played through a nice rousing game of "Pursuit of Glory: The Great War in the Near East" by GMT games. Over the course of about a month we played through a whole game of it (a total playtime of approx. 12 hours or more), and the beast of a board dominated the living room throughout that time.

I recently bit the bullet on ordering "Paths of Glory" and "Pursuit of Glory" as they were board games dealing with a personal favorite topic of mine (WW1) and I've always itched for a war strategy game that scratched the itch that "RISK" and "Axis and Allies" promise to scratch that they never quite manage. I was intimidated as these games seemed insanely complex but since there's no other WW1 games out there and I knew "Paths" was supposed to be great (At one time it was #1 all-time on BGG) I figured I'd go for it.

And I'm so glad I did. Make no mistake these games are beasts, and their complexity is immense, particularly "Pursuit"; but I don't think I've ever played another game with as much flavor and interesting decisions and strategic approaches as I saw with "Pursuit of Glory" I am confident that we messed up a lot of the rules at several points but it ultimately didn't matter as we both had a great time playing through it. "Paths" is also a complex game but is much, much more approachable and straightforward than "Pursuit" which has dozens of unique units who have special abilities and rules and modifiers that are a nightmare to keep track of, yet somehow I didn't mind.

It's led me to have a bit of an epiphany with complexity and crunch in games: "Pursuit of Glory" is frankly too complicated for its own good and will never reach a wide audience because of that. And while it's overcomplexity is my biggest issue with it, it's also the thing that makes the game so cool to me. The complexity exists to allow the flavor to have meaning. There are all these unique units based on real-life formations, that they all have unique names and stats and often even unique rules or modifiers for how they can be used in the game. You don't feel like you're just placing tokens on a map, you feel like you're making a cohesive force that follows a traceable narrative.

How could I ever forget the brave Russian cavalry division which stayed loyal to the Entente after the Bolshevik revolution collapsed the country and conducted a series of bandit-raids through the Caucus Mountains? Or the disparate ANZACS split across three fronts or morphed together to form a unit specialized in desert warfare? Or those damn German engineers who paraded around Anatolia teaching all the Turks how to build entrenchments making their frontlines that much harder to break through?

I don't see people posting about these games too often, Wargaming and GMT games are maybe a bit too heavy or niche even for a boardgaming subreddit. But I will say: if these kinds of games about warfare or history seem of interest to you then you shouldn't hesitate to pick them up, especially since so many of them only require ONE likeminded player to enjoy, and many others have optional solitaire systems. I've even got a couple more from GMT on the way that I'm eager to try and I think if more people gave them a shot they may be pleasantly surprised.

Samurai Battles is a great game. That aside (detailed review later), I whole heartedly appreciate the publisher for having used shapes in addition to the colours on the cards, player aids, rulebook and . If there was only color and no shapes in the dice (like Ghost Stories) this game would have been unplayable for me.

So, thanks GMT games!

I don't rep them in any way. I wanted to get Mr. President from GMT after friends raved about it. If I buy direct, with dollar exchange, shipping and tax I'm looking at $CAD200. I got it from Boardgamebliss with faster shipping for $120 all in. It doesn't work for every title. They don't have some of the more obscure titles. But if you're a wargamer like me, love the GMT style games but have to live on a budget, they are essentially half price.

A classic example of me learning the subtle nuances of a game live on camera and then defeating myself. Mitch Land has also dropped by to help in the video comments

This new game looks fascinating, and I'm especially impressed by the YouTube trailer that does a great job providing background and getting you excited for the story the game is going to tell. This, in combination with the ongoing Zenobia Awards, is a very encouraging sign for the future of historical games.

Interestingly, the game designer seems to go by a pseudonym: Non-Breaking Space. I'm not really sure what to make of it. It's not clear if it's a new designer or a veteran designer wanting the game to speak for itself. I'm sure we'll find out in due time.

If you're not familiar with GMT, all of their games are available for pre-order on their P500 system. Once a game gets over 500 orders (realistically more like 700 these days), the game is officially greenlit and will be produced. Often times it takes years for the game to be released once it's available for pre-order, but this one does look fairly far along already.

Link here:

YouTube Trailer here:

Summary here:

"...Cross Bronx Expressway simulates the socio-economic processes of urban development, and the human costs that result, as a competitive city-builder with collective loss conditions. Players control one of three asymmetric factions working in the South Bronx between 1940 and 2000, pursuing their own goals while cooperating to keep the borough viable. Through a card driven sequence of play, they will work to solve the economic challenges facing the area by building infrastructure and organizations, forming coalitions, mitigating the multitude of issues facing the vulnerable population, and managing resources to stay out of debt. Cross Bronx Expressway offers an engaging way to learn about the recent history of American cities, as exemplified by Jane Jacobs' pivotal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities, simulated through the case study of the South Bronx. Players will experience the conflicting incentives and complex factors shaping urban life and together determine the fate of the Bronx."

Hi folks!

A friend of mine recently introduced our game group to Sword of Rome by GMT Games (US bg publisher) and I was amazed at how good it played. We had a blast and I had never heard of this game until we played and after some research, could see why it was one of GMT's classics back when it came out. Playing my first game with 5 players was daunting but the asymmetry of each civilization and theme really got me into it and I can't wait to play again!

Now I want a copy of my own but sadly it's out of print and can go for double the prince online. Looking into this, I found out that GMT still runs reprints of their games when demand is there.

So!! If you've been looking for this game or any other board game by GMT, they have what they call a P500 pre-order list. Essentially you can pre-order out-of-print games, at no initial cost, until they see that they have 500 orders for the game. Then the game gets bumped up back to printing and production. They also offer those pre-orders at about 30-40% discount which is great! Now Sword of Rome isn't there yet which is why I wanted to see if we could rally and bump those numbers up lol

This is also the first time I see a publisher website keep active track of orders so that they can bring some of their games back into printing! Love the idea and wanted to share with all of you

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Here's a link to the game on GMT. The P500 PRE-ORDER tab near the top of that page will also bring you to their list of games in reprint and explain that program in further detail.

And BGG

Cheers and happy gaming!

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TL;DR -- Played Sword of Rome recently with gaming group. 5 asymmetrical civilizations / CDG with area control, strategy map, warfare and diplomacy. Lots of fun!!Publisher will reprint if enough orders are put in

Word on the street is that Wings for the Baron has signed on with GMT Games, and will get a new version out to the world at some point in the future. I'd like to think that the glowing endorsement in our podcast pushed it over the edge, but I think it's such a good game that it didn't need any help from us!

For those of you that haven't given it a shot it's well worth your time, an economy-engine game with cool airplane tech built into the thematic elements. Historic setting too. It's good to see that it will be available again at retail. And GMT is the mack daddy of publishers, so I'm sure they'll do right by it.

Congrats.

. . . and it's doing just fine, with 144 purchases in the first 24 hours. That's a pretty stunning start for a GMT pre-pub.

This is GMT's version of kickstarter, and they don't charge your card until just before they ship your copy. So there's very little risk in signing up to show interest. They'll let you know a couple of weeks in advance that they're planning to charge your card, and you can cancel out if you need to before that occurs.

For those of you who haven't heard me drone on about this game, it's superb. It's one of my group's most-played games ever, a traditional German style euro that has three rule-sets -- a "solo" mode (which allows either one or two players to play against 1-4 automated opponents), a standard mode which is a super-tight contention style game, or advanced mode which is a broader engine-builder title with more ways to score. So it provides the ability to play 1-6 players in three different formats.

Executive theme that is a perfect match of mechanics and setting. We've talked about this game twice on our podcast if you'd like to find us but if nothing else it's worth having a look at GMT's pre-purchase page -- . This thing has been selling for $250+ on eBay the last few years because it's been out of stock since about 2018. $62 pre-purchase price on this new edition.

The new version looks to be the same as the prior, with a bit of tuning and the new set of "solo" rules for one or two players.

This is maybe the best game you've never heard of.

So I got Battle Line for Christmas, which is my first GMT game. I love it! What seemed like a light, fun card game at first quickly revealed itself as a much more strategic, in-depth experience.

Well, some light researching into GMT has lead me down quite the wargame path. If you could own 5 GMT games, what would they be?

You have brought some joy into the life of a gamer who lost his job due to Covid19

I've fallen in love with the COIN games over the past few months and I'm branching out to trying other GMT games too. My only trouble is finding an active community to talk with. I can find bgg forums for specific games but I'd like a bigger one to talk about their other games too.

It's Monday so time for another blog post! I finally got around to writing up my initial experiences with Volko Ruhnke's latest game, the fascinating Nevsky. As usual you can read the original on my website, which includes a battle report of my second game since that one proved to be the more interesting of the two! Link here:

Cards on the table, I have played Nevsky twice as of writing this piece. Normally my First Impressions are literally that, reactions to having played the game once. I played the first scenario in Nevsky and afterward wasn’t sure what exactly to say about the experience, so after a few days I set up the second scenario and started playing. It’s not that Nevsky isn’t a fascinating game – it is, and we’ll get to that – it was just that it has taken me longer to digest it. Part of this delay is probably due to Nevsky particular design decisions, but part of it is definitely down to me and my own obsessions.

As should be apparent to anyone who has been following my posts up to now – I’m completely obsessed with the Middle Ages, and I’m also pretty obsessed with wargames. Unfortunately for me, medieval history is not the most popular topic in wargaming. While I’ve been enjoying my time with the Men of Iron series, hex and counter recreations of medieval battles isn’t really my main area of interest. I’m not really a ‘battles guy’. I’m interested in medieval battles because I’m interested in almost everything medieval, but I’m far more interested in how the battle came to be than I am in which flank did what first. Basically, I’m more interested in strategic and operational level tactics. That’s where Nevsky comes in – it helps to fill the really quite large void in operational medieval wargames. Nevsky, and the Levy and Campaign system generally, is exactly the kind of game I’ve been waiting for, and I think that’s part of what has made it so challenging to get my thoughts in order after having played it for the first time.

Before I go on to talk about the experience of playing Nevsky, I want to give due credit to Jean Michel Grosjeu, who’s excellent YouTube videos taught me how to play. If you’re at all interested, you should definitely watch them, they’re excellent. . I read the rulebook after watching the videos. Nevsky’s rulebook is well put together and easy to reference but having the experience of watching two full rounds played with Jean Michel Grosjeu explaining everything to me as it happened made it all click much faster than it normally would have.

Nevsky is the first title in designer Volko Ruhnke’s new Levy and Campaign series and, as the name suggests, each round of Nevsky is split into two phases: Levy and Campaign. In the Levy phase you summon new lords to fight, and equip previously recruited lords with new troops, transport, and/or special abilities. Once the Levy phase is complete it’s time to campaign and discover how badly you messed up your Levy phase. You see, Nevsky is a game primarily about logistics. If your army moves or fights you have to feed them, if you can’t feed them, they lose their motivation to stay on the board and may just leave. Even if you can feed them, your commanders have only agreed to be on campaign for a certain number of turns before they just pick up all their stuff and go home. You can pay them to stick around longer – but did you remember to collect taxes before invading the other sides territory? If you didn’t you could always take an enemy city, or maybe acquire some loot by raiding, except that taking enemy cities can be a long and arduous process, and loot makes it harder to move across the board which means you’ll need more food to get where you want to go.

Don’t get me wrong, there is fighting in Nevsky, but there’s a lot of hurdles to jump through before you can even get your armies in a position to be fighting each other. If you lose a fight your army might just pack up and go home, but even if you win a fight if can’t feed your victorious troops, they might do the same. Sometimes it may even be worth losing a battle because your opponent has no food, and thus is in no position to fight. If you just show up and run away in the first round that could be enough! The calculations surrounding combat in Nevsky are really unlike anything I’ve played before.

Because of all of these logistical challenges, I would recommend learning the game with the second scenario in the book rather than the first. You see, the types of transport you need vary by season in Nevsky – in summer you have ships, boats, and carts, while in the winter you only have sleds, and in the muddy spring ‘rasputista’ you can only transport food by water. The default starting point is in the summer, which immediately drops you into a game where you have to balance three different modes of transport. However, the second scenario starts with a winter campaign, where rivers and roads are interchangeable, ships are unusable, and all you need are sleds. It’s a little bit less to juggle as you try and grasp the game’s basics. The campaign then carries on into the spring so you can learn about ships and boats once you’ve played a few rounds already.

There are also fewer activations in winter. In the campaign round you get a number of activations based on the season – who you activate when is determined by a deck of cards you assemble before the campaign begins, locking you in to a certain order of play. In winter it’s only 4 cards, so again you have less to do and a little less to worry about. It’s also a shorter amount of time, so once you realise how badly you’ve messed everything up you won’t have to live with those mistakes for quite as long!

I think Nevsky does an admirable job of capturing the nightmarish logistics of medieval campaigning while also embracing the unique elements of Baltic warfare – particularly in its use of winter campaigns and the rasputista. I really look forward to playing it competently someday. So far, I’m doing well if I successfully finish a campaign turn with all my armies fed and located approximately where I intended to put them. There is clearly plenty of depth to this game, and I look forward to exploring it!

Recommended Reading:

The Northern Crusades by Eric Christiansen

The Teutonic Knights by William Urban

(Instructional)

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Do the games play good solo? How is the replayability of the game solo?