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Hi everyone!
I hope you are all doing well. We have MUCH to share today, so I'll get right to it. Before we get into new P500s, new products for sale, and all kinds of news and support information, I want to let you in on a little secret...and ask for your help.
GMT Merch is on the way! The secret is that for the past few months, Scott Mansfield and Rachel Billingsley, our Merchandising co-team leaders, have been planning the launch of a robust line of GMT merchandise. They're not quite ready to take the store live just yet, but it's getting close. As we prepare to launch, Scott and Rachel could use some help from all of you. Let's hear some details from them:
"Hi everyone! Scott and Rachel here. As Gene noted, we are preparing to launch a broad line of GMT Merchandise for our customers and fans to wear and enjoy. So for those of you who have been asking about where to find GMT merchandise, it will be coming soon in 2021!
Our plan is to start small with a limited number of items in our merchandise line and build up quickly as we learn which types of items you want to own most. You’ll have access to a broad selection of quality merch, from t-shirts to posters to hats, mugs, and more! We’ll get you a more detailed list next month. For now, here are a few examples of the types of merchandise that we plan to offer:
Before we go live with new merchandise, we need your help!
So we can decipher what kind of GMT merchandise you would like, please fill out this survey to give us your preferences, whether that’s t-shirts, mugs, hats, art prints, accessories, or something else. The survey will be live until Friday, May 21st at 11:00 PM PST."
GMT Games Merchandise Survey
OK, thanks for your help. I know Scott and Rachel will use your feedback to make our merchandise offerings best fit what you want.
Now let's move on to the rest of this month's news....
New P500s. As part of this month's update, we are adding three new P500 games:
- Battle of White Plains (Volume 10 in Mark Miklos' Battles of the American Revolution series) - Designed by Mark Miklos
- Dubno '41 (Game #5 in Rick Young's Fast Action Battles series) - Designed by Francisco Ronco
- The Pure Land (Volume XIV in Volko Ruhnke's COIN series) - Designed by Joe Dewhurst
We're also adding three player favorites—Combat Commander: Europe, 5th Printing, Tank Duel, 2nd Printing, and Twilight Struggle Deluxe Edition, 8th Printing—to the P500 reprint list. And we have the 2nd Edition Update Kit for The US Civil War. Please check out the "New P500 Additions" section for more details on all of these.
More Games Heading to the Printer. Mark Simonitch, Terry Leeds, Charlie Kibler, and all the talented members of our art team continue to produce plenty of games to keep our production queue full. In May, we have two new titles and SEVEN reprints heading to the printer. Check out our Tentative Production Queue section below to get the details.
Lots of you said last month that you really liked seeing the Tank Duel: North Africa box back, so this month I'll include a peek at the box back for SpaceCorp Ventures. Enjoy!
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Watch it Played Tutorial: How to Play 1960: The Making of the President. If I had to pick one person on the planet to teach me a game I'd never played, I think it would be Rodney Smith. His Watch it Played videos are precision-engineered teaching videos providing everything you need to learn and play a game in a concise 15-40 minute format. Rodney previously created a terrific "How to Play" video for Sekigahara, designed by Matt Calkins; I highly recommend it if you want to learn that game. His latest teaching video on a GMT game just dropped this week, and this one is for Jason and Christian's 1960: The Making of the President. If you want to learn this game (or as several veteran players have already commented, learn it BETTER), check out the video here: Watch it Played: How to Play 1960: The Making of the President
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2020 Golden Geek Nominees. Big congrats to eight of our designers, as their games have been nominated for the 2020 Golden Geek Awards. The GMT nominees (with designers listed and award categories in parenthesis) are:
All Bridges Burning - designed by VPJ Arponen (best wargame)
Atlantic Chase - designed by Jeremy White (best wargame)
Caesar: Rome vs Gaul - designed by Mark Simonitch (best wargame)
Imperial Struggle - designed by Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews (best wargame, best 2 player boardgame)
Versailles 1919 - designed by Geoff Engelstein and Mark Herman (best wargame)
Winners will be determined by gamer votes. So please go to the BGG Golden Geek Voting Page to vote for your favorites! Thanks!
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Frank Chadwick, I Presume? (from Alan Emrich). Remember Thunder in the East? Its development team has been working on this monster-size game project for the entire Frank Chadwick's ETO series. Think of it as a 5-volume series of 3-map games which smoothly combine into one huge Corps-level WWII gaming experience (and whose antecedent game is the introductory wargame classic, Battle for Moscow). Thanks to your support and the great success of Volume I: Thunder in the East, the development team, led by Frank Chadwick and Alan Emrich, has soldiered on in an effort to complete the entire series design in one giant bound.
And we are pleased to report some success in achieving its milestones as we prepare the alpha (in-house testing) version of the complete series. Yes, if we get this right, we will be able to turn in all the maps, counters, cards, rules, and player aids for the whole shooting match. Of course, we expect them to be published sequentially over time, but, having done our job, be assured that this is one monster game series that will be ready to deliver! Here are some important Alpha milestones reached:
- The rules: These are complete. Right now, we envision the single document we are working with as two published books: the Core Rules (gameplay mechanics) and the Reference Book (the "lookup" exclusive rules for each volume and nation, plus extended examples of play and the combined game rules for Politics).
- The maps: We have the maps for the first 4 (of 5) volumes, so all of the "action spots" are completely mapped out. Volume V: Victory at All Costs features the maps for Spain, the Urals, and the Mid-East, and those, while researched and prototyped, are still in the design queue as they are currently pre-alpha.
- The counters: Short of playtesting proving otherwise, every counter for every sheet is done with some very small exceptions (e.g., the Soviets OOB for Volume IV: Northern Fire), but every Air, Naval, and Ground unit, plus all required markers, are complete and divided into sheets for their proper game volume. Again, these are just our humble playtest components, but the graphic artist is going to receive a very nice set of pieces to tidy up.
- The player aids: Although playtesting occasionally finds a need for some other bit of game information to appear on a Player Aid, we know we're mostly there. Still to be completed are the OOB mats (we are making these incredibly useful) for Volumes II-V.
- The cards: Again, short of playtesting discoveries, we have every card done up (as an alpha playtest component) for every game, and their decks are divided up for each volume.
In short, all of the big checkmarks are there (or nearly complete). Our next great milestone is launching a "sandbox" version of the complete ETO series on vassal, and vassal-meister Ken Keller has been working assiduously to get that ready for later this year. With that vassal module, we will be able to set up and playtest any scenario or campaign game, single-volume or combined, and playtest everything. With the full scope of this project on our virtual game table, we cannot wait to get enough ready to invite you in to join us and give it a whirl yourself. We know that none of us is as smart as all of us, and your questions, comments, and corrections will help shape this project to join the pantheon of great wargames.
Finally, we are launching a 3-part extended example of play for Frank Chadwick's ETO on the German invasions of Denmark and Norway in 1940. I just went live with the first part here:
https://www.watchword.biz/post/operation-weser%C3%BCbung-1-denmark
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GMT One Update - from Jason Carr. On the GMT One front, we finished one project and started a new project! First, we finished the bot design for Fall of Saigon and have the initial drafts of the player aid cards in testing now. We are putting everything through a round of testing with final materials to check for mistakes and consistency. Fall of Saigon uses separate bot charts for the 2 player and 4 player games, so extra care and cross checking is needed to ensure everything works properly. Our COIN Bot Developer, Kevin Crooks, will be blogging about the various challenges and changes that went into the design of these bots on InsideGMT soon.
Staying on the COIN side of things, we have started working on the bots for People Power; many of you have asked, and yes! the People Power bots will use the same card-assisted system as Gandhi, Tru'ng, and Fall of Saigon. It's a team effort to design these, and no fewer than 5 different people are working to make sure that the bots work smoothly. It helps that People Power is a blast to play and a game only takes about 90 minutes from start to finish.
In case you missed it, GMT One was featured on Bonding with Boardgames with the Chief, as well as the 1 Player Podcast! Check these out to hear more about how GMT One approaches solitaire game design, working with designers, narrative in games, usability and accessibility, and the future of the hobby. Of course, we talked about a lot of GMT One projects and even talked about some of what to expect next!
The new project this month was a solitaire system for Jason Matthew's Twilight Struggle: Red Sea. Work on this is well underway and draws from the solitaire system build for Red Flag Over Paris. As with most games, the first step in designing a solitaire system is playing a ton of the game, something that is very easy to do with TS:RS because it is fast playing and very tight. More information on this will be coming soon! -Jason
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Playtesters Wanted! Several 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!
- Dubno '41. From Designer Francisco Ronco: "Playtesters wanted for the new FAB installment: Dubno '41. The game is already tested but we need some more players to test different approaches and strategies. If you want to participate in the largest tank battle of WWII, enlist now! Note that Dubno' 41 already has a TTS and Vassal module, so online play is easy.” If you are interested, please contact Francisco via email.
- The Pure Land. Fred Serval is developing the game and invites interested testers to sign up to test this new COIN game here: https://forms.gle/M7RXYVL7EC41NrVq6
- Levy & Campaign Series. Volko is looking for playtesters for the next few volumes of the Levy & Campaign Series—the same game system as Nevsky and Almoravid. If you would be interested, it would include an inside look at all the Levy & Campaign projects in work: please email Volko.
- Vijayanagara. Developer Joe Dewhurst is asking for playtest volunteers for this first game in our Irregular Conflicts Series (ICS). If you are interested in helping out, please contact Joe via email.
- Skies Above Britain. From Co-Designer Gina Willis: "Jerry and I are just starting a round of beta testing for Skies Above Britain. This round involves two separate playtest teams:
1. A team brand-new to the game, who will be learning it "blind," from scratch, using only a physical playtest copy of the game and the just-completed rulebook, playbook, and aids. They will play through our progressive-learning scenarios, which add components and rules sections until a player has learned the full game. Jerry is managing this team.
2. A team that blends several experienced Skies Above Britain playtesters and some new recruits. This team will use the Tabletop Simulator version and will play only campaigns (6-8 patrols to complete a "chapter" of the Battle of Britain; as many as 4 chapters can make a full campaign depending on how long your squadron endures). We need this team to do enough playthroughs that we can assess our victory conditions, see how long RAF squadrons in the game tend to remain combat-effective, and how individual pilots' careers develop (does the game produce ace pilots at roughly the historical rate?). I'm managing this team."
If you are interested in helping with Team 1 above, please contact Jerry White. If you are interested in helping with Team 2 testing, please contact Gina Willis. Thank you!
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New Accessory Products for Sale!
Extra Dice Sets for Commands & Colors: Samurai. We have 200 additional sets of these dice that come in the new Commands & Colors: Samurai. The price is $15 + shipping (1 lb) per set of 12 dice. If you'd like an extra set of dice to use with the game, click here to order and get them while they last! Enjoy!
Twilight Struggle Bakelite Counters. Last year, we partnered with our friends at BGG to create a beautiful set of durable plastic (bakelite) counters for Twilight Struggle. We now have about 1,000 sets of these in stock that we are offering to our customers for $40 each + shipping (2 lbs). If you'd like a really nice set of counters that look great and should last for hundreds of games of Twilight Struggle, get one of these sets while they last!
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Twilight Struggle named one of Polygon's Top Games of the last 20 Years! Congrats to Jason Matthews and Ananda Gupta for recognition of their Twilight Struggle design among huge entertainment site Polygon’s "Best 22 Boardgames of the last 20 Years." We love any evaluation that begins with “Long considered by board game aficionados to be the best board game ever made…” Congrats, guys, and well done!
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Vassal Ladder Tournament for The Last Hundred Yards. Inspired by the Combat Commander Vassal Ladder that has been running for a few years, there is now a Vassal Ladder Tournament for The Last Hundred Yards! The Vassal Ladder is a monthly matchup of players competing using the Vassal Software (usually live but occasionally by email). There is no experience required to join the Ladder! In fact, it’s a great place to learn the game, hone your skills, and meet some great friends and skilled players from around the world! If you’d like more information or to join the ladder, contact Mark Buetow via email. Check it out to really get into this great game of tactical WWII combat!
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The Last Hundred Yards Writer/Video Promoter Wanted. As you might note from the new VASSAL Ladder note above as well as our pace of new additions to this series, Mike Denson's The Last Hundred Yards (LHY) tactical game system has gained a lot of traction with players and a ton of respect and kind words from reviewers thus far. We are at a place in the series' growth—with one game and an expansion already released, another game heading to the printer shortly, and several additional expansions already in the works—where we could really use a new team member—someone who knows and likes the game already—to work with Mike and the rest of the dev team to help with promotional writing (for InsideGMT mostly, but we're not averse to the idea of this new team member being a blogger who's a fan of the game and would also place articles they create for us on their own blog) and/or video—as we work to spread the good news about LHY to even more gamers around the world. These would be "meaty" articles/videos mostly, not reviews—AARs, looks inside the design, analysis of parts of the game system, etc.—for both already produced games and those that are currently in development (so, yes, you'll get to see some products that most people don't know about yet).
If you would be interested in working with Mike and the LHY team in this capacity, please contact Mike via email. Thanks!
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Hitler's Reich 2nd Edition Rules. For those of you interested in getting the 2nd Edition Hitler's Reich rules (special thanks to Kai Jensen for her outstanding work on these!), they are available for free download from our website. As you'll see, Kai did a tremendous job on these new rules, which are now the template for all further games in the Card Conquest Series, including February's P500 offering, Hannibal's Revenge. Here's the link to download the rules .pdf: Hitler's Reich Revised 2nd Edition Rules
For those of you who'd like a printed version of these 2nd Edition rules, we are sending them to the printer along with the May games. We expect them back in the warehouse in August. For those of you who ordered the game from us via P500, no need to contact us. We'll ship you the updated rules as soon as we have them. If you got your game somewhere other than from us, please contact our office folks via phone, chat, or email, and they'll add you to the list and send you the update when it's ready. In either case, there is no charge; this will be a free update to both groups.
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Space Empires Named #1 All-Time Game from Off the Shelf Boardgame Reviews. Congrats to designer Jim Krohn, as his Space Empires garnered this honor recently from the good folks at Off the Shelf Boardgame Reviews (Dominant Species is #3!). Here's a link to the Top 10 video (#1 game at 38:44; #3 game at 30:37).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtzVX95uXg0
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Designer Interviews
1 Player Podcast Interview with Stuka Joe. For those of you who like our CDGs and are interested in the CDG Solo system now nearing production, check out this excellent interview with Jose on the 1 Player Podcast.
The Players' Aide Interview with Carlos Diaz Narvaez Designer of Tanto Monta: The Rise of Ferdinand and Isabella. I'm always impressed with the depth and breadth of the interview questions from our friends at The Players' Aide. So if you'd like to get a terrific look at Carlos' thinking as he designed this prequel to Here I Stand and Virgin Queen, as well as lots of information about how the game plays, click here to go to the interview.
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Join us Online at the SDHistCon! Like many of you, I was isolating during most of 2020 when physical game conventions and other public appearances were simply not an option. Although GMT had a presence at SDHistCon's online convention last year, I was unable to personally attend due to a scheduling conflict. I'm pleased to announce that GMT Games will again be participating online next month at SDHistCon (May 21-23, 2021). I'm even more pleased that I'll be attending the virtual Con this time as well (although, like many of you, I can't wait until Harold can host the physical event again, as it is one of my favorite conventions!).
SDHistCon has been a mainstay historical games convention in Southern California for years now. Its organizer, designer Harold Buchanan (Liberty or Death, Flashpoint: South China Sea), not only puts together an unforgettable convention experience stock full of interesting gameplay and discussions but—like the GMT Games family—is dedicated to helping build our historical boardgaming community and keeping it thriving. On Saturday, May 22nd, I will be hosting an online event at SDHistCon where I'll be discussing GMT Games, the state of the wargaming industry, as well as upcoming games in our production pipeline (maybe even a few sneak-peeks!); I might even bring a few of the amazing game designers from GMT Games to round out the discussion. We're proud to be attending SDHistCon in force this year, and, personally, I look forward to meeting many of you virtually as well as interacting with all the interesting designers and industry professionals attending along with me.
SDHistCon runs from Friday, May 21st, 2021 thru Sunday, May 23rd, 2021. Registration for the convention begins on April 21st, 2021; we hope you register along with us and look forward to seeing you online at the Con!
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Keep up with GMT Online
Virtually every day, we announce new information, show off upcoming products, or give you a peek under the hood of our new designs in our various online sites and forums. For those of you looking to keep up with us online, here is where you can find us. Drop in and start a conversation!
GMT Games Website
InsideGMT blog
Official GMT Games Facebook Group
GMT Facebook Page
GMT Twitter Feed
GMT on Instagram
GMT on BoardGameGeek
GMT YouTube Channel
GMT on ConsimWorld
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We are doing our best to segment this update so it's easier for you all to read. Here is what you'll find in the rest of today's update:
- P500 Additions
- How to Play Videos
- Digital Games
- News You Can Use
- InsideGMT
- Charging and Shipping Update
- Production Outlook
- Project Updates and Sample Art
- P500 Reprint Tracking
Thanks, as always, for your support of GMT Games! Enjoy the games! - Gene
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