GMT Games

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First Impressions: Gandhi by Bruce Mansfield

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First Impressions: Gandhi by Bruce Mansfield

I’ve enjoyed every entry in the COIN series that I have played so far. However, I also know that there is no way I could ever own every game in the series - my small European home cannot accommodate them let alone my hectic life. This means that I have spent an inordinate amount of time contemplating which entries in the series I would like to keep on my shelves, playing over and over again, and which I’m happy just experiencing once or twice via someone else’s copy. Pendragon is definitely staying on my shelf for the time being - it’s so different from the rest of the series and I’m a big fan of its late antique/early medieval setting. However, after much debate I decided to trade Andean Abyss away. I enjoyed it and it was very useful for helping me learn (and teach) the system, but my friends didn’t seem to like it as much as I did and playing A Distant Plain made me realise I wanted something a little different. However, I didn’t want to buy my own copy of A Distant Plain because its subject is a little too grim for me to want to play it more than a few times, no matter how much I liked the gameplay. After much internal debate, I decided to pick up Gandhi as my next COIN game. Gandhi’s new non-violent factions and other deviations from the core COIN formula intrigued me but if I’m honest the main appeal of Gandhi lay in two aspects: it isn’t really about war and the short scenario is supposed to be quite good.

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Revisiting Commands and Colors: Ancients by Richard Borg

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Revisiting Commands and Colors: Ancients by Richard Borg

I played a lot of Commands and Colors: Ancients in college - I convinced the board game society to buy the base game and its first two expansions and for my enthusiasm I was tasked with stickering all three boxes! Luckily I love putting stickers on wooden blocks, so I didn’t mind in the slightest. After I graduated, though, I didn’t play it nearly as much because I didn’t own my own copy and it was harder to borrow the society’s copy when I was no longer an undergraduate (as a post-grad I could be a member but I rarely had the time for hanging around that I used to).

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My Top 8 Games of 2022!*

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My Top 8 Games of 2022!*

It’s the time of year for Top X lists and as a sucker for the format I couldn’t help but doing one myself. Now look, let’s get this over with straight away: I obviously haven’t played every game that came out in 2022. In fact, I’ve played barely any. I only just got really into historical wargaming this year, so I’ve had a big back log of games to experience. I’m not going to even pretend to list the best games that came out this year. Instead, this list will be my top eight games that I played for the first time in 2022. I chose eight because I’m one of those people who likes to arbitrarily pick a number between five and ten for my top X lists, no other reason. Ranking them has been painful, and if you asked me again in January I’d probably change the order, but at time of publication these are my top eight games that I played this year!

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Men of Iron: Nájera 1367

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Men of Iron: Nájera 1367

The Battle of Nájera, fought on the 3rd of April 1367, was the last great battle in the prestigious career of Edward, the Black Prince. While not his final campaign, that dubious honour belongs to the siege and sack of the city of Limoges in 1370, it was his final field battle and great victory. While the battle itself was a resounding success for Edward, the 1367 campaign and its aftermath was overall a complete disaster, which achieved little in the long term and likely lead to the Black Prince’s death and the resumption of the Hundred Years War during a period of marked French ascendancy. Because of this contrast between the success on the day and the disaster over the longer term I think the Battle of Nájera is an interesting lens through which we can explore how medieval warfare is often represented in wargaming and how that perspective can unintentionally distort our understanding of the past.

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Review: Almoravid by Volko Ruhnke

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Review: Almoravid by Volko Ruhnke

For me anyway, Volko Ruhnke’s Levy and Campaign series is probably the most interesting thing happening in wargaming right now. Most medieval wargames have focused on specific battles, usually as hex and counter games, and while my posts on Men of Iron should be evidence enough that I enjoy these games, my historical interests tend more operational and strategic rather than tactical. There are exceptions, such as the Columbia block games, but even these only capture a fragment of what makes medieval conflict so fascinating to me. Many great medieval victories (and defeats) are as much the result of the weeks and months that lead up to them as they are the prowess of the fighters on the day. That is what makes Levy and Campaign so exciting to me - it makes those weeks and months the centre of the gaming experience. The games include battles, of course, but the more you play the fewer battles you are likely to risk while the challenge of moving and supplying your armies remains constant!

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First Impressions: Imperial Struggle by Jason Matthews and Ananda Gupta

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First Impressions: Imperial Struggle by Jason Matthews and Ananda Gupta

Imperial Struggle is a behemoth of a game. It’s sprawling board dominates the table but it still overflows onto to two individual player mats and a separate board for each of the game’s four wars - only one of which will be in play at a time thankfully. It is also a game that takes many hours to play - I played it by email using the game’s Vassal module (no table I own is large enough to fit the whole game in physical space) and let’s just say that we were playing for a while. In person I would expect a game to be a full day affair. This scale is more understandable given that the game covers nearly a century of Anglo-French rivalry and conflict, from 1697 to 1789. Beyond its sheer scope, it is both one of the most interesting and frustrating games I have played so far this year. Sometimes I think I love it while other times I’m so annoyed I swear I won’t take another turn. Still, inexorably, I was dragged through the full game despite my periodic protests. I’m going to try and put my conflicted thoughts down and hopefully that will exorcise me of their constant hassling in my head.

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First Impressions: Arquebus – Cerignola 1503

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First Impressions: Arquebus – Cerignola 1503

Coming right off the heels of playing my first game of Blood and Roses I arranged to play fellow member of Team Crossboys Russ Wetli in a game of Arquebus that same day. I had a hurried skim of the rulebook to try and pull-out what elements were different from previous Men of Iron titles, which was thankfully a relatively painless process even without the volume specific rules highlights I was accustomed to from the Tri-Pack. There’s a lot to be said for playing games in a system. It makes it much easier to pick up the next game in the series since you already know about 80% of the rules, but on the other hand it also becomes increasingly easy to mess up that last 20% the more games you learn! This was Russ’s first experience playing Men of Iron and I wanted to be sure I got as much right as possible, and for the most part I think I succeeded. We picked the Battle of Cerignola to play because it was by far the shortest and simplest scenario in the box and neither of us was up for an epic multi-hour clash that evening. I also ensured that he had the full Men of Iron experience by having him play the side that lost the battle historically. Nobody ever promised that Men of Iron would be fair.

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First Impressions: Blood and Roses – First Battle of St Albans 1455

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First Impressions: Blood and Roses – First Battle of St Albans 1455

I’m very interested in pretty much all things medieval warfare but I have to admit that within that category the Wars of the Roses would rank near the bottom. I am not totally uninterested in the subject, but an assortment of miserable nobles all killing each other to see who gets to be King of England isn’t my preferred topic. It has some interesting moments, and I find Edward IV to be an interesting monarch, but overall it doesn’t fill me with excitement. This meant that while Blood and Roses promised to be a very interesting entry in the Men of Iron series, I haven’t been rushing to get it to the table. However, with the whole Men of Iron series having been chosen for this month’s Club de Jeu on the Homo Ludens Discord I decided to take a plunge and try and play a battle from every (published) entry in the series, which meant finally trying Blood and Roses. I picked the First Battle of St Albans as my entry point in part because it was a small battle that plays in under an hour and in part because the idea of more urbanised combat in a Men of Iron game was really appealing. I’m glad I did because I think First St Albans (as we’ll call it from now) is a great entry point into the Men of Iron series and a fun little battle in its own right!

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Infidel – Antioch 1098

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Infidel – Antioch 1098

For my second game of Infidel, I decided I should pick something a little more straightforward than Arsuf, much as I enjoyed it, and Antioch looked like it would fit the bill. It also helped that I’ve found the Siege of Antioch fascinating since literally my first year as an undergraduate in college. It’s also a bit of a weird battle so I was curious to see how designer Richard Berg adapted the Men of Iron rules to fit the fragile alliances and unusual deployment process that defined the climactic battle of the two sieges of Antioch.

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Men of Iron – Bannockburn 1314

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Men of Iron – Bannockburn 1314

Bannockburn is an interesting battle. Many historians have argued that it was a turning point in medieval warfare, the division between the High and Late Middle Ages, but you could just as easily argue that it was a symptom of broader trends, just one event of many in a slow process of change. It’s narratively fascinating and historiographically intriguing, and that’s before we get to the nationalism. It’s not very surprising that it has an enduring legacy in popular culture and in historical writing – it’s too good a story to ignore and many historians have tried to fit it into their pet theories about how the fourteenth century forever changed medieval warfare. And lest you think I am without sin I have done this very thing in the past, even as I have since become significantly more sceptical of such arguments in recent years.

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First Impressions: Sekigahara by Matt Calkins

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First Impressions: Sekigahara by Matt Calkins

I’ve wanted to play Sekigahara for years. The first time I saw the stacks of blocks and the glorious art of the board I knew I had to play it. Sadly, it was far beyond my meagre budget, and I wasn’t sure if anyone would play it with me even if I managed to buy it, so for many years I gazed forlornly at it from a distance. That is until last month, when I finally got a chance to play it thanks to my newfound competence playing games online using Vassal (and a helpful nudge from the Homo Ludens’ Discord Club de Jeu). That made it much easier to find someone who would play it with me, and since they also owned a physical copy of the game, I didn’t have to feel bad about not buying my own! I am not the same person I was back when I first saw Sekigahara, though. I have aged several years and played many games since. Will I still be as entranced by it as I was when I first saw it?

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First Impressions: Almoravid by Volko Ruhnke

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First Impressions: Almoravid by Volko Ruhnke

It took me longer to get Almoravid to the table than I expected. Partly it was the sheer size of the game – the board plus lord’s mats for the first scenario pushed the limits of my little wargaming corner. I have no idea how I’m going to play the later scenarios. The greater factor, however, was a personal mental block around learning the rules. I learned Nevsky thanks to Jean Michel Grosjeu’s excellent YouTube videos on it – I did later read the rules, but only once I knew how play worked. The prospect of learning Almoravid from scratch, especially tired as I was due to a very hectic few weeks in work, resulted in me postponing night after night.

What finally helped to sit me down at the table and play was San Diego Histcon’s online Levy and Campaign Fest event. At the event I picked up and played several in development L&C titles and my experience with Nevsky, limited as it is, was more than enough to get me playing without having read the rules to any of these games. When I finally did sit down to read Almoravid’s rules, it only took me like 15 minutes since I could just skim the sections where the rules were identical to Nevsky. The rulebook helpfully highlights areas where rules are new or have changed so you don’t need to pick through it looking for differences. Much like with Volko’s previous series, COIN, once you know how to play a Levy and Campaign game it really does making picking up another one much simpler.

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First Impressions: A Distant Plain by Volko Ruhnke and Brian Train

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First Impressions: A Distant Plain by Volko Ruhnke and Brian Train

Before playing my latest COIN game I didn’t have to learn how to play it because someone else had to teach it to me instead! At the end of May I had the opportunity attend Chimera Con in Dublin. Chimera Con is a one-day convention dedicated to playing games with other people who relish the opportunity of spending all day playing the one epic game. The organisers seek out volunteers in advance of the event to bring a game that they are prepared to teach to a table of potentially new players, and then players are allocated to those games for the day. I got a space playing A Distant Plain, Volko Runke and Brian Train’s COIN game about the Afghanistan War, covering the period of the war from 2001 to 2013. This would be my first time playing the game, but my third COIN game overall so I was reasonably confident I could pick it up pretty quickly. When I had played Andean Abyss at the start of May, I had been the government player, so this time I requested an insurgent faction and was given the role of the Taliban. The game organiser was the Warlords and the other players, both totally new to the system, were the Coalition and the Afghanistan Government. In the end the game took us about 7 hours, and I had an absolute blast playing it. I also have a few thoughts about it which I hope you will indulge me by reading!

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First Impressions: Andean Abyss

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First Impressions: Andean Abyss

I managed to get Andean Abyss to the table less than a week after learning it, which must be a record for me – it definitely beats the years I owned Here I Stand before I finally played it. I bought it largely because while Pendragon has been fascinating to learn, there’s no way I can teach that game to four people who have never played a COIN game before. It took me days to learn it – and I’m still not even sure I totally get it! The internet wisdom around learning COIN is to start with Cuba Libre, but for whatever reason the Cuban revolution doesn’t really grab me, so I went with the original COIN instead – Andean Abyss and the Colombian drug war. After all, if it wasn’t possible for people to learn from the original game then there wouldn’t be a series, would there? I’ve already documented my learning process on this blog (www.stuartellisgorman.com/blog/learning-coin-andean-abyss) but what that didn’t cover was teaching and playing the game, which is what we’re here for!

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Learning COIN: Andean Abyss

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Learning COIN: Andean Abyss

Holy God this game is a lot easier to learn than Pendragon was. Part of that is certainly the familiarity with the system I developed over my two solo plays of Pendragon, but also there’s just a lot less going on and a lot less to keep track of! Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like Andean Abyss is a simple game, it’s more that I now see just how deep the water was where I first jumped in, and I understand why most people pick somewhere else. I know a lot of people learn with Cuba Libre, but for some reason the Cuban Revolution just doesn’t really appeal to me, so I decided that I should take a trip to South America instead. My knowledge of Colombian history is pretty limited, probably on par with a lot of Americans who are vaguely aware of the War on Drugs and its effects in Colombia but not much beyond that. I do know they have way too many hippos thanks to Pablo Escobar, but I’m not sure that will help me learn this game.

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First Impressions: Red Flag Over Paris from GMT Games

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First Impressions: Red Flag Over Paris from GMT Games

I can’t shake the feeling that I’m joining a chorus of wargame commentator by saying that I knew basically nothing about the Paris Commune before playing Red Flag Over Paris, the second game in the Final Crisis Series published by GMT Games. I did actually learn a bit about the Franco-Prussian War in school, but we focused more on Otto Von Bismarck and the theory of Realpolitik and basically ignored anything happening in France. French politics between 1815 and 1914 were not a focus of my teenage education. I must confess that I haven’t taken very many steps to fix that – unless reading The Count of Monte Cristo counts – so I can’t blame my ignorance exclusively on the Virginia public school system. If, like me, you are largely ignorant of this period of history then Red Flag Over Paris may be a great place to start. If you were already a rabid fan of Paris Commune, then I presume you’ve already bought the game and are just wondering if I liked it. The answer is that yes, my initial experiences with it were very positive, read on to find out more!

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Men of Iron – Falkirk, 1298

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Men of Iron – Falkirk, 1298

I was in a bit of a Scottish wars mood after playing the Braveheart: Solitaire book game so I decided to try out how Richard Berg modelled Falkirk in Men of Iron as an interesting counterpoint. As I somewhat hinted at in that review – I’ve got a bit of a chip on my shoulder when it comes to William Wallace. I feel he’s a bit overrated as a historical figure, basically entirely because of Braveheart – a movie I strongly dislike. Lest you think I’m a boring historian who hates fun, my favourite medieval movie is A Knight’s Tale, my hatred of Braveheart stretches beyond mere historical inaccuracy. I’ve born a slight grudge about living in a post-Braveheart world where William Wallace has overshadowed the far more interesting Robert Bruce. My opinions on this have mellowed with time – and I think it helps that Bruce seems to be getting more popular culture recognition as well (including his own movies, which I have not seen, making me part of the problem).

I was immediately interested to see that the Falkirk scenario comes with a sort of solo mode as default. With the basic rules the Scottish player basically sits in schiltron and the English player has to crack their defences. I was intrigued by only having to really think about one side and abandoned my plans to try playing this scenario with modified chit pull rules for activations. I have to confess I was a little disappointed by my experience. The scenario is timed, and while my understanding is that the timer only advances if the non-timed side passes, I moved it forward after every English turn because that felt like the only challenge to the scenario – could I defeat the Scots within 15 turns? The answer was a pretty definitive yes.

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First Impressions: Nevsky by GMT Games

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First Impressions: Nevsky by GMT Games

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.

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First Impressions: Infidel – Arsuf 1191

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First Impressions: Infidel – Arsuf 1191

I was finally able to secure the big table for an evening late one night and I took the opportunity to unpack one of the really quite large maps that come with Infidel – the Men at Iron game focused on the Crusades. I’ve long been fascinated by the history of the Crusades, so I was very excited to try Infidel, but it was already getting late by the time I started setting up, so I picked my scenario in a rush. The scenario options in Infidel are intriguing – some of them are battles I expected, but there are some absences and inclusions that surprised me. Dorylaeum, Montgisard, and Arsuf all make total sense. I was very surprised to not see Hattin, Saladin’s most famous victory, and I have to confess I didn’t immediately recognise the Battle of Harran. Still, one of the fun things about playing these games is seeing what aspects of history someone else thought were the most interesting to include. I also have to say that the bibliography at the back of the scenario book was pretty impressive – multiple books by John France and not even one mention of Runciman! You love to see it.

In the end I settled on Arsuf – it had an interesting looking deployment and it’s both a battle I think is quite interesting and one I know a fair bit about. I then set about setting up the game – a bit of an involved process given the scale of the map but one that was pretty satisfying all the same. It was only after I’d laid out the armies that I noticed the note in the booklet that told me that Arsuf was quite a complicated battle with several important rules amendments and new rules involved to make the Men of Iron rules system fit the historical battle. Reading those rules and having played it now, I don’t think the new rules were as intimidating as I’d initially expected. That said, I definitely got a few rules wrong as it was both my play of Infidel, and I was playing the most complicated scenario! It was a lot to juggle!

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Men of Iron pt. 3: The Battle of Poitiers, 1356

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Men of Iron pt. 3: The Battle of Poitiers, 1356

After playing two highly defensive battles with minimal manoeuvring I acted upon the advice of a more experienced player given via Discord and picked Poitiers as my next battle. I’m glad I took that person’s advice, at Poitiers the French let me try my hand at some dynamic movements and a dramatic flanking attack – even if the English still ended up being reactionary and defensive for the most part.

Poitiers has long fascinated me. A triumphant victory for the Black Prince (I’ll just note here that he was not known by that name during his lifetime) and the capture of King Jean II of France. Jean II joined his Scottish ally King David II, who had been captured at Neville’s Cross in 1346, at the English court. The ransom for Jean II significantly enriched the English crown’s coffers and allowed them to negotiate the very favourable Treaty of Brétigny in 1360 – a treaty in which Edward III exchanged his claim to the French throne for more French territory than its own king had. If the Hundred Years War had ended there it would be remembered as an English triumph – but of course it didn’t, and all those gains would be gone within a century.