Monthly Archives: August 2016

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Defend the ROK: Allied Strategy Considerations in Next War: Korea

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Dan Stueber is a long time Next War Series fan as well as a playtester. He has previously authored an article on a modifed Tactical Surprise scenario for Next War: Korea as well as After Action Reports for both the Tactical Surprise and Extended Buildup scenarios (links are to the first session reports). Here he has provided players with an overview of the strategic considerations for the Allied player in order to defend the ROK. Enjoy!

Next War: Korea postulates an invasion of South Korea by North Korea sometime during our current time frame. It is a great modern war game to play due to the numerous options in the game and the way it portrays modern combat. This article will discuss what I feel are good strategies to defend the South from the North’s aggression. General strategies will be discussed as opposed to discussing specific strategies of individual scenarios. Three points will be covered: the terrain, the air units, and the land units. All images were taken from the Next War: Korea Vassal module.

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The Many Paths to Victory or Defeat in GMT’s Hitler’s Reich

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Introduction: InsideGMT posts to date regarding Hitler’s Reich: A Card Conquest System Game (henceforth referred to simply as Hitler’s Reich) reference the game’s victory conditions in a somewhat disjointed basis, e.g. within context of an after-action-report, without providing an overview of players’ various potential “paths to victory” in a more cohesive manner.

This article hopefully remedies that as well as introduces the game’s various scenarios.  For more regarding this fun and exciting new GMT P-500 offered game, kindly reference the InsideGMT site for a host of related material.

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Colonial Twilight: Pieces and Force Structure

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What are the forces in the game and what is their structure?

Colonial Twilight has a total of 91 wooden pieces representing the various forces available to both sides. They are divided into the following types:

Government (total 46 pieces)

  • 21 French Police (light blue cubes)
  • 9 French Troops (dark blue cubes)
  • 6 Government Bases (light blue disks)
  • 7 Algerian Police (light green cubes)
  • 3 Algerian Troops (dark green cubes)

FLN (total 45 pieces)

  • 30 Guerrillas (black octagonal cylinders)
  • 15 Bases (black disks)

The following gives some more background on what each force type is meant to represent from history, and how it works in the game.

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The Pendragon Chronicles — Vol. 1

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Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain, Volume VIII of the COIN Series, presents a number of unique elements compared to its forebears, starting with not portraying a COunter-INsurgency at all! We are going to present the game and how it brings some exciting new stuff to the COIN family in this series of Chronicles over the coming months as we are busy polishing the game for release next year. On Gene’s suggestion, we figured we should start by telling you how Pendragon came to be…

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Next War: India-Pakistan – Pakistani Strategic Choices, Part 2

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Doug Bush continues his Next War: India-Pakistan strategy series with this examination of the Pakistani Order of Battle and the various options they provide. See Part 1 of this series for a discussion of the overall strategic choices faced by the Pakistan player.

Pakistan starts with six front line Army Corps with three more that enter as reinforcements.  Each provides the player with different challenges and opportunities on the attack.  In this article, I’ll go into some of the choices available to a Pakistan player for each one.

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Bayonets & Tomahawks, Volko Ruhnke and Barry Setser: A Perfect Collision at Stack Academie Montreal Last May

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The French & Indian War is by far my favorite historical period. When Volko’s Wilderness War was published in 2001, it was the very first game that brought all I was looking for to that subject. I was glad I had abandoned a few years before my own inexperienced attempt at creating a FIW game.

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Next War: Poland Progress Update

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I think that I’ve mentioned this before, but I was a little surprised by just how quickly Next War: Poland (NWP) vaulted up the P500 ladder. I had a rough Operational Map and a Strategic Display, and I had made a start on the Game Specific Rules. Based on the performance of the prior games in the Next War Series, GMT put the game on the list while I was still in the middle of working on Silver Bayonet. Now that the latter game is off to the printer, I’ve had some time to focus on NWP, and I thought I’d give a quick update on where we’re at.

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Hitler’s Reich — The Reasons Why, and What the Cards Represent

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Introduction: Game Developer Fred Schachter, recently returned from WBC 2016 and its demo/playtests of Hitler’s Reich: A Card Conquest System Game (hereafter referred to as simply Hitler’s Reich); advises the game was well-received… particularly as it featured the cool card and map graphics professionally created by Charles Kibler.  It resulted in a bump of P-500 sales for which Fred and I are grateful.  

Furthermore, Fred had opportunity to actually play the game with Charlie during WBC.  A rare bit of fun for them both. 

This article is follow-up to previous InsideGMT posts, particularly those which reference Hitler’s Reich Event cards.  During WBC, between game play cards and dice flying, Fred was asked why certain Events are included while other possible ones are not.  In the following piece, I endeavor to respond to that from a designer’s perspective.

Please reference other InsideGMT Hitler’s Reich material for additional information concerning this upcoming fun and exciting to play P-500 listed game.  

The Basic Design Goal: WW2 in Europe for players in two hours

WW2 in Europe for two players in two hours: That is the basic goal behind the design of Hitler’s Reich.  Yes, the game can go longer, but it usually doesn’t, unless one or more players enjoy fully deliberating each card play… and there’s nothing wrong with that since the overarching goal of this design is to have an enjoyable gaming experience.

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Next War: India-Pakistan – Pakistani Strategic Choices, Part 1

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Next War: India-Pakistan (NWIP) is unusual in the Next War series in that it involves scenarios where both of the main nations (India and Pakistan) are on the offense. As a result, there isn’t one “playbook” for the each side since, depending on the scenario in question, they must look at the map, their armies, and potential allies from a different perspective. In this series of articles, I’ll take a look at the situation for both sides from both angles (offense and defense) to try to help players think through some of the early decisions they are confronted with in the scenarios of NWIP.