Monthly Archives: April 2024

Posted on

Infernal Machine: The Inventor’s Vade Mecum (Nautica ed.) Part 10: Current and Drift: Cause & Effect

by

By Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)

Young Inventor! It is good to see you once again.

Have you been applying what the two of us discussed in our last conversation?

Well done. I am pleased with your diligence, both in study and application of what you are learning.

Today, our topic involves one of the forces of nature: water’s current. Though direct control of it is beyond the scope of your, umm, project, you can learn to anticipate, prepare for and deal with its effects upon said project.

Posted on

Firefight Friday #16: A Weekend at the Warehouse

by

Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. This is going to be a very brief article this week, but I wanted to both give myself a moment to recuperate (ran a LOT of demos over the last week) and also talk about how Firefight Tactical was received at GMT this month.

Posted on

Factions of The Weimar Republic: KPD

by

This overview provides historical perspectives on the KPD playable faction in The Weimar Republic, as well as some insight as to how the faction functions in gameplay terms. Future posts will highlight the other playable factions and the game’s general mechanics in a more detailed manner. For an overview on the NSDAP faction, be sure to check out my earlier post on that faction.

Posted on

Firefight Friday #15: Scenario Design 9

by

Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week, in the fourteenth article, I talked about the eighth scenario, “Hedgerow Highway”. This scenario saw the first of a series of much larger battle grids and plenty of combined arms action. This week we are continuing that trend with our Mortain scenario, “To Hill with Them”. This scenario also makes heavy usage of the elevation rules that we covered last week. There aren’t any new rules to look at this week, so let’s jump right in.

Posted on

A Hannibal’s Revenge “After Action Report”: Sea Battles and the End of a Sexenium

by

Introduction by Hannibal’s Revenge Co-Designer, Fred Schachter: While the GMT Team continues its efforts to make production-ready Hannibal’s Revenge, the next game of the Card Conquest System series, play testing progresses.

While this is underway, readers may find of interest this report of a Hannibal’s Revenge playtest game between Robert Baynosa and his buddy Marlon Ilagan. This is an “After Action Report” which focuses on particular aspects of the game.  It is Robert’s second InsideGMT Hannibal’s Revenge article.  For his first report see: A Play Session of Hannibal’s Revenge | Inside GMT blog.

To learn more about this currently P-500 listed game, see GMT Games – Hannibal’s Revenge.  With that, it’s time to let Robert once again take the narrative helm…

Posted on

Congress of Vienna’s Optional Rule 15.6 for the Congress of Peace Issue

by

Introduction by Fred Schacher, CoV Assistant Designer & Editor: Within the Congress of Vienna InsideGMT article, A “Congress of Vienna” GMT Production Process Status Report | Inside GMT blog, it was shared that due to Playbook space limitations it would not be possible to include in the published game all Optional Rules, called OHR’s for “Optional Historical Rules”. 

That’s sadly understandable, but it’s like asking in game rule terms “Which of your children do you want to abandon?”  Fortunately, due to InsideGMT and the ability to post additional content such as Optional Rules in the GMT game site, where a host of material concerning CoV already resides: GMT Games – Congress of Vienna it doesn’t have to be! 

Posted on

How to Win as the Protestants in Here I Stand

by

Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games, this time discussing Protestant player strategy in Here I Stand. You can also find this article on Clio’s blog. The previous articles in this series can be found here, here, and here. Enjoy! -Rachel

Posted on

Firefight Friday #14: Scenario Design 8

by

Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week, in the thirteenth article, I talked about the seventh scenario, “To the Last Man, to the Last Cartridge”. This was Firefight Tactical’s Cherbourg scenario and got into some claustrophobic urban fighting. This week we are getting into some claustrophobic rural fighting with our St. Lo scenario, “Hedgerow Highway.” Despite what I said last week, we do have to cover some new rules this week. Let’s start by talking about elevation!

Posted on

Firefight Friday #13: Scenario Design 7

by

Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week, in the twelfth article, I talked about the sixth scenario, “Bloody Gulch”. This involved a rules dump on vehicles. Now that we have covered all of that, virtually all the game’s core rules have been covered. We can instead start jumping straight into the scenarios. This week we are talking about “To the Last Man, to the Last Cartridge”, our Cherbourg scenario.

Posted on

Factions of The Weimar Republic: NSDAP

by

This overview provides perspectives on why the National Socialists is a playable faction in The Weimar Republic, as well as some insight as to how the faction actually functions in gameplay terms. Future posts will highlight the other playable factions and the game’s general mechanics in a more detailed manner.

First off, I’d like to mention the solo system, designed by Joe Schmidt. This simple yet dynamic system can substitute any faction for a card-driven set of automated impulses that are easy to use and require no complex flowcharts. With Joe’s system there is precious little downtime as well, as the “bots” do not contemplate strategies or actively try to win the way a human player would. Rather, they provide an increased level of difficulty for the human player(s) to achieve their victory conditions.

Obviously this addition to the game is a great asset, both for players who wish to play but lack the full number of human opponents required, and for those who simply want to avoid playing any given faction. With the solo rules you can still experience the harsh, dog-eat-dog atmosphere of The Weimar Republic, shaping Germany’s destiny in the process.