Testing and balancing four separate games for The British Way was no easy feat, and while for the most part I think we were successful, some players have reported issues with Cyprus after multiple games. While we do not think that the original game, as published, is strictly broken or unplayable, we would like to take this opportunity to offer an advanced variant for players who might have experienced these issues. Cyprus was originally designed as the simplest introduction to the basic mechanical systems found in the multipack, so there is plenty of scope for slightly increasing the complexity while still offering a fast and smooth experience.
For those of you who haven’t gotten into Mike Denson’s small-unit tactical game The Last Hundred Yards, there’s never been a better time to jump in. Not only is Volume I back in stock and shipping now, but Mike and his team just put together a stellar Basic Training guide that takes you through all the details of the system, and gets you playing quickly.
The Basic Training guide walks you step by step through three missions in a programmed-instruction like format, and includes illustrations of complex concepts.
Whether you are new to tactical games or familiar with other tactical game systems, The Last Hundred Yards introduces innovative concepts like the Action-Reaction cycle and the Passage of Time, which the Basic Training guide explains step-by-step. Each mission introduces a few rules, which gets you playing the game and learning quickly. This programmed-instruction approach is accessible and incorporates feedback from players and the developers’ experience with the system to teach these concepts in the clearest possible way.
In addition to the guide, players who own Volume II or III will need to download a set of maps that are needed to play the included scenarios for players who own Volume II or Volume III; there are instructions in the guide to adapt the Volume III counters to the scenarios. We hope the Basic Training guide will get you playing The Last Hundred Yards quickly; there is so much to explore in the series, and much more to come.
As we hit the 2 year mark for GMT One, it’s a good time to reflect and see how far we’ve come. This year, we were truly blessed to see all the session reports, reviews, pictures, videos, and smiles that you shared while playing our solitaire games. So, we wanted to bless you in return and share another Holiday gift! Last year, we shared a print and play solo bot for Mark Herman’s Fort Sumter, and this year we decided to team up with Mark again and bring you a CDG Solo System playsheet for the Empire of the Sun game family.
First, a quick reflection on 2022:
Early this year, GMT shipped our CDG Solo System with support for seven of our CDGs, and announced the second pack with support for six more games. Alongside the physical release, we gave a print and play option to the community for free, and it’s been cool to see your creations out in the wild.
We also released Fall of Saigon, an expansion for Fire in the Lake, with a bot from Bruce Mansfield based on his popular Jacquard System which he designed for Gandhi.
In light of this great year, let’s celebrate! I asked Ken Kuhn, the CDG Solo System lead, to put together a playsheet for Mark Herman’s classic CDG Empire of the Sun. Not only that, but I asked him to make sure it would work with all the games in the Empire of the Sun family. Ken got to work, and adapted Chris Crane’s community “tweak sheet” to use the latest formatting and terminology consistent with GMT’s other playsheets.
This updated playsheet can be used four different ways:
Play any of the scenarios included with Empire of the Sun.
Play the “South Pacific” standalone scenario from C3i Nr. 30 (included in the Third and Fourth Printing of Empire of the Sun).
Play the “Burma” standalone scenario from C3i Nr. 35
Play the Plan Orange standalone game from C3i Nr. 29.
CDG Solo System Playsheet for Empire of the Sun (click image for link to PDF)
We hope this playsheet brings you hours of fun with Empire of the Sun, and that you have a very Happy Holidays and a wonderful start to 2023!
Today we are making a revised Third Edition series rulebook available for Fields of Fire as a digital download, free from the GMT website. This high resolution PDF contains new diagrams and examples, has been reorganized, has all clarifications and errata integrated, and has a complete index of examples and topics (plus the PDF has bookmarks!).
Additionally, we are releasing a revised Enemy Activity Check Hierarchy Player Aid. These materials can be used with Fields of Fire Volumes I and II, and The Bulge Campaign. A few notes for players who are diving into the game with these rules and PAC:
At the time of writing this, All Bridges Burning, COIN Series Volume X, is the latest released COIN Series game.The game tells the story of the Finnish Civil War of 1918 including the lead up to the war during the previous year.
In this article, we will introduce you to a new variant to All Bridges Burning for two players. The 2-player variant is released as free download with this article. All the rules and procedures needed to play are contained in this PDF file.
I want to thank Adrian Rubiero for testing and preparing the variant with me.
Last year we released the first expansion for Tank Duel: Enemy in the Crosshairs, adding North Africa’s sand and sun to Tank Duel. We also incorporated feedback from hundreds of games using the Anti-Tank Gun and Infantry Rules to improve the rules for both. Those rules require some new components, so we wanted to make sure owners of the core game could use these rules as well as owners of the expansion.
So we are pleased to present the printable update kit for Tank Duel. If you own Tank Duel North Africa, you already have everything in this update kit. The update kit requires you to make the following components – details after the list:
12 AT Gun cards (6 German, 6 Soviet)
4 Infantry Cards (2 German City/Non-City, 2 Soviet City/Non-City)
Each of these components can be used independently, although you will need to make the counters corresponding to each card and ruleset as explained in each section.
GMT has long been a supporter of Stuka Joe’s CDG Solo system, which we highlighted in an insideGMT article way back in 2016. So, making an official GMT version that supports our CDGs and CDG players just made sense. When GMT One head Jason Carr reached out to Stuka Joe to see if he would like to see an official version made for GMT, it was immediately obvious that it was a great idea. While our main goal in developing this official set of rules and playsheets was to make the system more accessible and available to a wider audience, it we also wanted to give the system back to the community. So, we are proud and excited to reveal our Print and Play kit for the GMT CDG Solo System, but more on that in a minute.
It’s been a whole year of GMT One, and to say thank you to our customers and supporters, we have a Holiday Gift for you: a free print-and-play Solo Opponent for Mark Herman’s Fort Sumter.
During the pandemic, I spent many nights working on the Solo Opponent for Fred Serval’s Red Flag Over Paris, which uses the same game system as Fort Sumter. As we were wrapping up, I realized that the underlying approach could easily be ported to Fort Sumter, so I asked Gene if we could do the Solo Opponent as a free giveaway. He was quite enthusiastic, so I got to work. It turned out to be a bit more work than I expected – as most Solitaire rulesets seem to be – but it was also a lot of fun to dissect Mark’s game.
