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Introducing New Players to the World of SpaceCorp! — Session Report from The Boardgames Chronicle

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We all are thrilled and waiting for another great space-related creation of John Butterfield – Away Team. However, there are still many players who needs introduction to the previous title from that designer which stormed hearts and minds of so many fans of our hobby (including the one writing this words) – SpaceCorp. And that is exactly what I hoped for, when recently my two regular boardgames buddies – Kuba J & Kuba G – agreed to join me in fantastic journey through the three epoch of Space exploration.

I got that game when pandemic hit and my initial plays were mainly solo and with my family – you might remember some of my reports playing this title with my sons, Natan and Kuba (yet another Kuba, yes!). This time they accompanied us in first era (as always, great distractors, spicing up the game). Let just briefly tell you how it went as well as what happened in second and third part of the game.

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Designing Congress of Vienna’s Solitaire Game, Part 2 of 2: The French Bot During the Government & War Phases

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Introduction: We explained in the previous article how CoV’s Solitaire Game’s Initial and Diplomacy Phases utilize Stuka Joe’s marvelous Card Driven Games’ Solo Method (CDGSM) adapted for Congress of Vienna: Designing the Congress of Vienna Solitaire Game, Part 1of 2: Diplomacy and The French Bot | Inside GMT blog.  In this article we continue this exposition with the Government and War Phases.

For a wealth of information and wide-range of InsideGMT articles, including the latest status of this game’s graphics development at the talented hands of Terry Leeds, see: GMT Games – Congress of Vienna     

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Solo Playthrough of Borikén Game One: Pre-1493

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Borikén: The Taíno Resistance includes three separate games, each covering a distinct period of the history of the Taíno people of Borikén (modern day Puerto Rico). Each game uses the same map and the same basic system, but with different additional rules and objectives to model the particularities of its era. The first game, taking place in the centuries prior to the arrival of Spanish conquistadors in 1493, is competitive, with players aiming to establish their own Taíno faction on the island, competing against each other and the rival Caribe people, with the dominant player at the end of the game becoming Agüeybaná I, High Chief on the Taíno, in the second game. The second and third games then chart the players’ cooperative struggle against the conquistadors from 1493 to 1528, and finally their desperate attempts to escape and survive after 1529. All three games can also be played solitaire, with the first (competitive) game coming with additional rules and objectives for solo play. In this series of articles I will play through all three games, providing an introduction to the rules and themes as I go (all art featured in these articles is prototype material that will be replaced before publication). 

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Napoleon in Egypt: Dramatis Personae, Part 1

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Article written by Pascal Toupy and Tom Toupy-Durant

The French campaign in Egypt and Syria is probably the most misunderstood of Napoleon’s military epics. And yet it is the foundation of the Napoleonic legend. Indeed, Bonaparte’s seclusion on Egyptian soil gave him the opportunity to test his ability to manage and lead a conquered territory and experiment with a number of military, administrative and social reforms. Of course, the Corsican general was not alone and he had the support of exceptional men, most of whom would follow him throughout his epic journey.

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Video: The Recreation Department Ranks Levy & Campaign Series Factions

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Below is a great video from The Recreation Department on YouTube ranking all six factions from the first three Levy & Campaign series titles: Nevsky, Almoravid, and Inferno. Enjoy! -Rachel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRm9OxIiYrA
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Order & Opportunity: Cards and Card Play Part #2

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Some time ago, a new game named Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order entered GMT Games’ P500 list. This is the sixth in a series of articles talking about different aspects of the game.

Following the previous insideGMT article on the cards and card play in Order & Opportunity, in this article we look at some further types of cards included in the game.

Recently, a number of short playthrough videos were posted on YouTube that can be a helpful companion to the present article.

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Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) Is Electric… on Vassal That Is!

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Designers Christopher Vorder Brugge, Mark McLaughlin, and I would like to express our gratitude for the support, patronage, and encouragement which so many of the GMT Community provided over the lengthy, but always enjoyable, journey of ACME from concept to publication.  You have our thanks.

We would also like to express our particular gratitude to Joel Toppen, a prolific, talented, and creative designer who so graciously and expertly created a VASSAL module for ACME. This module is available at VASSALEngine.org: https://vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Ancient_Civilizations_of_the_Middle_East

ACME Map on VASSAL
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A Short Story of the French Campaign in Egypt, Part 3 – The Fall

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In this series of articles, we will chronologically discover the epic of Napoleon in Egypt. In our previous article, we saw how, after conquering Egypt, Napoleon had to take his men to Syria to face the Ottoman army. But after failing to conquer the walls of Acre, coupled with a British landing, Bonaparte had to turn back to defend his hard-won territory. What does the future hold for these thousands of French soldiers, trapped between the desert and the enemy? This is what we will see in this final article, which covers the third scenario of Napoleon in Egypt: The Fall.

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Allied Strategy in Battle Command: The Bulge

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This article discusses Allied strategy in the forthcoming design, Battle Command: The Bulge. For an overview of the game, and the battle it represents, see the first article in the series: An Introduction to Battle Command: The Bulge. We also have an article on German strategy.

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A Short Story of the French Campaign in Egypt, Part 2 – The Syrian Anabasis

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In this series of articles, we will chronologically discover the epic of Napoleon in Egypt. In our first article, we followed the French from the moment they left their country throughout the Nile campaign, which allowed them to conquer an immense territory from Alexandria to Thebes via Cairo. The year now turns to 1799, and Bonaparte sets his sights to Syria (now Israel) to complete his conquest. This episode covers the second scenario of Napoleon in Egypt: The Syrian Anabasis.