Get Ready for GMT’s Yearly P500 Sale!!!!

Hi everyone! 

I told you all in the last customer update that I’d give you about a week’s notice before GMT’s Yearly Sale, so here it is! I wanted to let you all know roughly a week in advance so that you have time to plan your purchases. Here are the details of the sale:

SALE FOR P500 CUSTOMERS!! This sale is our “thank you” to all of you customers who use our P500 system. By using our P500 system, you help us have plenty of cash flow to keep printing our games while also letting us know which games you want the most. This sale is for P500 supporters who have had P500 items shipped from August 2021 (when we had our last sale) until the end of October 2022. We greatly appreciate your support, and this sale is our way of saying, “Thanks!” So, if you’ve received P500 items from us between August 1, 2021, and October 31, 2022, you will get 50% off in-stock GMT games and accessories (as well as games from SOME of our third-party vendors—see the list below for details). 

Euro Friendly Shipping! Our friends at Second Chance Games and UGG have agreed to handle our UK and EU orders in the same manner they do for our P500 orders! This means that those of you in Europe WILL be able to get your sales items shipped out at a lower price that includes shipping, VAT, and fees. Just be sure to choose the “Euro-friendly” shipping option (which includes us pre-paying VAT) when you place your order (this is crucial—if you don’t choose the Euro-friendly method, the games will ship out individually at regular (higher) shipping prices, and you’ll have to pay VAT and possibly fees). 

I want to say a special thanks to our friends at Second Chance Games and UGG for making it possible for us to provide these savings to our European customers!

Sale Details
Sale Duration:
 5:00 am (Pacific Time) November 15th to 11:59 pm (Pacific Time) November 21st, 2022.

Sale Discount: 50% off all IN-STOCK GMT products, except for the new CHARIOTEER and SKIES ABOVE BRITAIN. 50% off on many third-party games, expansions, magazines, or accessories (but not Hexasim and Vae Victis/Cerrigo products).

Who is Eligible for the sale? Any customer to whom we shipped P500 items from August 1, 2021, through October 31, 2022. It doesn’t matter when you ordered the items—only that you used P500 to order them and that they were shipped between August 1, 2021, and October 31, 2022.To help you know which P500 games make you eligible for the sale, here’s a list of P500 games we shipped between August 1, 2021, through October 31, 2022 (excluding the two currently-shipping P500 games):

1848 Australia
Absolute War
Almoravid
Barbarossa: Army Group Center, 2nd Edition
Battle Line, 11th Printing
Battles for the Shenandoah, A Death Valley Expansion
CDG Solo System
Churchill, 3rd Printing
Commands & Colors: Ancients, 7th Printing
Conquest and Consequence
Cuba Libre, 4th Printing
Empire of the Sun, 4th Printing
Fall of Saigon
Fields of Fire: The Bulge Campaign
Fire in the Lake, 3rd Printing
Flashpoint: South China Sea
Great Battles of Julius Caesar, Deluxe Edition
Into the Woods
MBT, 2nd Printing
Musket & Pike Dual Pack
Normandy ’44, 3rd Printing
Norway, 1940: A PQ-17 Expansion
Pacific War
Panzer, 3rd Printing
Panzer Expansion 1, 2nd Printing
Panzer Expansion 2, 2nd Printing
Panzer Expansion 3, 2nd Printing
Plains Indian Wars
Red Flag Over Paris
Red Storm: Baltic Approaches
Salerno ’43
Stalingrad ’42 Expansion
SpaceCorp, 2nd Printing
Tank Duel Expansion 1: North Africa
Tank Duel Tank Pack #1
The Last Hundred Yards: Mission Pack #1
The Last Hundred Yards: Solomon Islands
The US Civil War, 2nd Printing
This Accursed Civil War, 2nd Printing
Triumph and Tragedy, 3rd Printing
Twilight Struggle Deluxe Edition, 8th Printing
Vietnam, 1965-1975
Wing Leader Supremacy, 1943-1945, 2nd Edition

If you are unsure which of these items were shipped to you in 2021/2022, you can check your account on our website by logging in and then clicking “My Account” (at top right on any page of our website). Once you’re into your account, click the “Order History” tab on the left side of the page, and that will show you all of your recent orders/shipments.

Sale Quantity Limit: For each game that was delivered to you via our P500 program since August 1, 2021, you can order one in-stock item at 50% off. The only upper limit to how many games you can order is the number of games you received via P500 during that period.Example: If you received only one game via P500 between August 1, 2021, and October 31, 2022, you are eligible to order ONE in-stock item at 50% off in this sale. If you received 10 P500 games in that August 1, 2021, to October 31, 2022, window, you would be eligible to order up to 10 items in this sale.

Which items you can buy at 50% off Sale Price:

1. Any In-Stock GMT Game EXCEPT the two new P500 games that just started shipping this week (CHARIOTEER and SKIES ABOVE BRITAIN).

2. Any game, magazine, or accessory from any of our third-party vendors EXCEPT for Hexasim and Vae Victis/Cerrigo products.

3. You can also purchase Accessories as one of your “items”—Mounted MapsCard Decks, or Miscellaneous Parts—if you run out of games you want to get at a discount. Note: We’ve done quite a few really nice Mounted Maps for a variety of games over the past few years. All of these that are still in stock are eligible for the sale. Here’s your chance to get some nice mounted maps at half price!

4. All Items on our Specials PagePlease remember that you absolutely CAN use the games on the Specials Page as part of these 50% off orders if you wish. These items are AMAZING values because you get to use your 50% off the already great “On Sale For” prices on this page! So check out the Specials Page and get some great deals!
While They Last: These sale prices last for each offered game until it is sold out or until the sale ends on November 21, 2021, at 11:59 pm Pacific Time. We expect numerous games to sell out during the sale. When you try to add a game to your cart and get a message that the order exceeds quantity remaining in stock, it’s sold out. Please choose other games. We’ll do our best to update these with sold out notifications on their thumbnails and by moving them out of the in-stock category as quickly as possible during the sale to avoid confusion.

How to Get the Sale Price: Go to our website and prepare your order from eligible games (see above, in “Items you can buy at 50% off Sale Price”). Then, when you checkout, use the following code to get 50% off per item: GMTSale2022

NOTE: Please DO NOT combine Sale items on the same order as a P500 order. This makes it much more difficult for our office and warehouse folks to process.


Please Remember:

  • The sale begins on Tuesday, November 15th at 5:00 am Pacific Time and runs through 11:59 pm Pacific Time on November 21st.
  • Use discount code GMTSale2022 when you checkout with your sale orders in order to get the 50% discount.
  • Please DO NOT combine Sale and new P500 order items on one order. THANKS!
  • Feel free to use your shopping cart on our website between now and the start of the sale to build your sale order list. Then you’ll be able to order quickly once the sale begins next Tuesday.


Enjoy the games!

Gene

Infernal Machine: The Torpedo Boat during the Civil War – Part Five – The “Spitting Devil”

While technical “wizards” like Dr. St. Julien Ravenel and Theodore Stoney were creating the CSS “David” torpedo boat as the Confederacy’s response to the US Navy’s overwhelming superiority on the nation’s rivers and oceans, the Union wizards were not idle in that field, either.

Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich Preview 3 — The Soviet Offensive Continues

In Downfall Preview 2 the Soviet faction began the game by playing their “Operation Uranus” action card to resolve a free attack order. Since doing so had no initiative cost, the Soviets retain the initiative and may now select a Soviet order marker. As previously stated, the Soviet Partisan Warfare order and STAVKA order are available on the Action Track, as is the Attack order in the Soviet Planning Box.

SPQR: A Guide to Playing the Game — Part 1

The idea for this article came about after dusting off the C3I SPQR Player’s Guide published so many years ago and reading it from cover to cover. That handy guide is useful, even though outdated in a few places, in helping SPQR players understand and play the game better. The Players Guide, however, is a series of articles on a range of topics including some new scenarios but does not look at the play of the game in a wholistic manner. This guide is intended to present the game through an explanation of its rules and using one of the games more popular scenarios as a case study.

The method of presentation is one I would use in explaining the game to a new player. The discussion follows the Sequence of Play but pulls rules from anywhere in the rule book to support the explanation. I go into greater detail in some areas, less in others, and occasionally send the reader directly to the rulebook.

This article is structured into major topic sections, most of which are further divided into subsections, primarily to break up the text. I have attempted to keep cross references to internal sections to a minimum but have made copious references to the SPQR rules and play aids to support the discussion. All rule references are to the SPQR 4th Edition rules as amended by the errata dated October 2022 unless noted otherwise. After explaining the rules, I have added a section to address the often heard “what do I do” question once the game is setup. The final section has an extensive example of play covering the opening action on one wing of the Heraclea battlefield. 

Let’s begin.

Infernal Machine: The Torpedo Boat during the Civil War – Part Four –  the “Squib” class Torpedo Boats at Trent’s Reach, January 1865

News of the CSS “Squib” torpedo boat’s semi-success in its attack on the Union Navy’s Squadron anchored at Hampton Roads, Virginia met with enthusiastic response from the Confederate Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory.

Great Battles of History vs Commands & Colors – Battle of Callinicum (531 AD)

As I had a pleasure of playing in short succession the Byzantine Battle of Callinicum (531 AD) using both Mark Herman Great Battles of History (GBoH) and then Richard Borg Commands Colors Medieval (CCM) I would like to share not-so-typical after action report. Yes, I will look into the details of the engagement, historical result, how it went on the board and what result was. But I will also do the comparison of how it feels to play with both systems. Should be fun!

Battle of the Pyramids: Napoleon in Egypt – Full Turn Example of Play (Part 1)

July 1st, 1798. 35,000 French soldiers landed in Alexandria. Where to next? In this series of articles, we will highlight mechanics of the Napoleon in Egypt game by simulating the first Turn of the Campaign Scenario.

The French Player is the first to go every Turn. This is especially important on that very first Turn, as they have a chance to strike hard using their overwhelming initial forces. The most classical opening is to recreate the “Battle of the Pyramids”. Cairo being four Spaces away from Alexandria, the French Player needs to play a card worth at least 4 AP to do that but they have a better idea.

Downfall: Conquest of the Third Reich Preview 2 — The Soviets Attack

In our first article we introduced the design features of Chad Jensen’s strategic game on the three years that ended World War II in Europe. Now we will zoom into the mechanics of Orders, Action Cards and Combat by walking through a typical game opening. The Soviet faction begins the game with the initiative and so will go first.

Shown here is a portion of the map, with the initial set up reflecting the situation on the eastern front in November 1942. Red units are Soviets. All other units are the German and Axis-Allied nations making up the OKH faction.

Infernal Machine: The Torpedo Boat during the Civil War – Part Three – the CSS ”Squib” and its Attack on the USS “Minnesota”

The years 1863 and 1864 were a busy time for Southern inventors interested in creating a weapon that would give the Confederacy parity of a sort with the much larger and more numerous naval vessels of the United States Navy.

Undoubtedly, when inventors such as Charleston’s Dr. St. Julien Ravenel and Theodore Stoney created their CSS “David” torpedo boat, it was thoughts in equal part of both profit and patriotism that guided their minds and hands.