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Rebel Fury – Chancellorsville 1863 – Strategic Considerations by Mark Herman

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Below you will find a fantastic strategy article from Mark Herman originally published on The Boardgames Chronicle blog. Enjoy! -Rachel

Let me invite you to a great strategy article by Mark Herman for his Rebel Fury game. The main topic and focus area is the battle of Chancellorsville in 1863 – the so called Robert E. Lee’s “perfect battle”. The Confederates are standing in front of immensely difficult task, being flanked by multiple Union forces. What should be done in such case?

Let us see how the game depicts that conflict. Enjoy!

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Enemy of My Enemy: Arab Revolt

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This is the first in a series of InsideGMT articles for the new Enemy of My Enemy expansion for the first COIN multipack, The British Way. Joe and I are extremely pleased with the positive reception of the first printing of The British Way which sold out from GMT last November. After seeing a ton of reviews, after action reports, and game award nominations for The British Way, we wanted to offer even more content for those enjoying the game or those looking forward to the reprint. The Enemy of My Enemy expansion offers three new ways of expanding the base game’s content: a new Arab Revolt (1936-1939) game using the Palestine map, a new Japanese Occupation (1942-1945) game using the Malaya map, and new rules and components for an advanced variant for each of the conflicts depicted in the base game: Palestine (1945-1947), Malaya (1948-1960), Kenya (1952-1956), and Cyprus (1955-1959). We’ll cover each of the parts of the expansion in a separate InsideGMT article. Today’s article is focused on the new Arab Revolt game.

The British Way: Arab Revolt addresses a major issue with the base game’s depiction of Palestine. In the original British Way: Palestine, which covers the 1945-1947 struggle between Jewish terrorist groups and British counterinsurgency forces, the Palestinian Arab community is not directly referenced in the game. As the introduction to the rulebook notes, the game “does not directly model the wider political struggles between the British, Jewish Agency, and Arab political groups, or the civil war that began in November 1947”. By focusing on a narrow period of time and British counterinsurgency tactics against the major armed opposition of that time, armed Jewish groups, the game could not adequately depict the Palestinian Arab community’s less confrontational stance against British rule during that period. However, that raises the question, why was the larger Arab community not more focused on resisting British rule between 1945-1947?

The answer is that members of the Palestinian Arab community launched a massive revolt against British rule between 1936-1939 that ended with equally massive British repression and major concessions, including a new limitation on Jewish immigration introduced by the 1939 White Paper. That same limitation motivated the Jewish armed groups to violently resist British rule during the 1945-1947 period. In other words, one cannot understand the Palestinian Arab community’s exhaustion in the 1940s without exploring the Arab Revolt (1936-1939), nor why Jewish groups such as Haganah cooperated with the British during that revolt but then opposed them in 1945. Therefore, rather than simply tossing in a few token events into the base game, I knew from the start I wanted to design an entire game on the preceding conflict to help provide more nuanced context to the “absence” of Palestinians from the narrowly focused 1945-1947 Palestine game.

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Carmen Triumphale: To The Ancient World

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Along with my friends, Johan and Chris, I have been playing the scenarios in The Ancient World: Rise of the Roman Republic and The Ancient World: Carthage pretty much every Wednesday night since December 2023. At first, we just wanted to take the system for a spin as Johan spoke highly of it, but it has since turned into a grand adventure.

Our first play of the 1st Punic War scenario from Carthage ended with a Carthaginian victory. We had so much fun with that play, we immediately reset and went back to it again. This time the Romans prevailed. It was also around this time that, since we had been asking so many questions of the developer, Alan Ray, we formally signed on to the playtest team.

Since that time, we’ve played every scenario in both Rise of the Roman Republic and Carthage (except the Mercenary War – that’s coming) at least once and a few of them twice. It still hasn’t gotten old. Playtesting can sometimes be work; this doesn’t feel like it.

What is it that’s so engaging about this system that we keep returning to it?

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Two-Handing Robin Hood; or, How to Rob Your Own Carriage

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A Gest of Robin Hood has been out for nearly two months now, and both Fred and I are very pleased with how it has been received so far. It has been especially gratifying to see people enjoying the game with a wide range of friends and family, including young children and non-wargamers. One of our aims with the game was to make a relatively accessible entry point with a family-friendly theme, and it seems like it has been a resounding success in this regard. However, we know that not everybody is able to find a gaming partner all the time, and so I wanted to put together this short guide to playing the game “two-handed solo” (playing both sides to the best of your ability).

Like other COIN and Irregular Conflict Series games, A Gest of Robin Hood is already fairly well-suited to multi-handed play, as the cards are all open information (when drawn) and it is relatively easy to formulate a strategy for each side based just on the current board state. However, unlike most of these other games, A Gest of Robin Hood does feature a small amount of hidden information, and I’ve come up with a few tricks for handling these when playing by yourself. In collaboration with British Way designer Stephen Rangazas, Fred and I have also designed a set of “heroic and villainous personas”, which you can use to add some additional variation for either solo or two-player games.  

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Herding Elephants: A Development Update on Hannibal’s Revenge

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In April I was able to take my playtest kit for Hannibal’s Revenge to the GMT Weekend at the Warehouse and play with several of the GMT Team Members in attendance, so that we could plan the next steps for development of the game. Needless to say, we had a great time playing the game and I was able to complete two playtests while I was there, in addition to several partial sessions.

One of the main goals in this test was to try out the new map from Mark Mahaffey and look for any issues with the pieces, sizes of the boxes, and coloration of the map to make sure that it was as usable as possible. The map passed with flying colors.

A playtest session in progress with Kai Jensen. None of these components should be considered final, but they sure did look nice!
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Conquest & Consequence versus Triumph & Tragedy

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If you’re a Triumph & Tragedy (T&T) fan, you’ve probably heard that Conquest and Consequence (CnC) is more complicated than T&T, and not as “clean”. Well, that’s a high bar, and IMO here’s why:

• It’s a sequel. Sequels usually require extra rules to take a system that was custom-designed for one situation and adapt it to a new situation.

• To maintain T&T‘s 3-sided dynamic, the “Soviet” Faction (Siberian Russia plus the Chinese communists) is added to the basic US-Japan confrontation. The Soviets are a latent military power that must play a patient “long game” combining solid defense with the nurturing of civilian political organization (“Partisans”) that in time will assume sufficient military power to win more than its share of games. Some do not enjoy this role, some do; it’s a personality thing.

• New elements including Partisans, the Chinese Civil War, and Island warfare do add additional complexity to the system.

• Diplomacy is a popular aspect of the system, but because war historically broke out earlier in China than it did in Europe, less Diplomacy typically occurs.

• Play Balance had to be reset. Although the original version actually boosted Japan’s historical capabilities for game purposes, many gamers were unhappy with Japan’s prospects. A modified v1.1 was released, incorporating balance tweaks to give Japan a better chance. New players must realize that Time is not Japan’s friend, and play accordingly: the clock is running.

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Leader Personalities in Banish the Snakes

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Banish the Snakes is now available for pre-order! You can find more info or pre-order on the P500 page here.

Saint Patrick Card

A good historic simulation game will always tell a story; for Banish the Snakes, that is mostly accomplished through interaction with the Saints that appear in the game. St. Patrick is the best known of these Saints. Players direct the actions taken by these historic people – both men and women – and their successes and failures drive the game’s narrative.

The historic sources available for this time period is sparce. We have some good information about the dozen historic Saints in the game, and some others who did not make the “cut” to be included. And we have good information about the general social structure in Ireland during this time period. But we have only spotty information on individual political leaders from this era. Neil of the Nine Hostages is the most notable – and has the best sobriquet! And there is Benignus of Armagh, whose chieftain father features in a story about Patrick. They both have their own cards in the game. But for the most part, the chiefs, kings, and even high kings of the era remain anonymous.

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Napoleon in Egypt: Local Units Side with the French (Part 2)

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by Pascal Toupy and Marco Poutré

In the previous article of this series, we began exploring the auxiliary units the French raised during their campaign in Egypt and Syria. We’ll finish that review with the Régiment de dromadaires (Dromedary Regiment) and then look at how the French player can best use Auxiliary Units in their quest for victory in our game Napoleon in Egypt.

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Meet the Statesmen of Congress of Vienna – The French Contingent, 2024 Edition (Part 4 of 4)

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Introduction by Congress of Vienna (CoV)’s Assistant Designer & Editor, Fred Schachter – To familiarize the InsideGMT audience of what designer Frank Esparrago created with his fun and exciting Congress of Vienna game, now a GMT P-500 offering which has “made the cut”; InsideGMT presented articles of “Designer’s Notes” and a “Game as History” series entitled “An Historical Introduction to the Congress of Vienna Period (CoV)”.  Use this link to access copies of these articles: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-850-congress-of-vienna.aspx .

Since this is the fifth of GMT’s “Great Statesmen” game series, it seems appropriate to focus on those very Statesmen who make this Napoleonic Wars historical period so fascinating to our hobby from perspective of the game Frank designed.

Consequently, following Part Three’s “Russian Contingent” piece, here’s the final part of this four-part series: “Meet the Statesmen of Congress of Vienna – The French Contingent”.  Please note InsideGMT published the original of this article during early 2020.  This is the 2024 edition… which is an update including Terry Leeds’ gorgeous graphics of Congress of Vienna’s cards.

Alas, as previously explained, this four part “Meet the Statesmen of Congress of Vienna, which is essentially a compendium of its cards, could not be accommodated within CoV’s Playbook due to space limitations.

I enjoyed learning more of the historical figures behind the game’s cards and hope you do as well. Also, the CoV Team appreciates folks’ feedback, whether within this forum or elsewhere to this InsideGMT series.  Now to conclude matters with its final Pt. 4 of 4 installment by meeting the Great French Statesmen, War Leaders, and other “neutral” personages of Congress of Vienna.

 In italics we include a description of each card’s CoV game attributes in terms of its game-related background, along with for players, its game play opportunities and weaknesses.

Note: If you would like to view any of the below images in a larger size, you can click on the image, and it will point you to an expanded image file.

Additional note: We are releasing this article about Congress of Vienna’s French Contingent on July 14, Bastille Day, for a little thematic flavor. We hope you enjoy it!

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So You Think You Can Dance (With the Central Powers)?: An “Illusions of Glory” Note

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The second edition of Illusions of Glory: The Great War on the Eastern Front (“IoG”) is currently on the P-500 list.

Links to prototype unit counters, player aid cards, mapboard, rules, and playbook can be found on the IoG webpage. 

Playtesters have remarked about the difficulty of fighting Large Unit Counters (“LCUs”) representing regular or elite German infantry corps.  Each of them has a Loss Factor (LF) of “3”.  Under the Combat Results Table, those units end up absorbing hits without taking step reductions.

 A unit’s step reduction is caused by applying the unit’s Loss Factor (LF) to the Loss Number (LN) generated by the Combat Results Table for damage inflicted by the enemy (Rule 12.6.2).  If the LN is equal to or greater than a unit’s LF, the unit loses a step; if the LN is less than the unit’s LF, then the unit absorbs the LN without taking damage (Rule 12.6.3).