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

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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! 

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How to Win as the Protestants in Here I Stand

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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

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Firefight Friday #14: Scenario Design 8

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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!

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Firefight Friday #13: Scenario Design 7

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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.

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Factions of The Weimar Republic: NSDAP

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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.

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Playing The British Way at the University

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Several months back, when preparing for the Spring semester course on wargaming, I wrote a blog post about the plans to use Stephen Rangazas’ The British Way in the classroom. The game has now made its debut at the university, and it is interesting to look back and see what worked and how.

Whenever introducing a new game in class, some issues must be considered to ensure that it can work in that specific environment. What gaming concepts will the students be already familiar with? How much time will the game take and how many games could be run and facilitated in parallel? Have they covered the topic of the game in their other classes? As The British Way was released in 2023, it was the first time to be used, and all these questions had to be answered.

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Hannibal’s Revenge Or… If Hannibal’s good enough for Denzel Washington, who are we to say nay?

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by Mark G. McLaughlin (with Fred Schachter)

Does the gaming community need another Hannibal game?  The answer is “why not?” or, more simply an empathic “yes!”: just as it is to the question of a new Gettysburg, Pacific Theater WWII or another Waterloo game (such as Mark Herman’s latest forays into those topics) or of a new upcoming movie on the subject. (Note that Denzel Washington’s Hannibal will be on Netflix later this year.)

Hannibal featuring Victor Mature

Just as Denzel Washington is taking on a role made famous by screen legend Victor Mature and (more recently) by Star Trek’s Alexander Siddiq, among others, so did we also make the decision to cross the Alps into Ancient Italy to confront the power of Rome.

Hannibal featuring Alexander Siddig

We are big fans of previous Hannibal games, including that designed by our mutual friend and GMT colleague Mark Simonitch.  This is a game recently updated as Hannibal and Hamilcar. By the way, Simonitch’s game is the basis for a miniatures’ campaign Mark McLaughlin is involved with.  Battles among the group are resolved using several different sets of miniatures rules – most recently “To the Strongest.” Incidentally, Mark is not Hannibal in this game but has the role of his younger brother, Hasdrubal, and he lost – if barely –in his first outing on the field).

But we digress…

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Firefight Friday #12: Scenario Design 6

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Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week, in the eleventh article, I talked about the fifth scenario, “Purple Heart Lane”. This got us into artillery and multi-deck scenarios. All this pales in comparison to this week though, where we only have one thing to cover before our scenario: Armor. Almost every scenario from here on out will feature vehicles in some capacity so they will be important to understand.

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Panzer Expansion #4 Solitaire Scenario #46 Replay Part 3 — Turns 6-8

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Turn #6

Spotting

Only the German Infantry still in the trucks is unspotted.

All French not Hidden Units except PzIIIF #3 are spotted. None of the Hidden units are spotted.

Command Phase

German Commands – The forward-Most Tanks are firing. The rear most tanks are moving. At least one unloaded infantry is firing while the other ones will move and possibly close assault. The H-39s will fire while the Loaded infantry will move.

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Infernal Machine: The Inventor’s Vade Mecum (Nautica ed.) Part 9 — Power! Power! Wonder-working Power!

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By Ed Ostermeyer (Master Engineer – Grade 2)

Ah, good day to you once more, young Inventor.

I am happy to see you once again.

And you have brought your copy of the Inventor’s Vade Mecum with you.

May I see it, please?

Hmmm, I notice it is now a very worn and much-thumbed work.

I am proud of your diligence.

What benefit is a book of knowledge if you don’t use it from time to time, eh?

However, there have been several updates since this copy was printed.

The section on Power has received significant editing.

Oh, good.

I see that there are still unused endpapers in your Vade Mecum that you can use for note-taking.

Let’s make an update to your edition on the subject of Power, shall we?