Highlights From the January 2023 GMT Games Update

It’s been a few months since my lost post about the monthly GMT Update!

That’s not GMT’s fault. They do it monthly.

I just haven’t had a lot to say about the more recent ones.

At least nothing that really seemed blogworthy.

How many times can you say “That looks so cool!” in an interesting and readable manner?

Hey, that’s not nice.

Anyway, I thought this month would be a good one to do an update for since there’s actually a bit of news that I can comment on!

Not much, but some.

Of course, this also means that GMT is costing me more money.

I don’t hear them complaining about that…

Here’s the link to the update, and I do encourage you to subscribe to it on their web site.

On that note, let’s begin!

First, a bit of bookkeeping.

In my August post, I mentioned that Playdek was teasing an announcement for another GMT game they were doing.

I was seriously hoping for something cool, like Commands & Colors or Combat Commander.

It turned out, in the September update announcement, that they are working on the digital version of Twilight Struggle: Red Sea – Conflict in the Horn of Africa.

Not a bad choice, but I just got that game! (Well, I will when I go to our US mailbox to pick it up).

It’s a quick-playing 2-player game, so I can play it at work on lunch.

Which means it’s not quite as attractive of a digital game for me than the others would have been.

Still, I’m sure Playdek will do a great job and it will be a Day 1 buy for me when it comes out.

Now, on to the update!

First, there are some congratulations to Charles S. Roberts Awards winners, which are definitely well-deserved.

I’ve actually played three of the four GMT games that won!

Atlantic Chase (not played), Bayonets & Tomahawks (two async scenario plays on VASSAL), Red Flag Over Paris (great 2-player lunchtime game!) and Storm Above the Reich (many, many plays…duh) all won awards in their various categories.

Congratulations to them!

Details in the update, of course.

Then there’s an update on John Butterfield’s Away Team, which just looks amazing.

It’s a game of exploring alien worlds, meeting new life, collecting scientific information, looking for suitable planets for colonization, and most importantly, not dying.

It has three modes of play: solitaire campaign (possibly 80 hours of gameplay!), solitaire one-off play, and 2-player competitive where each player is a different away team from the Pandora.

There’s a link in the update to a video John Butterfield did talking about all of this. I haven’t watched it but will be soon!

Then there’s news about Commands & Colors: Napoleonics.

Due to the rising cost of wood, GMT will eventually be combining the first five volumes (the base game and four expansions) into two volumes. The last pair of expansions will also be combined into another volume.

They’ve obtained outside funding to do a limited reprint of all the expansions first, for those who have started collecting them. That’s great to hear GMT taking care of their customers.

Since I don’t have any of them, I will be waiting for the consolidations, but the piece of news that really makes me happy here is this outside funding will also be helping print the Samurai reprint (which I already own) and the Medieval reprint (which I’ve been on the P500 list for a while and was despairing that it wasn’t getting anywhere near 500 orders).

Yay me!

Another bit of cool news for me is they showcase the back of the box for the upcoming The Barracks Emperors, a card game based on one of my favourites, Time of Crisis.

That definitely looks great and makes me want to play it even more.

Now we get to the new P500 offerings.

Two of them (Next War: Iran and Next War: Supplement #4), I don’t have any interest in because I will never get them played.

But the one that I jumped on immediately was Seljuk, designed by Justin Fassino.

Now I can finally stop guessing when Gene teases upcoming P500 offerings as “the next entry in the Levy & Campaign” series!

I knew I’d be right eventually.

It was cool meeting Justin at Bottoscon (and getting in one of his videos!) but I didn’t get the chance to sit down and try this when he was showing it off.

I look forward to getting the opportunity.

I’m not even going to try and guess the hints Gene gave this month. I have no idea.

Now we get to the good stuff: how much money am I going to be giving GMT in the near future?

Answer: Way too much.

I think I am going to be going 4 months in a row where something is coming.

First it was Twilight Struggle: Red Sea in early December.

Then Inferno (the latest Levy & Campaign game) just charged a week ago. It just started shipping yesterday so hopefully it will arrive before I go to our mailbox.

Then I discover from this update that in February the reprint of The Last Hundred Yards: Volume 1 will be charging and shipping!

Then, looking at the general P500 status update, I see that Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East is on the boat and should be arriving in February, which means it will probably be a March charge.

My wallet hurts…

After that, I should have at least a couple months’ reprieve as the next one (The Barracks Emperors) is just going to the printer next month. That means it could be a few months depending on the order things are done.

There’s a lot more that may interest you in the update, so you should definitely check it out.

I should definitely draw your attention to the end of the update where they give some artwork sneak peaks. The board to A Gest of Robin Hood looks incredible, as does the box cover for The Barracks Emperors.

But let me showcase the cover of Plantagenet: Cousins War for England 1459-1485.

This cover is phenomenal. Simple, brings you back to an earlier time, but yet the design of the flowers and vines around the name just really brings out the theme.

Finally, a shoutout once again to GMT for highlighting the content creators that talk about their games.

I’m pleased to see a post of mine linked in the update (of course it’s the early January post where two of my top five games played in 2022 are GMT Games).

Anything here interest you? What about anything in the update that I skipped?

Let me know in the comments.