Stripped Down for Parts: Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years War, 1618-1648

 

I was really in two minds about writing up an unboxing of Cuius Regio: the Thirty Years War, 1618-1648 (GMT Games. 2026), not because I didn’t think it warranted the attention, but just the opposite; I expected much more excitement than the game has thus far received. With the new shipping set up for P500 orders, where I used to sometimes receive GMT preorders a week or so before my North American friends, they now arrive a month or more later. (I’m not complaining – it does mean the shipping comes out about half or less of what it would coming from the States.) But in that time, there hasn’t seemed to be a lot of interest in the game - except from the usual suspects (Ardwulf's Lair, Kilroy Was Here, Pushing Cardboard and Justegard all produced good unboxing videos – I’d recommend taking a look at any or all of these for a better look at the components close up). When my copy arrived, I admit I got a little excited, and I think I have something to offer for the conversation, so here we are.

The cover features a rather dramatic representation of the double-headed eagle of the Holy Roman Empire, one of the antagonists during the war, superimposed over a classic battle scene. The illustration was prepared by GMT stalwart Kurt Miller. Try as I might, I’ve been unable to identify the painting on which the cover is based; it looks familiar, but I’m not entirely sure the battle depicted is actually a situation from the Thirty Years War (given the uniforms, maybe the War of Spanish Succession, but I’m no expert). If I can get to the bottom of it, I’ll drop in some detail with an edit note.

While it doesn’t give much away, the cover is compelling. The orange, umber and rust tones hint at the ferocity of the conflict, which was responsible for – by some estimates – as many as eight million deaths, either from direct conflict or indirectly from famine, disease and exposure. While I don’t think this would have been my choice, I think the illustration works to attract the interest of the casual shopper.

The box-back.

The box back, to my grognard-gimlet eye, is even more compelling. It features a part of the game map in the top half, with a straight forward description dealing less with the historical situation and more with the basic functions from the game, highlighting some solid selling points; operational/strategic level (with one-year turns), a range of scenarios (five in all, including the full campaign), and some nice, simple counters, Represented at their actual 5/8” size, as well as the aforementioned map.

The scale of the map is sixteen miles to a hex, the units represent something like 500 to 1,000 troops and as mentioned, each turn runs to a calendar year (which makes sense, given a campaign year would typically run from around March until the antagonists took their winter quarters). The graphic data informs us that the game is designed for two players, that the difficulty is reckoned to be five out of nine (middling, though a veteran GCACW player would probably scoff at this), and the solitaire suitability is cast at six out of nine (no doubt due to the hidden information factor at play, but we’ll get to that shortly). It should come as a surprise to no one that the recommended age for the game is fourteen years and up. The box back also informs us that the play-time should be between one and six hours (scenario-dependent) while the full campaign might take thirty to forty hours to play out. This makes Cuius Regio a good candidate for a five- or six-day convention that you can learn before-hand playing shorter scenarios of an evening leading up to the event.

The Rulebook is printed on the familiar, medium weight matt-finish paper GMT has been using for every game I’ve seen of late. No complaints there. The rulebook runs to 24 pages but only 22 of them are printed – the last two are blank (or at least free of game-related information).

Sample Rules spread.

The cover page features a thorough Table of Contents. The core rules – including the introduction and component breakdown – take up the next nineteen pages, with the final two pages given to a page of Optional Rules and a Glossary. At first glance the rules look clear and helpfully illustrated. I don’t anticipate any problems here.

A lot of online discussion has brought up the similarity between the "feel" of Cuius Regio’s play being similar that of games from the Great Campaigns of the AmericanCivil War. It turns out there’s a reason for that. I had cause to correspond with designer Francisco Gradaille regarding another post I’m writing, and he mentioned when he was thinking about the framework for a Thirty Years War game, he happened across a podcast comparing various operational level ACW games, including the Great Campaigns series. Mr Gradaille wrote, “After listening to that, I thought that the manoeuvres during the Thirty Years War had some similarities, and I started searching for wargames that let me have that kind of experience in that period. As I didn’t find any, I decided to make one myself.”

The Scenario book shares all of the physical attributes The scenarios are laid out simply and are immediately comprehensible. The scenarios themselves are broken into discrete campaigns lasting two to thirteen turns, while the full campaign covers the full thirty-one turns.

Scenario 3: The Danish Intervention. Everything you need for each scenario
is presented in a single spread.

The Scenario Book also includes a nine-page Extended Example of Play, three pages of Designer’s Notes, a page of Tips and Tricks for new players, and a page-and-a-half Bibliography that I for one will be scrutinising in depth.

The map as it comes out of the box.

The game map is in two parts (northern and southern). The components list says the game comes with two 34” by 16”, which isn’t quite true. The maps together come to a size of 32” by 33 ½” (with about an inch and a bit of overlap). The play area is very attractive, rendered simply with a buff background with easily recognisable geographical features, and a graduating system of Minor, Major, Great and Electorate Cities, represented by cameo illustrations taking up the entire hex. The rivers and provincial borders conform to hex edges, and the roads run precisely from one side of a hex to another; the whole map is rather schematic, but it really doesn’t feel so. Cartographer Nicolas Roblin has managed to create a map that is at once visually pleasing and eminently playable.

The map complete. Apologies for the glare lines, but this was taken without the benefit
of any flattening technology.

The field of play runs from the Baltic coast in the north to the border of the Swiss Confederacy in the south, and from Poland and Hungary to the east all the way across to the Eastern most provinces of France and the Spanish Netherlands in the west (Rhenish, Lorraine and Franche-Comte are caught up within the playable area). The map also features a Turn Track, and numbered tracks at the top and bottom of the combined sheets, presumably to aid in tracking movement point expenditure for each player’s forces.

Counter sheets 1&2.

There are three sheets of counters. These are printed on the familiar brown-core cardstock GMT has been using for pretty much everything of late. The first two sheets are mainly the available forces of the two sides represented (yellow for the Holy Roman Empire, blue for the Protestants. The troop counters are particularly nice, simply rendered with a single figure and numerical value representing the unit’s strength. The Infantry are represented by arquebusiers, the Cavalry by mounted riders, and the Artillery Trains by a manned cannon. Artillery Trains don’t possess a fighting strength of their own but offer a modifier to the overall combat value of the force.

Counter sheet 3.

Leader counters – Marshals and Lieutenants, are named characters from the Thirty Years War. Each counter features the leader’s name, a rating (1-3), a tiny cameo portrait and the years in which they were historically active. The admin counters are also simple, easy to read at a glance, and pleasing to look at. Army markers are used on the board when playing with the Fog of War optional rule. Markers showing relevant national flags (or in the Imperial case, the Imperial crest and Spanish flag) identify the deployment locations of various armies on the map, and counters with the two-headed eagle on one wide and the Tudor rose on the other are used to indicate control of cities by one or the other side.

There are no less than four Player’s Aid cards included in Cuius Regio, each presented in duplicate (no sharing necessary), doble-sided, and of a single panel, collectively covering all the charts and tables one could possibly need during the course of play. The PACs are not numbered, so I’ll just go through them in the order that seems most sensible.

The first offers a detailed – but not exhaustive – Sequence of Play, and a brief explanation of how Movement Points are calculated for each army. On the reverse of this card is the Terrain Effects Chart (TEC), which explains the diverse terrain and locations featured on the map, and explaining their impact on movement costs and possible influence on Combat

The second PAC is one of two that deals with combat The front offers a sequence of play for Battles with a list of Battle Modifiers and a Odds Modifier table, The Reverse of the card presents the Battle Results Table, which incorporated the table for Modified Battle Results and for the active army’s Fatigue Roll, as well as instructions for the Leader Loss Check, and a Route Check table.

The next PAC deals with Cavalry in combat, featuring a Reaction Move / Cavalry Retreat Before Combat Table, and a Stragglers Check Table. The verso changes subject from Combat to real estate. The Cities table advises on the City Size Value of differing sizes of cities, and the minimum number of troops necessary to gain control of an unoccupied city of that size. The City Control Table is used for establishing control over a city when the army lacks the strength to overwhelm the city outright, and Provincial Conversion Check table declares with a roll (adjusted with any relevant modifiers listed below the table) when control of a province is gained by the player. The title of the game is drawn from a maxim of the time, Cuius regio, eius religio, translating literally to “whose realm, his religion.” Whoever rules the land gets to dictate the land’s religious affiliation.

The final PAC is a bit of a miscellany, collecting the reference tables that didn’t fit elsewhere. The front offers the Marshal Availability Chart, a long list of the number of marshals available to each side in a given year (through the thirty-one game turn/years), the Artillery Cost Table spells out the cost in Political Points (PP) of managing Artillery Trains for your armies, and the Hex Supply Table, which dictates how many troops may be kept in given location during Winter Quarters (i.e., carried over from one campaign year to the next). The verso presented the Province Control and Reinforcement Table and the Troop Purchase Table. The Province Control and Reinforcement Table offers an alphabetical list of all the provinces present in the play area, whether a province might be persuaded to flip religions and the difficulty in that venture (DRM), the number of cities that need to be controlled before control may be achieved, and how many reinforcements the province may provide when under a faction’s control

All the PACs are elegantly laid out and very easy to navigate and read. I like the idea of not having to constantly open a bi- or tri-fold PAC to find what I’m looking for at a given time, and I think the use of these will become second nature after a few full turns of a game.

The Army Boards. The game's colour palette is one of its many strengths.

Each faction’s armies may be all out on the map, or alternately, they may be managed on that side’s Army board, with an Army marker indicating each army’s location on the board (these are imperative for use with the Fog of War optional rule). This is a single-sided card-sheet printed on the same weight card as the PACs, with spaces for up to five separate armies, an Active Leaders Pool, three spaces for the activation markers used to indicate the number of Lieutenants activated in the current turn, and a ten-space tally chart, running 0-9, like the ones printed at each end of the play map.

The Shields depict battles from the Thirty Years War.   

The Army boards may each be concealed from the prying eyes the enemy with the use of a shield, two of which are provided in the game. These are constructed using the same weight of card as the PACs and Battle Maps, stand at a low enough height for them to be perfectly adequate for the task of screening a faction’s Army board.

Shields deployed.

-----

So, that’s what you can expect in Cuius Regio. It’s a really nice-looking game that promises an interesting play experience but is probably fated to receive nearly the audience it deserves by dint of it not being a more popular subject in the English-speaking world. Which is a shame in itself, but that’s a subject for another time. I look forward t playing this some time in the future. At this point, my meagre ambitions extend to hopefully tabling the game before the end of 2026, a goal I hold for several other games as well, but Cuius Regio might just be moving to the top of the list.

Overthinking it: It’s okay to own unpunched games

 

 

This post began as an afterword to an unboxing post looking at a recent acquisition, Blue vs Gray Deluxe Edition (GMT Games, 2003). I was considering the fact that this game, which I bought second-hand, had probably been bought with every intention of play. Yet it looked untouched when took possession of it. Below is what I originally wrote in the Blue vs. Gray unboxing:

A game this old that remains on a shelf, unpunched and pristine, tells its own story. I’m under no illusions that there’s a good chance this copy of Blue vs Gray came from a deceased estate.  The online store I bought it from specialises in these kinds of bulk purchases.

When I was younger, I couldn’t imagine buying a game and not immediately on arrival home, opening it up, examining the map and the pieces, maybe even giving the rules a cursory glance before punching out the units and starting to push some counters around. These days we might call it “active learning,” or learning by doing. Now I think about it, I don’t have a single shelf of shame – my games are spread over several locations and some surfaces – but I must have around two dozen games yet to be punched. It’s a slippery slope.

I could feel myself being drawn down the rabbit hole by a coupe of competing tensions, including the futility of attempting anything in the face of annihilation; not the sort of thing that belongs in an unboxing post (with the possible exception of the one that made Pandora famous). In the end I decided to carve of this line of thinking and give the notion it's own post to run around in.

Where this all started.

I’m not a collector; I get some satisfied joy from owning the games I own, but I bought every one of them with the explicit intention of playing them at some future date. When it comes to games, I’m an examiner. I don’t think the shrink wrap has stayed on a game in my possession for more than twenty-four hours before I broke it open to paw the components and take at least a cursory look at the rules. but more and more often, a game arrives, and I’ll make that initial examination the contents and rulebook, but then it gets relegated to a space on a shelf, in the wardrobe, or the end of my desk, filed next to some nebulous idea of getting to playing it sometime soon...

If I’m honest with myself, this behaviour isn’t new. I began writing A Fast Game in part to hold myself to account in an effort to play more games I already owned. Back then, I don’t think I owned a single game that was unpunched or unstickered, or otherwise not ready to grab off the shelf and set up to play. I’m not sure when that started to change exactly, but I think it must have been about two years ago. Unboxings were more of an occasional feature of the blog when I began, but they are a popular feature, and I get positive feedback on them, so they’ve become more common. These days I tend to hold off punching a game until I’ve at least photographed the components. This has created a backlog, and now I have at least twenty-three games I can think of that I haven’t got to properly cracking yet, with another four in-coming in the next month or so* (while writing this post, I received notice of the imminent arrival of a copy – my copy – of Cuius Regio (GMT Games, 2026)). I’m going to try to lift my game with the unboxings, although I will likely skip the bigger games that are already receiving a lot of attention.

This is all peripheral, though, to what’s been on my mind. Unpunched games are a kind of a marker of something greater. As I mentioned, the place that I bought the copy of Blue vs Gray that I now own handles a lot of deceased estates. While they post a lot of obviously second-hand games, more and more boxed games appearing in their catalogue are not just unpunched, but still in their shrink-wrap. I don’t have a problem with the source of these games – I think most of the previous owners would be pleased if they knew their collection was getting a second life. But it’s a lot. It’s an awful lot of games that were bought (presumably) but never even gazed upon. 

Recent arrivals. More grist for the anxiety mill.

Due to current circumstances, mortality and its implications are lately never far from my thoughts. I’ve been thinking a lot about my own collection, and how many games I still haven’t played (I haven’t crunched the numbers lately, but I think I’m sitting a little above 30% played). This has kept me awake at night. I wondered whether I should just sell any game that remained unpunched for more than a couple of months. I thought about just cancelling thee couple of dozen preorders I have standing, and a few other options as well. But as I jumped through these hoops, I came to realise that I wasn’t addressing the issue, just the evidence. I was busy with the noise, trying to ignore the signal.

I will someday die. I hope that eventuality doesn't occur for a while, and that in the meantime I will get to play some of those games I haven’t got to the table yet. And that I’ll get to spend time with people who I respect and whose company I enjoy, and to drink some good wines, and that I’ll get to read all those books I’ve been hording in anticipation of retirement. In nearly all cases, the end-point is inevitable, but not defined. Every unplayed game, every unread book, every pencilled-in catch-up with friends is an expression of hope in the face of an indeterminate but unavoidable termination-point.

I'm sure I’ve related this story on the blog elsewhere, but it’s a good story so it’s worth repeating. The late writer and semiotician Umberto Eco possessed a library of over 30,000 volumes. Sometimes visitors to his library would ask him, “Umberto, have you read all of these books?” Often he would grace the questioner with an astonished look, and reply, “What would be the point of a library full of books I’ve already read?”

So, hereon in, this is going to be my attitude to my game library; what would be the point of only owning a shelf full of games you’ve already played? Well, okay, it’s not quite the same – of course there are dozens of games that I‘ll happily replay, ust as there are books I will no doubt read again, but I’m also content to own games that I’ll get to eventually, given time. Or not. It’s taken me a while to get here, but this is where I am now. I wouldn't say I'm completely anxiety-free, but I believe I am more sanguine regarding my collection.**

An unplayed game is an opportunity for a new experience, maybe even a shared experience, and one shouldn’t be ashamed of their Shelf of Shame. I don’t think I really like the term Shelf of Opportunity, but whatever works. Everyone’s journey is different. I hope that stack of untended games doesn’t stay unpunched for too long, but I’m not going to lose any more sleep over them. If there’s a game I don’t get to play, I hope somebody will take up the mantle. I’m not trying to be morbid. I just think it would be a shame if others should also get to have some fun.

* Along with Cuius Regio, I'm expecting Coast Watchers: Allied Field Intelligence in the South Pacific, 1942-1943 (GMT Games, 2026), Brandywine: A Time for Heroes (Les 3 Zouaves, 2026) and 1809: Talavera (Tactical Workshop, 2026), all within the next month or so. 

** There is, of course the very real tension between the growing collection and the limits of available storage space, but we'll have t tackle that in a future post.

 

2026 Q2 Report: A little willingness to venture

 

Color guard of the Japanese American 442nd Regimental Combat Team standing
at attention while their citations for bravery are read, near Bruyères, France,
November 12, 1944. (Source: Britannica.com)

Have courage and a little willingness to venture and be defeated.

— Robert Frost

2026 has hit its half-way point, and it’s time for another quarterly report. These missives are really just for my own benefit; they help me to help take a tally of where I am and what I’ve been doing, both gaming- and blog-wise. I’ll make assumptions about what I’ve played or received in the mail, but then when I go over the records, my memory’s out of whack. I mention this to say that I won’t resent anyone not reading this. It might be a little dry and somewhat self-indulgent, but if that’s your thing, read on.

 

Incoming

This is what I was talking about in the intro – Looking back over the last three months, I was sure it had been a relatively quiet quarter for incoming games; I counted five new to me titles, as well as the Update Kit for Mr President (GMT Games, 2023) to bring it in line with the Second Edition (GMT Games, 2026). Then Queen of Spies (Salt & Pepper Games, 2026), which I’d backed during its Gamefound campaign, arrived a couple of days before the end of the month (I thought it wouldn’t be here for a few weeks).

Queen of Spies. Unboxing forthcoming.

In truth, I received nine games, plus the Mr President update. Regular readers would have noted the saga of the January GMT order, but in short, I was able to run out to the Australia/New Zealand distributor (handily located here in Adelaide) and get the part of the order that had arrived. For me this was Ardennes ’44, Fourth Edition (GMT Games, 2026), Purgatorio: Men of Iron Volume VI (GMT Games, 2026), and the Mr President update. In that batch was a copy of the Men of Iron Tri-Pack (GMT Games, 2020) reprint for my brother-in-law, T. This, too, had its issues (an Errata Replacement Kit will be forthcoming).

Purgatorio. You can get a look at what's inside here.

In a moment of feverish excitement, I impulsively ordered Guerre Eclair (Nuts! Publishing, 2026), directly from the publisher within a day or so of its release. The price was very good, although the shipping cost wound back most of that advantage, but in fairness, the package arrived in just a little over a week and really nicely packed. Guerre Éclair is the third in Nuts!’ Combat Rations series. True to the blog-title, I like a fast-playing game, and this promises to live up to that.

Speaking of fast games, the other titles received are all second-hand purchases (though four of the five were unpunched on receipt). These were the GMT Deluxe Edition of one of Pushing Cardboard host Grant Linneberg’s favourite games, Blue vs Gray (GMT Games, 2023), and four zip-loc games Blitzkrieg Unleashed: The Battle of Sedan – May 13-14, 1940 (Hi Flying Dice Games, 2002), Blitzkrieg Met: the Battle ofStonne, May 15-16, 1940 (High Flying Dice Games, 2011), Green Berets: War in the Central Highlands 1964-1965 (One Small Step, 2001), and  Warsaw 1920: Lenin's Failed Conquest of Europe (Revolution Games, 2020). And before you ask, with the best will in the world, I have not as yet managed to get any of these to the table. Their time will come.

Commands and Colors: Napoleonics (Prussian Army expansion), Placenoit scenario.

 

Games played

Last quarter, T and I didn’t catch up for a game at all (I’ve written about why that was here, so I’m not going to dwell on that here). Since Easter, we’ve been playing Commands and Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2010) nearly exclusively twice a week – twenty-five games in all – and all scenarios from the Continental Army expansions (this makes up somewhat for not getting any games in through Q1). We punctuated the run with a couple of palette-cleanser games of Battle Line (GMT Games, 2000) Century: Spice Road (Plan B Games, 2017). I’ve posted a string of AARs on A Fast Game, which must be tedious for readers who aren’t a fan of Napoleonics. Sorry about that – I’m trying to get back to a more diverse spread of subjects.

The Italian Wars, Scourge of Princes style.

What I haven’t been writing about is a new miniatures rules-set we’ve been playing with the Wednesday group, Scourge of Princes (Sam Mustafa Publishing, 2026), which shamefully does not yet have an entry on Boardgamegeek.com. Scourge is subtitled, “The Birth of Modern Warfare: Machiavelli to Cromwell,” which is a broad scope to tackle with a single rules-set, but having played scenarios set during the First Italian War and the English Civil War, the overall rules capture the general nature of battle across the period, while situational rules-tweaks applied to the periods covered (such as freer movement options for cavalry in the later centuries) lend a sense of verisimilitude to the eras while keeping a fairly low rules overhead.

Royalist troops (English Civil War)...

and Cromwell's New Model Army (Scourge of Princes).

There’s one more game we played with the Wednesday group just recently which was a revelation. I own the earliest editions of the three European Conflict of Heroes games, Awakening the Bear: Russia. 1941-1942 (Academy Games, 2008), Storms of Steel! – Kursk 1943 (Academy Games, 2009), and Price of Honour – Poland 1939 (Academy Games, 2010), which I scored as a job-lot. I enjoyed the game, but I haven't played it in an age, and was considering selling it, but just last week, I played a buddy's Awakening the Bear – Operation Barbarossa 1941, Third Edition (Academy Games, 2019). It was a revelation. It's a familiar game, but is just a bit tighter and more thrilling. The beauty of Conflict of Heroes is one can play the older editions with the Third Edition rules (downloadable from the Academy Games website); the only drawback is they require a customised ten-sided die for each side. Bless the Internet - two people had posted .STL files to make your own custom d10 for the game. Now I just have to find someone who can print me a couple. 

Blog matters

I’ve been slipping a little this quarter, posting only twenty-one pieces, about seven a month. Putting it that way, it’s not quite as bad as it first sounded – that’s nearly two a week (honestly, it felt like less). These included four unboxings (I have a couple in various states of completion, but that need better photos of some of the components – even I have some pride in this regard. I also bored everybody with a string of C&C Napoleonics AARs, eight, posts covering nine scenarios. I burnt out a little before getting on to the subsequent boxes, but I might write up some of those. I also posted two Blog Notes (short posts about things that don’t fit into the regular, established categories). I’ll come back to these below, because they are each interesting in their own way and worth some extra consideration.

The rest of the posts were interviews. This was a new thing last quarter. A Fast Game’s first interview, with Yasushi Nakaguro, which I posted in February, in February. In Q2, another four have appeared, almost accidentally; Mr Nakaguro sent me a copy of Bansai 28, which featured the Award Value Proposition for Wargame Publishers article I posted to the blog last year, and the featured game in that issue was Brian Trains Balkan Gamble (BTR Games, 2015; Bonsai Games, 2026). I read Mr Train’s blog regularly and we’ve exchanged comments in the past, so I asked if he would mind forwarding me the English-language rules for Balkan Gambit. When he did, I though Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and asked if he’d be willing to participate in an interview, to which he said yes, but he had some work across the country, so after that.

Bansai 28

Around the same time, Grant Linneberg had been renovating his basement to become his new game room and studio. Mr Linneberg is responsible for the excellent Pushing Cardboard podcast and YouTube channel. I’ve written about wargame collection development in the past, and I thought this was a great opportunity to talk to somebody in the process of unpacking and reorganising his game library. Mr Linneberg agreed, and so his became the second interview for A Fast Game, published at the end of last Quarter. [EDIT: Mr Linneberg's interview was published in late March, and was mentioned as such in the report for Q1 - I had inadvertently flagged it as a Q2 contribution; more evidence of my flagging short-term memory.] The third was Mr Train’s, which appeared in April. Both were really a delight to work with, and I’m very happy with the results. 

I’ve been a fan of Nadir Elfarra’s art for wargames since I first got Dawn’s Early Light (Compass Games, 2020). Mr Elfarra and I have some mutual friends on Facebook, so I messaged him asking if he’d do an interview. I’m keen to highlight the artists that make our favourite games special, and so there will probably be more art-design interviews in the future. I’ll circle back to the third below, but there’s a bit more of a story behind it.

In the last quarter I hit a milestone that I mentioned in a Blog Note, but I kind of buried the lead there, so I’ll reiterate. A Fast Game hit 100,000 views about a week and a half ago (at time of writing). I must be doing something right because it only took me about eight months to add another 50,000 page views from my last milestone.

Being on Blogger, I’m not tapped into the WordPress fraternity that most of the other blogs I follow have access to. I have no members or subscribers, per se, just regulars and tourists. Thank you to everyone who stops by, and I hope when you do you’re all finding something of interest when you do. And thank you to all the who have contributed to that growth; I gave them all a shout-out here, so I won’t repeat myself of embarrass them further, but I am very grateful to all of them.

Now for some statistics, because this wouldn’t be a quarterly report without some random numerical values. I finished the quarter with a total of 101,464 page-views of 276 posts. Considering the interviews, I can no longer say “I’ve written X words,” so instead I’ll say that I have posted to the blog total of 439,058 words. A Fast Game, in its totality, is now somewhat longer than Don Quixote, though I have a way to go before reaching the length of The Count of Monte Cristo.

 

Two scoops

Reader, this quarter saw A Fast Game has take a few small steps toward covering some real news with two stories that hadn’t been covered elsewhere. In their May newsletter, GMT inadvertently listed The Napoleonic Wars, 3rd Edition (GMT Games, ~2027) as tentatively joining the company’s production queue in the fourth quarter of this year. There had been rumours of a reprint or new edition circling around the usual online haunts for six months or more, but nothing official had been announced (the title appeared again in the June newsletter).

I did apologise to the good folks at GMT, after the fact (better to beg
forgiveness than ask permission).

I’m sure other people noticed this, but so far as I’m aware, I’m the only one who wrote about it. I posted a Blog Note about the inadvertent announcement here. Feeling cocky, I posted a link to the note to the Official GMT page on Facebook. This has become the most-read piece I’ve posted to A Fast Game, clocking a little over 700 direct views in the first 48 hours. At time of writing, it’s registered over 1,000 views, plus the 200 or so it would have received from folks wandering in through the front door while it was the latest post.

In the subtitle I mentioned two scoops. The second actually came out of the first. As an afterthought, I asked readers to mention in the comments what other games they would like to see GMT reprint. The second comment mentioned the one game that comes up every time somebody mentions reprints. Downtown: Air War Over Hanoi, 1965-1972 (GMT Games, 2004) is a perennial wish-list candidate with a particularly strong reputation. It won three separate categories in the Charles S. Roberts Awards for 2004. A string of games have leveraged Downtown’s systems to explore new theatres, from Bloody April, 1917: Air War Over Arras, France (GMT Games, 2012) to Red Storm: The Air War Over Central Germany, 1987 (GMT Games, 2019). But in more than twenty years, no reprint. I decided to find out once and for all if it might come to pass.

I follow Downtown designer Lee Brimmicombe-Wood on FB, so I cold-called him on Messenger and asked the question. I admit I was a little surprised when he replied, and his answer prompted another question, which he graciously answered. Rather than pepper Mr Brimmicombe-Wood with further random questions and risk is just blocking me, I asked if he’d be willing to do an email interview. He agreed.

I recommend you go read that if you haven’t. It’s an interesting read (and a salutary lesson in the importance of thoroughly researching the topic). And it definitively answers the question of a Downtown reprint.

 

Extracurricular activities

I’m staying away from playtesting for the foreseeable. I have been thinking about the Cesare Borgia game I’ve been tinkering with, but nothing solid (it’s still pretty much vapourware – don’t look for it anytime soon). I haven't given much thought to the further scenarios for Afrika Army Korps (Conflict Simulations Ltd, 2025); they are on the backburner for now.

 

Next steps

As I said, T and I have been playing “All Napoleonics – all the time.” Commands & Colors: Napoleonics is T’s go-to game, and twice a week, nearly every week since Easter. Apart from the aforementioned reason, I’m using the opportunity to reacquaint myself with the Continental Armies expansions. We’ve played around half a dozen or more scenarios each from the Austrian Army (GMT Games, 2013), and Prussian Army (GMT Games, 2014) expansions, and are currently working through the Russian Army box (GMT Games, 2013). The three national army expansions are now set for reprint as a combined set in a BIG box. There’s not a lot of critical consideration of the Continental army expansions in the wild (beyond casual musings over playthroughs, so the plan is to present something like a review of each box on the blog. I’m part-way through the Austrian Army write-up; I had hoped to get that one at least up before the end of Q2, but I should be able to post all three will be up before the end of Q3.

With a lot else going on, I've been slack at tabling new games this quarter. I'm planning to turn that around in Q3. I'm not going to commit to firm numbers, but I'll write something about each one as it happens. 

I won’t have any further interviews planned at the moment. I do have a line on one that’s been taking longer than I expected, but I won’t mention who it is in case it doesn’t come off as I don’t want it to reflect at all badly on them. I never meant for interviews to become a regular feature, and I’m a little surprised I managed four in the space of three months. But if the opportunity arises, I’ll be happy to follow it up.

I’ve been a little distracted from posting in the last couple of weeks because I’m spending a chunk of free time gathering data for A Fast Game’s next research project. I don’t want to say too much this far out, but I’m hoping to get a proper article posted in the second half of August, though there may be some slippage in that time-line depending on how quickly I can gather the information I need. Like my last research piece, I’ll include the full methodological details and such. And like my last article, this one is drive purely by my own quirky interests, but I think this one will have broader appeal to the regular readership. Unlike the last one, I’m planning to release as much of the raw data as I can in a set of follow-up posts. For more, you’ll just have to wait until it's online.

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Thank you, long-suffering reader, for persevering this far, and generally for showing up and checking out A Fast Game. Honestly, I’d probably still post if I didn’t have a regular readership, but it’s nice to think somebody will see it and maybe even have a chuckle. If you have read this far, either pat yourself on the back or pour yourself a double.

Stripped Down for Parts: Warsaw 1920

 

 

Regular readers will probably know by now that I live in an apartment with a wife and a cat, and very limited space for collection growth. So, it’s understandable that in the last couple of years I’ve become much more open to the idea of games without boxes. I feel like an idiot for not leaning into these kinds of games before; they often have a smaller table presence (though, as we’ll see, not in every case), lower counter densities, and play out in a shorter time than something that comes in a box on the same subject might.

It's in the bag. Um. I'll see myself out....

To wit, let’s look at Warsaw 1920 (Revolution Games, 2022). Originally published in 2020 by BonSai Games, and subsequently re-published for the Chinese market by Banner of war and Kilovolt Designs, Warsaw 1920 was designed by BonSai’s publisher, Yasushi Nakaguro, who also produced the map and counter art. The Polish-Soviet War of 1919-1921 isn’t a particularly well-known conflict. There are a handful of games on the subject (the best known in the English-speaking world is probably Red Star/White Eagle (GDW, 1979), which was reprinted more recently in a Designer Signature Edition (Compass Games, 2019). The war is a crucial piece of European history for one significant reason, as indicated in Warsaw 1920’s sub-title, “Lenin’s Failed Conquest of Europe.” Poland was only ever meant to be the first stage of a greater expansion of Soviet influence. That the Soviet Army was thwarted in this ambition by the Polish Army, then the protectors of a country that had only become an independent nation once more after a declaration by the Central Powers, on whose side the Polish Legions had fought against their hereto oppressors, the Tsarist Russians, in November 1916. The fact that the Communist Red Army was kept at bay by the Poles may have informed Hitler’s reasoning in choosing to invade Russia in ’41.

Cover sheet. Spoiler alert: there's a sneaky PAC on the hiding out back.

Warsaw 1920 consists of a cover sheet that doubles as a Player’s Aid Card, a rulebook, one full-sized sheet of counters, and a full-sized map. It’s not exactly a tiny game, but the counter density is still fairly low, and so is the rules overhead.

The game’s cover sheet offers a portrait of Józef Piłsudski, who lead the Polish Legions in the Great War, and subsequently became the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the newly-established Regency Kingdom of Poland – which would soon become the Second Republic of Poland – leading the country’s military forces through no less than six wars between 1919 and 1922.

The game focuses on the Battle of Warsaw, covering the time leading up to the battle to its historical conclusion (in game terms, from July through August). The Polish forces were on the ropes until Piłsudski planned and executed a tactical retreat to defensible positions west of the Vistula River, and organised a flanking strike that took the Soviet forces off guard. Each turn represents a week, and the hexes are roughly 30km across.

Rulebook. Not as shiny as the cover sheet.

The full-colour rulebook is printed on a nice weight (around 90gsm) matte-finish paper and runs to twelve pages. Of those, the actual rules only take up about eight and a half pages, along with the cover page (a match for the image on the cover sheet – it doesn’t even mention “rulebook” on the front), an image of each side of the counter sheet, and a quick-setup  Order of Battle on the back cover, grouping the unit counters into their respective armies (for the Poles) or Fronts (for the Soviets).

Sample rules-spread. Well illustrated and easy to read.

The rules themselves are very well laid out in a crisp sans-serif font with which aficionados of Revolution games will be familiar. The section headings are highlighted, and the while rules-set is well illustrated. The print is a tad on the small side, but for just nine pages of reading, that can be forgiven. The rules are helpfully illustrated and, if you have any hex-and-counter wargame experience, quite clear and understandable. That’s a good start for any game.

The CRT.  Just one, but most of it is on the map anyway.

There is a Player’s Aid Card printed on the verso of the Cover sheet. It’s printed on a light card but still sturdy enough for the job. The PAC offers a magnified Combat Results Table and Terrain Effects Chart, and a list explaining the abbreviations used in the CRT.

Warsaw 1920 is built on a pleasantly uncomplicated system. That won’t translate to a simple game. I can see myself having to take the Soviets in any teaching games, although it won’t be a simple task for the understrength Poles either.

The map. Nicer than I could capture with my inadequate lighting.

The game’s 22” by 34“ map covers an area reaching from Kraków in the west to Smolensk in the east and represents a goodly portion of 1920s Poland, a slice of Soviet Russia and an intrusion of southern East Prussia and Lithuania in the north-west. The art is simple and elegant – not at all cluttered – and will be nice to play on. It’s designed for two players to play facing the two short ends (the natural east/west positions of the antagonists). To this end, nearly all the charts and tracks for the game, already helpfully printed on the map-sheet, are oriented to the appropriate end. Only the Terrain Effects Chart and the Turn Track are oriented to the southern map-edge, to facilitate easier – or at least equally difficult – reading for both players. Each end has its own Combat Results Table, and the Polish end hosts the Victory Point Track, while the Russian end presents two Supply tracks, a longer one for the larger West Front units and a shorter one for the smaller South-West Front formation.

The counter-sheet. Also much nicer than it appears here.

The counters are nicely presented in a 5/8” die-cut, 176 in all, though not all are printed. The unit counters are clear and readable, and there are only about 90 of the across the two forces. Other counters serve various administrative roles, including Control markers, Supply source and Supply Status markers, and tokens for indicating isolated units.

The combat unit counters are simple and attractive, and easy enough to read. NATO unit type symbology is central to the counter, with the unit size above. The two sides are easily identifiable; red on white for the Poles, white on red for the Soviets. The units only have two factors to deal with Combat Strength and Movement. These are the large numbers below the centre symbol. The values on the left and right indicate the formation and unit number respectively.

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Warsaw 1920 has the makings of a neat little game playable in an evening. It fits the ethos of A Fast Game perfectly, and I think it will be a great and returned-to addition to the collection. As mentioned, this isn’t a mechanically complex game, but it reflects combat from a simpler time, and the simpler approach allows the player to concentrate on what should play out to be a tactically and logistically complex situation.