Line of Fire: A Fast Interview with Pushing Cardboard’s Grant Linneberg

 

Grant Linneberg is the voice behind the Pushing Cardboard podcast. He also maintains the Pushing Cardboard website, YouTube channel, and Discord server, a peaceable kingdom of lively game discussion between wargamers. In his spare time, Mr Linneberg writes about games and all the news from wargame publishers on the Pushing Cardboard blog and longer-form articles, and even manages to squeeze in some games.

I’m always curious about how other people build and manage their game collections. Mr Linneberg has recently undergone a complete refit of his gaming space and has just been unpacking his game library. Between filling shelves and recording podcasts, Mr Linneberg took time out to answer some questions about his collection.

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A Fast Game: I’m sure you’ve mentioned this before on the Pushing Cardboard podcast, but what were your earliest wargaming experiences? What drew you to the hobby?

Grant Linneberg: When I was thirteen, my family took a summer motorhome trip from our home in Alberta through the US to visit family in Iowa and Missouri. Great trip, and I remember it was the first time I went to visit the Little Bighorn battle site (Montana was along the way).

It was 1976, the American Bicentennial, and so everyone in the US was trying to capitalize, including Milton Bradley, who re-published their American Heritage games from the 1960s. While I spent most of my spare cash on model tanks, I came across one of these games, Dogfight (Milton Bradley, 1963), and bought it. I had always been an avid boardgame player, but I'd never seen anything like this. Not much of a wargame by our standards today, but to me it was fantastic. Plastic biplanes! Air combat!

The following summer, we moved to Calgary, a sizeable city, and I stumbled upon my first real wargame in a department store, Avalon Hill's Tobruk (Avalon Hill, 1975). I bought it and loved it and went back for more as soon as I could afford it. Next up, Richthofen's War (Avalon Hill, 1972)! So much better than Dogfight. From that point, I was hooked and continued buying AH games for years. I'd get the odd SPI game, but at the time I didn't appreciate the innovations, I didn't think much of the paper maps in the flat packs, and I was skeptical of Strategy & Tactics being able to ensure quality on a magazine schedule. Of course, I only had a couple friends that were interested in these games with me, so I played a lot of them solo, much as I still do when I'm learning a new game. I had much better luck getting friends to play AH's sports games.

A partially unpacked collection.

 

AFG: Roughly how big is your game collection (number of titles or linear feet)?

GL: I keep track of them in a spreadsheet as well as on BGG, so I can say that I have 695. That includes a few that are destined for the trade/sell/giveaway pile. It also includes a few family games, but not many as my wife is not a gamer (though we play Scrabble probably three times a week).

 

AFG: Do you keep a record of what games you own, like a spreadsheet or a listing on BoardgameGeek.com?

GL: Yes, as mentioned above, both. I put new games into BGG as they arrive, and every so often I export the BGG listing and update my spreadsheet with it. I've found the spreadsheet really useful for both my podcast and livestream. It lets me know what's new since the previous episode. As well, on the spreadsheet I've added a few columns for things I'd like to filter with. ERA, CONFLICT, MAP SCALE, TIME SCALE, UNIT SCALE, etc. I don't have that all input yet, it's one of those things I chip away at when I have time.

 

An artist's impression of Grant's collection in storage.

AFG: You’ve recently had the double-whammy of renovations and, let’s say, an unscheduled indoor water expression incident, and for a good while much of your collection has been tucked away in storage. Now you’re unpacking your library, which is both a herculean task and a real opportunity. Who are you setting up your collection this time around? Alphabetically? In historical order? By publisher? Mode (tactical, operational, etc)? Colour blocking?

GL: Ha! Colour-blocking would be great. Project Runway would be so proud of me. I would love to sort it strictly by date. (Date of the conflict portrayed, not date of publication.) However, space is limited, and I will eventually run out. My wife is supportive of my hobby, but she asked for a limit on how many games I have. Not for financial reasons, but because she's concerned about how many games she'll have to deal with when I die! Perhaps I can pre-arrange someone to deal with them for her, and then space will become unlimited, but until then, the new shelves I've had installed are a hard limit, so part of my arranging and sorting is all about best use of space. The big help is sorting by publisher – for most publishers, the height and width of 99% of their games is standard. So, I can set the shelf to exactly that height for those games. If I sorted by conflict, all the shelf heights would have to be high enough to accommodate the tallest games.

With publishers where I have a lot of games, such as GMT, I sorted them by conflict just to make them easier to find. I could have done them alphabetically, I suppose, but it's interesting to look and see how many games from a certain publisher I have on a specific topic.

The other thing that I did to save space was to stand the boxes on their edges rather than their bottoms. The names of the games in 98% of cases are on the top and bottom of the game, so this way I can put the shelves closer together. The shelves are over 18" deep, so I have no fear of them not fitting. Of course, this is talking about standard wargame style boxes, roughly inspired by the old Avalon Hill bookcase games. I have a few shelves along the bottom for the big monster boxes. A Most Fearful Sacrifice (Flying Pig Games, 2022), the Grand Tactical series, the Old School Tactical series, stuff that comes in those giant boxes. I lay some of them flat, some on their edges - that's a work in progress.

Magazine games are another challenge. I bought some cardboard boxes from ULine that are OK, but they aren't as sturdy as I'd like. A company called Aegis makes trays for magazine games and I have a handful of them. They work great, but they're about $5 USD per tray, so pricey. And they don't fit European size magazines, of which I have quite a few. On the plus side, I wrote to my friends at Cube4Me and described the problem and how the Aegis trays weren't exactly what I was looking for, and they got interested. They asked for the measurements of the trays I'd tried, and asked about what a good tray would look like. This was about a year ago. And just a couple weeks ago, they announced they are testing a prototype. Maybe they will be my saviour.

 

AFG: Do you have a collection philosophy or a set of guiding principles when adding games to your existing collection? And if so, how strictly do you adhere to it.

GL: The only real principle is that I have to feel confident that I want to actually play the game. I'm not really a collector, I don't have multiple copies of games other than my backup copy of Up Front (Avalon Hill, 1983) (my all-time favourite game) and a couple that were part of box lots I bought and I'll sell or trade the extra copy. I adhere to the "I need to want to play the game" idea fairly strictly, but I can see where I have blind spots. For example, Great Campaigns of the American Civil War (GCACW). I haven't really played more than a few turns of it yet, but I've bought five of the games. A couple of them I bought second-hand but in shrink for an amazing price, so that's understandable. But I buy new ones as they come out. That's because they are from MMP [Multi-Man Publishing], and MMP takes forever to reprint things, and in the meantime, the aftermarket prices skyrocket. So, my rationalization is that if I end up liking GCACW, I'll have bought the games at pre-order prices or less. And if I don't like GCACW, I'll sell them for a profit and buy something I like better. On the other hand, I've bought four or five Library of Napoleonic Battles games, and I have less confidence that I'll enjoy them, so that's breaking my rule perhaps.

When I was younger, Advanced Squad Leader (Avalon Hill, 1985) was my main game. In the 80s and 90s, it was possible to own everything for it, you could be a real completist. I went away from it from about 2000 until 2015. When I jumped back in, the number of third-party publishers had exploded. It just wasn't possible to be a completist anymore, at least not on my salary. And that was very freeing for me. I still play a ton of ASL, but I don't buy everything that comes out. I don't even buy every official product. If there's a new historical module where I'm not interested in the setting, I pass it by. And that feeling of not have to be a completist in ASL has carried over into other series.

One other thing to note though, is I'm not the sort of gamer that looks for the perfect game on a topic and then gets rid of the rest. No perfect Gettysburg game or Bulge game for me. I like multiple games on the same battle or campaign because I like seeing what different designers do. And I have developed really wide tastes in terms of eras. Hence, 695 games and counting.

 

AFG: You've mentioned before that your collection storage is limited and you can see a point where you will have to introduce a one in - one out policy (I find myself in the same boat; I may be a little closer to "peak game", but I still have a steady influx of new titles). What would be your criteria for parting with a game beyond just not enjoying it?

GL: I'd try to use the same rationale as for buying a new game - will I still play this or not? I know that there are some sentimental choices where I probably won't play them again, but I can't see parting with them. I can foresee a time when there may be hard choices to be made. As I think about it, I realize my criteria will shift over time. I'm loathe to admit it, but perhaps the time where I'm interested in monster games is passing (or has passed!). I imagine if the choice came down to two games and one took 50 hours to play the whole thing, I might let that one go. I am avoiding this question. I won't really know until I'm faced with the actual decision.

Grant Linneberg (centre) assisting two unidentified gamers at a convention
(picture courtesy of The Player's Aid).

AFG: Is there a particular publisher, designer or topic that makes a new game an inevitable purchase for you?

GL: think there are a few, but most come with caveats.

First, I'm not into fantasy as a setting. Those days have long since sailed for me. Cheers to those who enjoy them, but I'm done with that stuff. I'm almost the same with sci-fi, but I let the occasional one through. I used to have a strict "no solo games" policy, but that is slipping. I'm trying one every once in a while. It's not really that I hate any of these things, I just like them less than two-player history games, and I thought I needed to draw a line somewhere. I'm sure it means missing out on some absolute bangers. Oh, I'm less interested in really recent history wargames. Stuff on the Ukraine War or recent Mid-East conflicts, it takes a lot for me to be interested.

Publishers: I have a soft spot for the little guys. I will try a game, even one on a topic I'm not otherwise much drawn to, when it's from a small operation that's trying to get established. So, DisSimula Edizioni from Italy, Form Square from England, Sound of Drums from Germany, Neva and Bellica 3^rd Generation from Spain. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. It would have to be a solo game about dragons for me to say no. I will buy every Blind Swords game that Revolution puts out. I love Revolution Games and own almost every non-solo game in their catalogue (thankfully a couple were sent to me to review). I pretty much buy all Hollandspiele non-solo history games as well.

Designers: I will buy every non-solo David Thompson game (and even bought a solo one last year) that is history or military themed. Same with John Butterfield, but he's so crafty, he makes his solo games playable as two-player games. I can't recall the last time Mark Herman put out a game that I didn't buy. Kim Kanger has been an auto-buy as he's so inventive, I always want to see what he'll do. When Amabel Holland does a wargame, I'm first in line. Jerry White and Volko Ruhnke, again, if it's not solitaire, I'm in. Both of these guys are always finding new ways to do things. I could make a much longer list here, but so as to avoid leaving someone I really love out, I'll leave a lot out.

Topic: The provincial part of me is always lurking and I can't say no to anything with Canadians in it. Lucky for my wallet, that doesn't amount to much. But it's also why I want to encourage it. I'm sure Australians have the same feeling. Other topics come and go. In the past few years I've gone on binges of France ‘40, The French and Indian War, WWII Italian Campaign, and the War of 1812. So, I think it shifts along with what I'm reading. But a constant is I'm always interested in new game mechanics, or old mechanics used in a new way. Part of what has fascinated me about boardgames going back to even before I saw my first wargame was the desire to figure out how they worked.

 

AFG: Finally, if you had to pack up your collection again for an extended period, what half-dozen-or-so games would you leave out for the duration? Which ones would you be loath to part with for any length of time?

GL: This is a tough one. I sort of had to do that a bit when I put the collection in storage during our renovations, but the games I kept out were some new ones, and older ones that would fit on a small table as I knew I'd be pressed for space. So this will be a whole new list.

Up Front - I can go three years without playing it and then fall in love with it anew the next time I play. I'm never disappointed.

ASL - Well, how much of it can I keep in this scenario? I have enough ASL stuff and scenarios to keep playing something new until I die.

The U.S. Civil War (GMT Gsames, 2015) - I know most people would pick one of Simonitch's ZOC-bond games, but I think this is his masterpiece.

Turning Point: Stalingrad (Avalon Hill, 1989) - I love area-impulse games and there are a few others that I could just as easily pick.

Empire of the Sun (GMT Games, 2005) - I've only played it once, just scratched the surface, but it's clearly something I'll love.

Blue vs Gray (QED Games, 1999) - ACW strategic level in a card game where the cards also make the map. Can't get enough of it.

And I'd have to pick one of my WWI tactical air combat games. But that's like choosing between your children, I can't decide which one.

There are others that I really love, but I think if I played them 100 times, I wouldn't love them as much. The above games, I could just play over and over.

 

 

By the Numbers: GMT P500-order shipping costs to Australia

 

Notes: This is just my own rationale regarding the cost of shipping. This is a subject I’ve touched on before, and I’m sure it will come up again at irregular intervals. It’s timely, because I’m just about to get charged for a P500 order, and there were last-minute changes to the weight estimates that threw out my initial calculations.

In this post, I will be looking exclusively at the Australian situation. I don’t seem to get a lot of readers from New Zealand, but if there’s any interest, I’ll do a follow-up on the New Zealand situation. New Zealand deliveries come through the Australian distributor, VR Distribution, so they cost a little more.

Unless otherwise stated, ALL the currency values represented here are in US dollars (US$ or USD). The Australian dollar has been jumping around too much to make a reliable estimate of translated prices on anything. If you don’t live in Australia, this probably won’t be all that interesting for you, and I won’t be offended if you skip it.

Nine pounds of promise.

Point of origin shipping to Australia/New Zealand Canada, Europe, Japan, and Asia/Pacific Rim was announced in the September 2025 GMT Update* (the Overseas Shipping Matrix can be found here, but you’ll need to scroll down to the bottom of the page). This significantly reduced the shipping costs of P500 games, compared to shipping with UPS from the States. The downside is delivery is by surface – container ship – rather than air, so we’re talking delivery on months, not weeks.

I’ve heard – well, read – people complaining on the internet that shipping is still very high. I get this. While the A$ has strengthened against the US$, but it’s still roughly three-to-two once you work in exchange costs and so on. I get it, but I have to disagree. Still order P500 game because they are generally a little cheaper than ordering from local or overseas sellers (not every time, but often enough to wash out toa net gain) and because, even with the longer shipping times, they still tend to arrive earlier – months earlier – than in Australian stores. There’s one more reason; Some of the games I order are pretty niche (even within the niche of wargaming). There is simply no guarantee that a given title will be picked up by local sellers.

This post was borne out of prepping an order for myself and two friends, charging in a couple of days (late March). I had to juggle my own order and drop two titles because of cash-flow issues (a Sophie’s Choice moment for me), but sometimes you just have to make some hard decisions. As happens sometimes, the weights of nearly all of the games in the order had gone up by one-to-four pounds each, so something had to go.

This got me thinking about the actual shipping rates. When I’m ordering for other people as well, I’ll work out the overall weight, divide the shipping cost by the weight of the overall order, then times that number by the number of pounds that person’s share of the order comes to. This is the most equitable way to work it out. The other way to do it would be to count off your buddy’s pounds first on the chart, because they’re the most expensive ones, and ride on the back of that. But that would be a dick move, and I put some effort into not being a dick.

But this got me thinking about how much bang you get for your shipping buck. I had a feeling that the sweet spot for value for money would be around 16-20 lbs, but I didn’t have the numbers to back that up.

Below is an extract from GMT’s Shipping Matrix, looking at just the Australia-Friendly P500 shipping costs listing the weight-parameters and costs; most cost divisions scale between two and ten pounds. That’s to the left. To the right are the costs per pound (in USD). To the right are the costs per pound at the lowest and highest number of pounds within the bracket.

The numbers don’t lie. To be honest, I’m a little surprised my feels more or less proved right, though, depending on how you measure it, you could argue the “sweet spot” is roughly between 14 and 30 lbs total weight.

This of course doesn’t take into account how much you’re paying for your games, which is, the P500 case, is probably going to be the greater share of the cost. I’m not advocating putting oneself into hock to save a few bucks on shipping, but I hope this will help my fellow Australians put the cost into context.

I have a list of thirty or more things ordered on P500 at any given time, a literal list in a Word doc with the current estimated weights and pre-order prices, and I try to monitor any changes as they come up. Personally, I always cancel an order when it’s just one item. But I nearly missed the weight revisions to the games in the latest order. The Grand Battles expansion for Commands and Colors: Napoleonics (GMT Games, 2026) was revised up from five pounds to nine; that alone jacked up the shipping by around $40.00 (two copies ordered), and all the other games in the order had gone up in weight estimate from one to three pounds. I’m not railing on GMT over this – caveat emptor – but I would like to see these increases signalled somehow beyond simply changing the number on the product page. If I nearly got caught, there must be others, and some of them may be operating on an even slimmer margin than me.

In the end, the order has come out to five boxes, of which three are for me, and one each for two fellow gamers. To be fair, all the items ordered are pretty hefty; the lightest is Baltic Empires (GMT Games, 2026) at six pounds, the C&C Naps expansion being the heaviest, so the total nominal weight of the parcel will be 38lbs, which comes to US$168.00 in shipping.

Let’s look at a single case. One of the Grand Battles sets is for me. At nine pounds, the shipping cost for that comes to $39.78, roughly two thirds of the (P500) price of the box (closer to half of the MSRP). Combined, the game comes to $98.78. In my provincial currency, this translates to roughly A$145.00, and I’m okay with that. $4.42 (about A$6.25) a pound isn’t too bad in the grand scheme. To put it in context, I’m looking to send a paperback overseas. The book is about 300g (a little more than half a pound). It turns out, that book is going to cost around A$25.00 or so – about double the cost of the book – so A$6.25 per pound for overseas shipping feels like a bargain.

Every wargamer, especially us Antipodean wargamers, have to make up their how mind about how much a game is worth, or more accurately, how much we're willing to put up for a game. I’m okay with spending a fair chunk of change on two games** and an expansion that promise a lot of replayability, but we don’t have kids or a mortgage hanging over our heads, and I really don’t have much else going on. As they say, mileage may vary.

 

* Actually, I think the new programme was announced in an earlier update, but the Shipping Charge Matrix went up on the GMT website around the time of the September update.

** Full disclosure: along with the Naps Grand Battles expansion – my brother-in-law T is getting the second copy – I’ve ordered The Three Days of Gettysburg (GMT Games, 2026) and Thunderbolt Deluxe (GMT Games, 2026). I dropped a copy of Baltic Empires because I couldn't justify the outlay, and my buddy B is getting the ordered copy, so I will still get to play it sometime. I'd already 
dropped Army of the Potomac (GMT Games, 2026) because of all the games being released this round, that’s the one I’m most likely to be able to purchase locally.

Stripped Down for Parts: China's War 1937-1941

 

 

At the end of last year, I won a copy of Italy ’43 (GMT Games, 2025) in a prize draw, part of Grant Linneberg’s fourth birthday celebrations of his Pushing Cardboard podcast. The only thing was, I’d just been billed for a copy of Italy (along with a couple of other games) a week earlier. I suggested to Grant that he redraw the prize, but he was reluctant to do that. Instead, he said he’d talk to GMT and see if they would swap it out for a game I didn’t have.

To cut a long story short, a replacement game arrived earlier this week and I couldn’t be happier. China’s War: 1937-1941 (GMT Games, 2025) was a preordered game I had to drop at the last minute due to budget constraints. I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the COIN system, but desgner Brian Train’s second contribution to the series, Colonial Twilight: The French-Algerian War, 1954-62 (GMT Games, 2017) is my favourite in the series. That, along with an abiding interest in the subject, put China’s War on my “opportunistic purchase” list.

In 1937, Japan had already occupied Manchuria for more than five years, setting up a puppet state, Manchukuo. Throughout that time, incidents sporadically flared between the Japanese military and the Chinese National Revolutionary Army. In 1937, such an incident occurred at Wanping, roughly ten miles south-west of Beijing, involving a missing Japanese soldier. The situation escalated quickly, and the event came to be known as the Marco Polo Bridge incident. Some historians point to this event as the true beginning of the Second World War, but most agree it was the starting point of the Second Sino-Japanese War. It’s this conflict that the game covers.

The box cover makes a bold, no-nonsense statement about what to expect. The picture captures so many aspects of the conflict in a single image. It shows members of the Eight Route Army – on paper a part of the National Revolutionary Army (the Nationalist military, commanded by Chiang Kai-shek) – readying for battle with Japanese forces along the Great Wall of China. The unit was a product of the Second United Front, the alliance of convenience between the Kuomintang (the central Nationalist military command) and the Chinese Communist Party, but while nominally part of the NRA, the Eighth Route Army was separate to the Kuomintang, taking orders directly from the CCP. China’s War could not have a more appropriate cover illustration.

Along with a reproduction of the game map, sample cards, and counters, the box back offers a brief note on the historical context and scope of the game, and places is in the broader framework of the COIN series. The playability graphics tell us the game is intended for players 16 and up (this is more legalistic for a COIN game, I think, than the usual 14+), that it can accommodate one to four players (and features a dedicated solitaire system), and that the game should play out inside of four hours. The Complexity rating it five out of nine (I would be inclined to nudge that up a notch) and the solitaire playability is rated at a full nine, due to the bespoke solitaire system included.

The Rulebook. As always, all forthcoming pictures come with the boilerplate apology
 for the shoddy, underlit, David Fincher-esque photography.  

GMT have seemed to standardise their booklet printing in recent times, though that could just be an artifact of the types of games I buy from them. All the GMT games I’ve purchased in the last year or two have had the same (very good) quality matt paper stock across rulebooks and any additional booklets, and China’s War is no exception.

Rulebook - sample spread.

The Rulebook is 24 pages in length. The rules are clear and readable and well laid out, with lots of box-text Design (beige) and Play (blue) Notes. The rules themselves cover just fourteen pages. The remaining pages are given over to the scenarios (five pages, which include a shot column of Optional Rules, a two-page Key Terms Index, a reproduction of the counter sheet, and Cover/Table of Contents page. The back cover has is blank. A blank page always feels like a missed opportunity but in this case, I can’t think of anything you could fit into a single page that would be of benefit to the game.

The Playbook.

The Playbook runs to twenty-eight pages and offers everything you might be looking for that didn’t make it into the Rulebook. This includes an eight-page Game Tutorial (example of play), a one-page Faction Interactions table, another single-page offering a pronunciation Guide for the unfamiliar Chinese location names and significant historical figures (including Wade-Giles and Pinyin transliterations), and eight pages of Event Tips and Background.

Playbook - sample spread (Extended example of play). All three booklets are lavishly
illustrated and full colour throughout.

A three-page historical background essay, three pages of designer notes, a one-page bibliography and list of production credits round out the booklet.

The solitaire rules guide, but you can call him Sun Wukong.

China’s War comes with a mature solitaire system. I haven’t kept up with the development of solitaire models in COIN games (my most recent is All Bridges Burning (GMT Games, 2020)), but this feels like a big step forward. The engine for the AI is a short tarot-sized card deck, which I’ll come back to later in the post.

Sun Wukong - sample spread (example of play).

The solitaire-system guidebook, which carries its title, Sun Wukong Card-Based Non-Player Rules and Reference Booklet like a mortar plate, shares its layout style with the main Rulebook. The booklet is comprised of six pages of rules (including a one-page list of important terms exclusive to Sun Wukong), Four and a half pages covering the Operations, Special Activities, and Events for the solo system, and thirteen-page Non-Player Example of Play, which will, no doubt, be crucial to understanding how the system works.

Faction Operations and Special Activities PACs. Nationalists (NRA)
and Japan, front and back.

And the Warlords and Communist Party of China (CPC), inside the fold.

The game comes with a plethora of player aids. There are four duplicate, bi-fold Player Aid Cards. Each panel offers the Operations and Special Actions options for the four factions – the Nationalists, Warlords, Communist Party of China (CPA), and Japan. These are pretty standard for COIN games and are printed on a nice weight of cardstock.

The two Propaganda (left) and General Assault Procedure PACs.

The game also comes with two duplicate single-panel PACs, covering the General Assault Procedure on one side and the Propaganda Round procedure on the reverse. You may be at odds with all the other factions, but you’ll still need to learn to share. The font is a little small for easy reading, but it has to be to keep the card’s parameters down to a single panel.

Event PAC (external - front page to the right).

Event PAC (internal).

A single Event Actions bi-fold PAC is also included in the game. This PAC covers the forty-eight separate events that appear in the Event deck and includes a procedural for dealing with Non-Player Factions during Propaganda rounds on the back.

Sun Wukong PAC (external).

Sun Wukong PAC (internal).

Finally, there is a single Sun Wukong Non-Player Aid Sheet. This PAC brings together the tables needed to run one or more NP factions through the game, including the Effective events for each faction, Piece Selection, Space Selection and Move priorities and Capability and Momentum instructions. It also features a listing of the Sun Wukong Golden Rules, so you don’t have to constantly refer back to the Rules and Reference Booklet.

The mounted game map. There's still a little lift in the seems. I usually put a couple of
other games on top for thirty minutes or so to get the mounted boards flat before
shooting, but this one was pretty good out of the box.

The game map is 22” by 34”, mounted and covers the roughly the eastern-most part of China from the coast to Yunnan and Gansu provinces. The board looks great, and references many classic COIN boards, like Andean Abyss (GMT Games, 2012) and Cuba Libre (GMT Games, 2013). The artist Matthew Wallhead has been responsible for cover-art and PAC and card artwork for several GMT games in recent years, including the most recent additions to the Levy and Campaign series, Inferno (GMT Games, 2023), Plantagenet (GMT Games, 2023), and Seljuk (GMT Games, 2025), and he was the cartographer for the sixth edition of the Pendragon RPG (Chaosium, 2024). This is his first game map for GMT. I’m keen to see what comes next from Mr Wallhead.

Twenty-two provinces are featured, varying from plains to rough terrain, and Lines of Communication are railroads and rivers. The play area is defined to the north (left) of the map is Manchukuo (Japanese-occupied Manchuria), which cannot be entered by any Chinese forces, and to the south by French-controlled Indochina, which is off-limits to all factions. As you might expect from a COIN game, the map-board also includes a Sequence of Play matrix for faction order, holding boxes for factions’ available units, Overflow boxes for crowded provinces, and a Victory Point track running along two sides of the board.

The counter sheet. There's a lot of redundancy built in, with twenty-seven of the
counters marked as "Spares," but that's better than a whole lot of unused board.

COIN games use a mixture of wooden pieces and cardboard counters in game play. The wooden cubes, discs and cylinders represent the forces and resources available to each faction, while the counters the status of popular opinion in the provinces, civil unrest and terror, and NRA/Japanese control over provinces, and of course each faction’s Victory Points and Patronage level on the VP Track.

The counters for COIN games are traditionally a mix of pre-rounded larger counters, other shaped counters (mostly circles, which I guess are technically also pre-rounded) and die-cut, half-inch punch squares that inevitably retain their corner tufts. The counters for China’s war are no exception. The counter sheet is a thick brown-core cardstock. The registration is good and the counters pop easily, even the die-cut squares.

Guerrillas and Action markers (left), Forces and Bases (right), and the
factional dice (top). I like the muted colour pallet of the pieces.

The wooden tokens included in China’s War are many and varied. The Japanese faction has blocks of two colours representing Troops and Police. The Nationalist faction has blocks representing troops, disks that represent bases (headquarters, supply dumps, etc.), and cylinders representing Guerrilla forces (guerrilla units are stencilled at one end; stencil end down means the unit is inactive, stencil up means it has been activated, which puts it in danger of being discovered). The Warlords also have Troops and Base markers. The Communists have no troops, only bases and Guerrillas.

In keeping with established COIN conventions, eight Pawn pieces are also included, four Black and four white. These can be used as mnemonic markers to remind the active player of Operations taking place in multiple locations on the board. Each faction also gets their own colour-matched die. This are a little small for my preference but given how much stuff is already packed into the box, I can appreciate why these were chosen. To be fair, they are quite good colour matches for the factions.

Sun Wukong AI cards (left), and the Event card deck. Sun Wukong is a reference
 to the Monkey King from the Chinese epic, Journey to the West.

China’s war comes with two decks of cards; the 52-card Event deck will be familiar to those who have played earlier COIN-series games, with 48 Event cards and four Propaganda cards. I’m not going to get into the functions of the cards here; I’ll go into that in greater detail when I write up an AAR. The second, shorter deck of 24 Tarot-sized cards is the engine for the Sun Wukong non-player system.

Both sets of cards look and feel nice. They are printed on the same weight of cardstock and are comparable to good commercial playing cards in terms of quality. Graphically, the Event cards are gorgeous. I’m always astounded at how many usable and thematically appropriate photographs are discovered for the modern-era COIN game decks. They are clearly presented and shouldn’t prove difficult at the table (unless you have a player who insists on picking up each freshly-turned card and examining it for three or for minutes before placing it back on top of the deck for the other players to view).

The Sun Wukong cards are a deck of twenty-four, divided into four sets of six, one set for each faction. These are printed on both sides, each set providing twelve possible AI response selections to a given game state on that faction’s turn.

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I’ve talked elsewhere on A Fast Game about coming up to a point where, due to the storage limits of our apartment, I have to start making some choices about collection development and shedding some of my games, but I’m beginning to realise now that the time to make those choices is already here. I’ve been pulling back from multi-player games in the last twelve months or so, concentrating mostly on acquiring and keeping solitaire (or solo-able) and two-player games. While COIN games have made great leaps in solitaire playability, they really are best experienced with four players. Luckily, I still have a weekly gaming group that is happy to occasionally indulge in multi-player wargaming.

Like I said at the start, China’s War was practically an auto-buy for me (budget permitting) for the subject and for the design pedigree. I’m really grateful to Grant Linneberg at Pushing Cardboard for the giveaway prize (and if you’re not already listening to Grant’s podcasts, do yourself a favour and check them out) the good folks at GMT for swapping out a game I’d already bought (directly from them) for one I had really wanted.

 

 

Stripped down for parts: Ordered to Die: the Battles for ANZAC Cove

 

 

The Commonwealth assault on Gallipoli in April 1915 is a key event in the Australian (and presumably New Zealander) collective psyche. Boys and men from both countries had gone to war before to further British causes, but the Dardanelles campaign was the first time these “Colonials” fought under their own flags.

It was also the brainchild of Fleet Admiral Winston Churchill, who always saw beyond the current situation to future possibilities. Removing the Ottoman Empire from the war would alleviate the situation on the Eastern Front in the short term but would allow Britain a greater hand in the Middle East in the decades after the war.

The campaign began inauspiciously and ended without accomplishing its objectives. The overall failure of the operation overshadowed the brilliantly executing withdrawal from the theatre under new leadership in December of 1915. It also birthed the old saw that Churchill was ever willing to fight to the last Australian, Indian, Canadian and South African.

Gallipoli: Ordered to Die (The Dietz Foundation, 2025) is a game simulating the battles fought over the first half of the eight-month operation. It was designed by fellow Australian Clint Warren-Davey, probably best known for One Hour World War II (Worthington Publishing, 2024) and more recently Werwolf: Insurgency in Occupied Germany, 1945-1948 (Legion Wargames, 2025), and the upcoming Reformation: Fire and Faith (Neva Games, ~2027).

The Dietz Foundation ran a Kickstart campaign for Gallipoli concluding in July last year, and barely seven months later, it arrives. I think the game and the publisher are a good fit. This is only my second Dietz Foundation game, but it has all the hallmarks, including under-promising and over-delivering through the funding campaign (it was only announced after the campaign that the paper game-map would be replaced by a mounted map). 

The case is of standard dimensions, 1” deep and quite sturdy. The box art is simple and effective. I haven’t been able to ascertain if the illustration of Commonwealth soldiers charging into danger is an original piece by Jose Ramon Faura, who was also responsible for the map and counter art. Faura has form for the campaign, having also handled the art for Kieran Oakley and Russell Lowke’s Assault on Gallipoli (Gecko Games, 2022; Hexasim, 2024).

The Box-back.

The box back features a map extract and a selection of counters, shown to roughly actual size. It also offers a brief description of the scope of the game, and the number and length of scenarios – three, and all playable in roughly an hour. No mention is made of solitaire suitability, but it includes both an age recommendation (thirteen and up) and a warning (“Not suitable for children under three years”). Good to know.

The Rulebook. As always, apologies for the insufficient light for the photographs,
Take as a given that all the components look at least 70% better in real life
than they do here.

The Rulebook comes in at sixteen pages and is presented on a mid-weight, mid-gloss paper. The cover age offers a table of contents and a discrete listing of credits, and is decorated with the badges of the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) and the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF), who made up the bulk of the Commonwealth troops at Gallipoli. The actual rules portion of the book covers barely twelve pages, including a couple of Optional Rules at the end. The remainder is given to Designer’s and Developer’s notes, and a brief combined bibliography, recommending Peter Weir’s film, Gallipoli, as well as online resources, podcasts, and of course, books covering the subject at length.

Rulebook - sample spread.

The layout of the rules is exemplary in offering an on-ramp to learning the game. Reminiscent of Lee Brimmicombe-Wood’s Wing Leader (GMT Games, 2015) rules, each page consists of two columns, a main column of rules text, and a narrower supplementary column offering space for notes, examples, and the sort of advice that doesn’t typically make it into a rules-set. Mr Warren-Daley is a high school history teacher, and G:BtD was designed with a mind to using it as a teaching tool to help students better understand the gruelling situation on the Turkish front. That said, there should be enough of a challenge here to satisfy the most grizzled grognard.

The map-board.

The board is 17” by 11”, mounted and rendered in sandy yellows and browns. Mr Faura has done a laudable job presenting the difficult terrain that faced the invading forces across the theatre of operations. Movement is point-to-point, with lines of advance marked with arrows, and the locations, called Spaces in the game, reflect of the names given to landscape features and tactical vantage points by the soldiers on the ground.

The Spaces are allotted numerical values, and it is by these that victory is determined. Each scenario has a point total the Commonwealth player must achieve to claim the win. A shortfall hands victory to the Turks. The board also features a Turn Track sporting boxes large enough to accommodate stacks of reinforcements due later in the scenario.

Counter sheet 1.

Counter sheet 2.

Which segues nicely to the counters. G:BtD comes with two counter sheets. The counters are 5/8”, pre-rounded, and punch pretty cleanly (just a trace of a centre-nub on the top edge). The counter count comes to 129 in all, of which just 87 are unit counters. The unit counters are illustrated by a soldier dressed in that unit’s uniform. The rules spell out that it’s not crucial to have the correct units placed in each space during set-up, so long as the unit values match the requirements for that position. Nonetheless, each Allied unit is identified by its parent brigade or division, each Ottoman unit by its regimental identification.

Other counters include Control markers to indicate possession of a Space, and Leadership chits, which may each be used once per game (some may be used once per turn – the single-use chits are identified with a red boarder) to bestow a small advantage to that player's troops in an engagement.

The Scenario Cards...

 The game offers three scenarios, The Landing (recommended as the starting point for anyone new to the game), The Ottoman Counter-Attack, and The August Offensive. Details for each scenario are printed on separate cards, including set-up guide for each on a reduced map.

...Which double as PACs.

On the reverse of each scenario card is a Quick Reference Sheet, essentially a player’s aid covering The Turn and Battle sequences, how to conduct actions, and the use of Leadership Chits in the game. It’s a nice touch, printing this on the back of the three scenario card, and economical – no matter which situation you are playing, there are always two PACs available.

The Historical essay booklet.

In addition to the game components, an essay booklet, The first half is a short essay prepared by Mr Warren-Harvey, briefly discussing the events of the initial landing; how the operation came to be, the factors leading to the soldiers being placed on the wrong beach and without the support of the combined French/British landing at Cape Helles, which was supposed to see Entente forces marching up the peninsula in 48 hours, but in truth saw the Allies thrown back into the sea in even less time, the travails of the ANZACs on shore and unsupported for those first few days, and how the 25^th of April evolved into a national Day of Remembrance.

The second half of the booklet is devoted to the remembrance of individuals who fought at Gallipoli. Some of those remembered survived Gallipoli to fight in France and Belgium. Others never left, like Pvt James Martin, who died of typhoid in October of 1915, at age fourteen, the youngest Australian service fatality of the Great War.

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You may have noticed I didn’t mention dice. That’s because the game is semi-deterministic, Battles are resolved by simply comparing the totals of force brought to the fight and determining a winner. Although it’s not quite that simple. Every time you engage in an attack, each of your units will take a step loss (this is done after the Attacking force strength is established). If the Defender’s total is higher than the Attackers (after any additional values such as Leadership chits or defending in elevated terrain have been added), then the Attacker retreats to their last location Space to lick their wounds. If the Defender falls short, he takes a single step loss to one unit and retreats, or they can soak the retreat by taking another step-loss. Combat is brutal and will always favour the defender. This might be the most realistic mechanism for WWI combat at this scale that I’ve come across; simple, bloody, and boiling down to deterministic arithmetic.