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. The third was Mr Train’s. 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 fourth 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.

 

Blog note: A long absence and another milestone

 

 

 

It’s been a week – strike that; it’s been ten days since I last posted. I try to get something up at least weekly (I aim for six or seven posts a month – anything extra is gravy), and I hate letting A Fast Game fall into disrepair through inattention, but sometimes life will get in the way. This isn’t the longest I’ve gone without posting – I think the record is fifteen days without a post. It’s still not a good look. I feel like I have a responsibility to my handful of regular readers to have something fresh when they drop by, but at the same time, I don’t want to post something half-baked so as to not waste the reader’s time and burn through any good will I’ve built up.

The gap isn’t because I don’t have anything to say. I have two AARs in varying states I’m working on, one unboxing (and a couple of others waiting in the wings), and a multi-part examination of a beloved game. I’m also doing the background for my annual-ish statistical review of the collection, and a Quarterly Report due at the end of the month – now just a week away (yikes!). But I am also in the midst of some basic home maintenance stuff that’s been eating into my writing time, so there’s that. More posts will be forthcoming and sooner rather than later.

We've been playing a lot of Continental Commands & Colors: Napoleonics lately at
T's place, and Claude has been my Aide de Camp for most of the battles (he's pretty
good at not knocking over blocks, but soaks up a lot of attention).

So, this note is part-apology (see above) and a thank-you to the readers of A Fast Game. I guess I could be accused of burying the lead, but in the early hours of the morning (Adelaide-time), the page-view count for A Fast Game tipped over into six digits. At time of writing, the view-count for the blog sits at 100,264(?!). It was about this time in October that A Fast Game hit 50,000 views. It took two years and nine months to reach that figure, and just eight months to double that figure. I’m shocked. Pleasantly shocked, but it still doesn’t feel quite real. I work hard at every post that appears here, and I’m confident I’ve gotten better at conveying what I’m trying to say than I did at the beginning – and in less words, though it may not seem like it with some posts – but to me it doesn’t seem the blog warrants this kind of audience.

Here is where I need to point out that I couldn’t have reached such lofty heights without the help and support of a bunch of people pointing new readers to A Fast Game; Rachel and the good folks at GMT Games, Brant, who’s responsible for the weekly Tuesday Newsday post for the Armchair Dragoons, Yasushi Nakaguro at Bonsai Games, Grant at Pushing Cardboard, Jerry at Cardboard Commander, Brian Train for the shoutouts whenever I write about a Brian Train game, and everyone else who have given their time and effort for interviews or surveys. 

And, of course, everyone that checks in and reads the blog. Y’all make it worth the effort. Thank you.

 

 

Stripped Down for Parts: Purgatorio: Battles of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, 1176-1325

  

 

I’ve come late to Purgatorio: Battles of the Guelfs and Ghibellines, 1076-1325 (GMT Games, 2026), the sixth game in the Men of Iron series and designer Ralph Shelton’s second contribution. There is a long story involving missing order components that meant my delivery – along with a handful of other folks’ P500 orders – had been put on ice until the missing bits arrived. Lucky for me, I live in the same city that the distribution centre is based, and so I was able to negotiate getting the rest of the order released while the missing part will be sent along with whichever order they come in with (I’ve got two more orders on the way, so hopefully they’ll show up with one of those).

I also came late to the Men of Iron system. I stumbled across a copy of Arquebus: the Battles for Northern Italy 1495-1544 (GMT Games, 2017) when it had been out of print for a couple of years (a reprint is available for pre-order on GMT's P500 page), and caught up when the Men of Iron Tri-Pack (GMT Games, 2020) was first released.

This will be a brief look at Purgatorio; to be honest, there isn’t that much to the game. That’s not a criticism – the relative simplicity of the Men of Iron system is one of the game’s strengths. I was able to introduce my brother-in-law to the game in a single session of play, and he beat me in our second match.

 

The cover art is striking. Daringly dark, it captures the intimacy of near-fraternal violence of the age. The illustration was commissioned from Kurt Miller, a digital artist who GMT has been leaning on for some of their most striking covers of late, including Pendragon: the Fall of Roman Britain (GMT Games, 2017), A Time for Trumpets (GMT Games, 2020), Norman Conquests: MoIVol. V (GMT Games, 2023), and even rail games like 1846: Race for the Midwest (GMT Games, 2016) and 1848: Australia (GMT Games, 2021). Mr Millers work is dynamic and thematically rich, and – to my mind – really sets the tone of the game.

My only criticism of the box-front would be that the red title gets a little lost in the twilight aspect of the cover illustration, but it something like that would put a punter off buying it, they probably wouldn’t be in the market for this kind of game in the first place. The edge faces all feature a bold white “Purgatorio” against a vermillion background, which is how most people would likely come to the game initially, slipped into a gap in a bookshelf. The title alone might be enough to elicit some initial interest.

Box back.

The box back offers a brief introduction to the Men of Iron system, how it plays and its two-handed solitaire suitability, and a paragraph outlining the historical background against which the battles featured in the game are set, including the origins of the terms Guelf and Ghibelline, referring to supporters of the Pope or the Holy Roman Empire respectively. No map images are featured, but a selection of unit counters and markers  are presented at their regular 5/8” size, along with a list of the game’s contents, the personnel responsible for its coming being brought to market, and some details about the scale of the game (unit sizes, map and time scales). We also learn Purgatorio is recommended for two players, aged 14 and up, that the difficulty rating is suggested to be Four out of Nine, and solitaire suitability Seven out Nine.

The MoI System Rules-set.

The Men of Iron Series Rules have benefitted from years of in-the-field playtesting over several versions of the game. As mentioned, Purgatorio is the sixth game using the system first featured in Men of Iron: Warfare in the Middle Ages (GMT Games, 2005). As mentioned earlier, the system is relatively simple and easy to assimilate, but it’s proven robust enough to handle (with only minor modifications on a case by case basis) to handle tactical warfare from the late 1000s to the late 1400s – four centuries of radical transformation in war-making.

The rules are clearly presented, but being a series rules-set, there are large swarths
of material that are irrelevant to the game to hand (still interesting reading, though).

The rulebook itself is printed on the familiar medium weight matt paper, and is well laid out and easy to read and navigate. Being a series rulebook, some of the material presented is of no consequence to Purgatorio. Of the twenty-five pages of standard rules, the content necessary to this game comes to about sixteen pages (and this count includes the space given to the components and unit descriptions). Another two pages present Optional Rules, and the twenty-eight page book is rounded out with a Cover page, Index and Credits (also a page), and an Extended Sequence of Play on the back cover.

The Battle Book, covering the scenarios and other details for this set.

The Battle Book is the heart of the game. This also comes to twenty-eight pages. These are comprised of a cover page and preface at the beginning, and at the back, a two-page Example of Play and another Extended Sequence of Play more specifically tuned to Purgatorio. The middle twenty-three pages cover the game’s seven scenarios.

Sample scenario (Battle of Cortenuova). Each scenario starts with a historical brief and
an estimated game length, then gets into the meat of the game, with set-up instructions
for each of the two armies, and a map placement map to hurry things along.

After the army set-up instructions come any special rules or scenario instructions (e.g., in
this scenario, the Guelfs may adopt a shield wall defence, the Ghibellines may not),
a note on game balance, and the Flight Levels for the two sides,

Each scenario is presented over three to four pages. Each has a historical introduction, a rough playing time and who sets up first. The two armies are listed by deployment. These are colour-coded by their Leader (another thing I really appreciate about the Men of Iron system), Then Who Goes First and any quirky scenario specific rules or chrome in play for the scenario, and lastly The Flight Levels for each army (in case you’re new to the Men of Iron system, I’ll swing back to the significance of the Flight Levels a bit later – bear with me).

In among all of this is a map, presented on a full age, indicating where each (colour-coded Battle (the term used throughout the age to describe all the troops under a particular leader) begin the action on the field. A lot of the time, this will be a rigid placement (hex numbers are offered in the Army deployment notes), but sometimes there will be the chance for free placement within certain confines, as illustrated on the set-up map.

Everything in the scenarios is really clearly presented and easy to comprehend and apply to the play map. The historical background pieces are very helpful for setting the context of the situation your about to play out. One could argue that successive designers have had two decades to get it right, except the presentation hasn’t changed much at all since the original set was released. All in all, it’s a lovely bit of information transfer design in a hobby not always known for effective user interfacing.

The three map sheets. All 22" by 34" in size, two are back printed to offer the three
full-sized battle maps and four 22" by 17" maps (two to a sheet).

Purgatorio comes with three standard sized map-sheets, two of them double-sided. These present the seven scenario battlefields that we’ve been introduced to in miniature in the Battle Book. Three of the battles – Montaperti, Benevento, and Zappolino – are played out on full sized 22” by 34” maps (unsurprisingly, these tend to play out over three hours and up), while the remaining four scenarios are played on half-sized maps. In these cases, two maps are presented on each side of one of the back-printed maps.

I took over a dozen photos of a couple of the maps and this was the best shot out of
the lot. I'm not going to embarrass myself by posting any of the others, but this, the
map for the Battle of Tagliacozzo, is a good representation of what you can
expect to find with all of the scenarios.

The maps are printed on heavy, low-gloss paper, and lean more into functionality than prettiness, but this is as much a product of the doctrines of warfare as any thoughts of production practicality. Battles throughout the middle-ages tended to be fought on clear, open spaces to facilitate manoeuvre and wide rank formations. My only criticism is that the opportunity was there to put the smaller maps on the obvers of the centre fold on two separate maps instead of printing them all on a single sheet. This would have allowed the map to be presented folded in half for all four smaller scenarios without having to back-fold the sheets centre fold (I complained about this in the Norman Conquests unboxing as well). That said, I’m looking forward to setting up and pushing some counters around on these maps.

Counter sheet 1: the Ghibelline battles and leaders.

Counter sheet 2: the Guelf battles and leaders.

Counter sheet 3:markers various and divers.

 The counters are presented on three card sheets, two full-sized sheets and one quarter sized. These are printed on a good weight of brown-core cardstock that seems to be the standard these days for GMT games, and are die-cut, but can be removed quite cleanly. The counters themselves are 5/8” (which is a nice upgrade from the half-inch counters offered in the Tri-Pack). The units look very nice and should prove to be quite readable on the table.

Player Aid Card (PAC), Back panel (left) and Front panel. The Front panel features the
Weapons Matrix, one of my favourite features of the MoI system.

The inside spread of the PAC offers a set of terrain modifier tables for each of the
included scenarios. You shouldn't need to refer to this too often during play, so you
can treat your 11" by 17" PAC like an 11" by 8,5" card for most of the game.   .

The game includes two bi-fold Player Aid Cards (PACs) which present pretty much everything you will need to refer to during a game, arranged sensibly into combat-related charts and tables on the front and back of the PAC, and a list of short Terrain Effects Charts for each scenario map inside the fold. A key feature of the system is the ability of some units to perform Shock or Charge attacks. The front of the PAC features a Shock/Charge Matrix, an illustrated table that defines which units are capable of the tactic in this particular game, cross-referencing the modifier applicable to each kind of potential target unit. Combat is relatively simple but takes a few steps. A lot can happen in in melee including the loss of a leader. The tables for Defenders attempting a retreat before a Shock attack ae also located here. Combat results tables covering close combat and missile attacks (in the case of Purgatorio, exclusively archers and crossbowmen) are located on the reverse side of the folded card, along with tables covering Charge Reluctance, Counter-Charge vs. Charge, and Counter-Charge vs. Shock/Fire, as well as a handy list of modifiers that may influence a roll for Charge or Shock attacks.

The Flight Track (top) with the starting points for both sides, each battle, prefilled for
your convenience, and the General Track.

Medieval battles were usually attritional. The Men of Iron system reflects this through each side accruing Flight Points for units and leaders lost in battle. As mentioned, each scenario lists a number of Flight Points for each side. These threshold numbers are marked on the Flight Track (see above) for each side and each scenario. During the course of each round the position of each player’s Flight Marker is adjusted to reflect the accrual of Flight Points. At the end of each Free Activation (the first activation for the opposing player when the current player has lost the initiative), both players roll a die and add the result to their current Flight level. If one (or both) player’s resulting total exceeds their Flight threshold, the game is over with a loss to that player. If both players exceed their threshold in the same check, the battle is considered a draw (in this instance, for us at least, a rematch of the same scenario will be scheduled for the next available date).

The card also includes a General Track. this is used for the special Timed Battle rule, that sets a limit on how long the attacking side can galivant around looking for openings or advantages. Each battle has a declared Time Limit, The Defending player has the option to pass on their free activation, and that will shift the Time marker down one space. Then the Time marker reaches Zero, the attacking side immediately loses the game. This is a special rule, not an optional rule, but the way the introduction to the rule is phrased, it seems like it was initially intended as an optional rule. But don’t quote me on this – I’m probably wrong.

Box, dice and baggies (in situ).

It should come as no surprise that Purgatorio comes with ten-sided dice – one purple and one yellow for the two factions) and baggies. Actually, a big roll of baggies (I didn’t count them, but probably enough to separate out all the individual Battles). A cardstock insert is also included to create a trough for the dice and baggies, and to keep everything nice and flat during shipping.

I saw on one of the Facebook groups a fellow mentioning how he inverted the inserts of many of his games to better accommodate counters and other components. This was a lightbulb moment for me, and since then I’ve done this to quite a few games.

"Oh, strange new world; oh, inverted insert."

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The animosity between the Papacy and the Holy Roman Empire that stretched from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the fourteenth is a slice of history of which I am particularly ignorant, so I‘m quite looking forward to getting some of these battles to the table. Realistically though, I don’t think this is likely in the short term, at least across the table from another opponent.

I’m on a bit of a project/mission at the moment with the various Army expansions for Commands and Colors: Napoleonics, so I may not get to Purgatorio very soon. I may be able to do an AAR or two now T has a copy of the Men of Iron Tri-Pack that came in the same delivery as this one (although we’ll have to wait for the Patch Kit* before we can play all of the scenarios from that set. This will arrive with Coast Watchers (GMT Games, 2026) which, by all reports should be charging soon and shipping by the end of June.

When I do get to Purgatorio, be assured I will report back on the experience. There will be AARs with the same insightful critique and poor-quality, under-lit phone-camera photos you have come to expect from A Fast Game.

 

* When the files for the Second Printing of the MoI Tri-Pack were sent to the printer, some older files for maps and scenario booklets were forwarded in error. To their credit, GMT notified customers through their following newsletter, but had already put the production of a replacement component package (Patch Kit) in motion.