Starkweather posts new MMP prepubs

Adam Starkweather posted the upcoming batch of prepub P500s that should be on the list soon. He also discussed the schedule for the current P500s.

An IGS update...

As for production, "A Most Dangerous Time" is out next. Hopefully by the end of the year but it will be close. After that, "A Victory Denied" is coming up hard on AMDT's heels and expect that shortly after. "Where Eagles Dare" shortly after that. Depending on what else hits prepub, I would like to get the rest of the IGS line currently on prepub out by the end of 2009 as well. "Tide at Sunrise" is complete and ready to go. "War of the Suns" is close to done but want it a little closer to its prepub target to get Mark Mahaffey to finish up the art. As for "No Peace without Spain" and "Angola", it looks like the prepub response will delay these until 2010. But if they pick up, would love to have those in your hand by the end of next year as well.

Going up on prepub the next round (around the end of the year) will be the following:


"Pacific Campaign" - Mark Herman's remake of his classic "Pacific War". Using a lot of the concepts from the older Victory Games' game and adding in a few decades of play experience of the original game, as well as adding in some of the aspects of his newer game "Empire of the Sun", Mark is hoping to give you the ultimate in Pacific Theatre games.

"Crusade and Revolution" - David Gómez Relloso's Card Driven Game on the Spanish Civil War. A PoG derivative game on this suddenly popular topic, David's game is a sophisticated and comprehensive look at this conflict. I was pretty impressed by the amount of work and research that has gone into this game.

"The Proud Tower" - Tetsuya Nakamura's strategic game on World War One. Area move game with card assist with a 4-6 hour play time. Classic Nakamura design with simple rules but not simplistic play. BTW, should this prove popular, I am looking into doing an expansion (but fully stand alone) game with this covering the rest of the world (one mapper covering the entire world kind of thing) during WWI - Africa, subs and all the other naval aspects and so forth.

"Last Stand at Moscow" - Masahiro Yamazaki's tour de force on Operation Typhoon that covers October through January at the gates of Moscow. Relatively fast and playable.

"Ukraine 1944" - MMP goes to blocks with this Japanese Command game. Tense and quick, this game is Nick Richardson's favorite game. Covers the Korsun Pocket battles in 1944.

Also coming from me (although not technically IGS) next year will be:

"D-Day: The Commonwealth Beaches". The Grand Tactical Series goes to the D-Day battles in the first of three mating games on D-Day. Covers the first week of this battle at company level.

"Warriors of America" - a Warriors of God system game on the American War of Independence and the French and Indian Wars.

"The Doomsday Project" - a World War Three (Nato vs Warsaw Pact) game set around 1985 at divisional/Brigade/Regimental scale with three maps.

Also hoping to have Dave Freidrich's first game in his GTS Kursk series and maybe Nick Richardson's next game in his GTS in the Med series - I think he is leaning towards doing Crete.

What do you guys think? What will you be ordering? Right now the only thing I have ordered from MMP is Angola, which is going sloooow and I'm not sure will ever see the light of day... Adam says 2010 for that but I'll believe it when I see it. In terms of the the new additions he mentions, Doomsday really interests me so I'd imagine I'll preorder that. The rest...? I'm exhausted on traditional WWII stuff and I would never order one of the multitude of boring East Front things. But those are the things that pay the bills so I understand, I've watched those games *jump* up the P500 over the last couple years on GMT and MMP P500 lists.

Finally, here's a subsequent post by him about an intriguing game I would definitely preorder:

Michael, me too! I hope it hits quickly. And I haven't forsaken the Sci-Fi project that you were excited about last year (Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire)...just a huge amount of work there but it gets a little attention from time to time. I keep hoping to have the time to get this one off the ground (and into orbit )...hopefully, next year...with AVL goes to Hungary and Storm over the Philippines and King Phillip's War and Tetsuya's fun North Africa game and....whew...

"Pacific Campaign" - Mark Herman's remake of his classic "Pacific War". Using a lot of the concepts from the older Victory Games' game and adding in a few decades of play experience of the original game, as well as adding in some of the aspects of his newer game "Empire of the Sun", Mark is hoping to give you the ultimate in Pacific Theater games.

This sounds interesting, although I'm pretty sure the price will be hefty on this one.

I hope Doomsday Project is not outlandishly huge (and therefore expensive) as I quite fancy that.

Ukraine 44 - almost definitely, a quick playing block game would appeal - doesn't sound like "boring East Front" to me from that description

The stuff mentioned at the bottom of the post most interests me though, particularly the sci fi game and maybe the North Africa game depending on what form it takes. We definitely need a good sci-fi war game, those things don't exist in the modern world.

I'm already in for A Most Dangerous Time, Where Eagles Dare, and A Victory Denied.

Of this list, I'm certainly going to preorder both "Crusade and Revolution" and "Warriors of America"; I'd probably also pick up both Proud Tower and Last Stand at Moscow since I dig A Victory Lost [Nakamura] and, though I haven't played it yet, I think Red Star Rising [Yamazaki] looks like fun [I'm hoping it will hit the table around Xmas]. If I'm wrong about RSR, then Moscow would be a no-go.

Doomsday Project will probably also earn a preorder as I love WWIII games, but it'll be a late one as I want to read the rules first. Same goes with the D-Day Grand Tactical series game; I picked up Devil's Cauldron [and WED] because I always like gaming at Arnhem and the series looked interesting. I also preordered the 3rd game in the series because it's a hell of a lot smaller in scope, which means it will be more likely to get a real human opponent 'round here.

I'd like to see some more info on what the sci-fi game is all about.

I had a couple of beers this evening and hap-haphazardly pre-ordered A Dangerous Time, just for kicks.

I'm up for Most Dangerous Time

Already have Fire in the Sky (excellent!) and Warriors of God (still to play)

will have a look although underwhelmed by the themes so far, if it is not already covered in my collection

The Pacific Campaign will definitely make my list. I have yet to find a game that covers the entire war in the Pacific that I actually like. I was going to track down a copy of Pacific War (never played it) but now I'll wait for Herman's new version. If Starkweather is going to be the developer I think we could be in for a very good game.

The Doomsday Project: Absolutely. I've had multiple opportunities to buy or trade for Next War and Nato but have passed, I'm wary of the "old game" factor. Something with more recent game design concepts would be much better.

The Proud Tower: Definitely. I love area-impulse games and the Nakamura/Robinson Storm Over Stalingrad is really good. I need more WWI gaming and Rinella's Breakthrough Cambrai might not be out for a a while. Sign me up.

D-Day: The Commonwealth Beaches: Yessir. The MMP Grand Tactical system is a good one. I hope all 3 of the upcoming D-Day games aren't in the $120+ price category.

Warriors of America: Possibly. I know next to nothing about Warriors of God but I'm breaking in to Rev. War gaming with Flintlock and Clash for a Continent. Washington'e War is a possibility for preorder, not sure since I detest CDGs.

Hark...if you detest CDGs, you may want to steer well clear of Washington's War. Herman looks to be taking We the People, the Prometheus of CDWGs, and stripping out the Battle Cards to make the game even more streamlined. It almost reads like he's performing a "Twilight-Struggle-ization" of WtP...and it just doesn't get any more "CDG" than that. [And for those who like the Battle Cards, see GMT's new "Unhappy King Charles" for your fix]

I was hoping that the D-day games are being broken into 3 games in order to knock the pricing down, but, upon further reflection, I think they're going to be Devil's Cauldron priced. Company level would indicate around 100 men per unit; with 175,000 Allied troops landing on the 3 beaches on 6 June [and, what, 5-6k aircraft?], I suspect each of the games are going to be big [thus $$$], while the combined campaign game will be just monstrous....

Dogmatix wrote:

Hark...if you detest CDGs, you may want to steer well clear of Washington's War. Herman looks to be taking We the People, the Prometheus of CDWGs, and stripping out the Battle Cards to make the game even more streamlined. It almost reads like he's performing a "Twilight-Struggle-ization" of WtP...and it just doesn't get any more "CDG" than that. [And for those who like the Battle Cards, see GMT's new "Unhappy King Charles" for your fix]

I was hoping that the D-day games are being broken into 3 games in order to knock the pricing down, but, upon further reflection, I think they're going to be Devil's Cauldron priced. Company level would indicate around 100 men per unit; with 175,000 Allied troops landing on the 3 beaches on 6 June [and, what, 5-6k aircraft?], I suspect each of the games are going to be big [thus $$$], while the combined campaign game will be just monstrous....

Thanks, if WW is a Twilight Struggle for the Rev. War I wouldn't have a problem since I think TS isn't a wargame, you're using cards to place and manipulate influence and I do like TS. If WW is something closer to Barbarossa to Berlin than TS I wouldn't like it. I've never seen We the People being played, so I have no way of making a comparison to the changes in Washington's War. Probably best to wait til after WW's release and look at somone else's copy before ordering.

I can't find the Grand Tactical D-Day game on the preorder page, no official word for cost. What you said about scale vs. the potential size of the game does make sense. High price would make me be selective on which of the 3 games I would buy, probably wouldn't buy all of them. Playing all 3 of them together would happen once a year for me at best. I think that general system would be great for D-Day though.

Hark. I probably overstated the case calling it Twilight Struggle-like. I believe there will be leaders and units, so Wilderness War is probably a closer comparison. If Herman's recent posts are to be believed, it should play pretty quickly, but I suspect it won't be your cuppa...

I'll go back and read his posts on CSW. But Yeah, Washington's War might not end up on my list.

Yeah, We the People/Washington's War have little in common with Twilight Struggle, from my point of view.

WTP/WW are simpler in the sense that it isn't as much a game of hand management or crisis mitigation--enemy event cards are merely discarded without effect, with the exception of Declaration of Independence and French Alliance (maybe one or two other mandatory events). The reading I've done indicates there will be very few differences from WTP--no more battle cards, maybe a couple of refinements on handling enemy events, and some setup tweaks to mitigate the American advantage in the original game.

It's a deck of 1, 2, and 3 Op cards...place control markers, add new combat units, or pick a general who can be activated and move him and his stack of combat units. You've got interception and avoid battle (Americans only). It sounds like an overrun rule will be added to prevent the use of solitary CUs as roadblocks. Unlike Hannibal, winning battles doesn't result in the flipping of control markers.

Oh, and Washington's War isn't MMP anyway...how'd that get in here in the first place?

Harkonnen13 wrote:
I can't find the Grand Tactical D-Day game on the preorder page, no official word for cost. What you said about scale vs. the potential size of the game does make sense. High price would make me be selective on which of the 3 games I would buy, probably wouldn't buy all of them. Playing all 3 of them together would happen once a year for me at best. I think that general system would be great for D-Day though.

I'm interested to see what the preorder numbers will be like for this one. The Commonwealth Beaches [Gold, Sword, Juno] will probably have a reasonable market because it's kind of a neglected topic when one talks about D-Day, and, it will probably have a broader audience because the Canadians, Brits, Aussies, etc. don't get to game their home forces on the beaches that much.

Omaha is, well, Omaha, which will sell without question. That leaves Utah, where resistance was comparatively light and the landings went off, more or less, without a hitch [aside from being a mile off course; but I doubt one of the scenarios will be playing Gen. Roosevelt running down the map to figure out where everyone landed and then giving directions on how to find their way to their original landing site]. Unless there's a lot of "what-if" latitude allowed in set-up on the Axis side or perhaps small scenarios where localized pockets of resistance can be slugged out, it seems to be a fairly dull choice for anything but someone looking for a complete set so they can get 4 friends together to play Overlord on the whole.

Dogmatix wrote:

I'm interested to see what the preorder numbers will be like for this one. The Commonwealth Beaches [Gold, Sword, Juno] will probably have a reasonable market because it's kind of a neglected topic when one talks about D-Day, and, it will probably have a broader audience because the Canadians, Brits, Aussies, etc. don't get to game their home forces on the beaches that much.

Omaha is, well, Omaha, which will sell without question. That leaves Utah, where resistance was comparatively light and the landings went off, more or less, without a hitch [aside from being a mile off course; but I doubt one of the scenarios will be playing Gen. Roosevelt running down the map to figure out where everyone landed and then giving directions on how to find their way to their original landing site]. Unless there's a lot of "what-if" latitude allowed in set-up on the Axis side or perhaps small scenarios where localized pockets of resistance can be slugged out, it seems to be a fairly dull choice for anything but someone looking for a complete set so they can get 4 friends together to play Overlord on the whole.

One thing to consider is that the Grand Tactical system does have it's fans, people who will order everything in the series despite the price. I've soloed 2 scenarios of TDC and it is a very good system. Haven't preordered Where Eagles Dare (but have ordered No Question of Surrender, much cheaper) yet, I have to play some f2f games of TDC first, I won't buy a game if my only hope for playing is solitaire or Vassal.

Joel thanks for the info on WW/WtP