2019 Reprint Run: GMT Brings a Halftrack-load of Heroes Back to the Front

There’s no excuse to let a good wargame linger in out-of-print limbo.

OK, there are plenty such excuses—rights disputes, cash flow concerns, printing slots unavailability, actual lack of demand “out there”—but eventually, good designs just won’t stay down. They can’t help but show up for another round in the ring. Especially wargames, I suppose.

In 2019, GMT Games decided to reprint 10 of its more popular games (plus the Turn Zero mini-expansion to their evergreen title, Twilight Struggle) and none of them are light weights. The most accessible of the bunch is the solitaire Navajo Wars, which is a testament to the quality of the designs GMT decides to put out: even if they’re monster games with 50-page rulebooks (I’m decidedly looking at you, Empire of the Sun), people are still lining up for seconds.

Shall we?

Originally published in 2013, Joel Toppen’s first credit as a full-fledged designer took the solitaire world by storm. The theme was original, the mechanics—including a really fun cardboard AI—were fresh and new, and the game was a joyful challenge to play from start to finish. Toppen would eventually give us a second opus for his First Nations series in Comancheria, another solo conflict that has thus far devoured many of my evenings.

Navajo Wars is the heartwarming story of simple folks who welcome with open arms group after group of visitors from afar: first the Spanish, then the Mexicans, and finally the Americans. Each foreign nation lovingly leaves its mark on the native territory, until the Navajo opt for total annihilation amidst colored balloons and three-tiered cakes.

This 2^nd printing of Navajo Wars is identical to its predecessor, except it incorporates all known errata. Oh, and the dice are prettier.

(You can read my actual review of the game here.)

Tied with our previous entry for the bragging rights of “youngest reprint” on the list, The Dark Valley first saw the light of day in 2013. Ted Raicer had stuffed magazines with his games for years on end, until the box bug bit him—and he hasn’t stopped since. We’ve since been treated to an onslaught of outstanding designs, among those Clash of Giants (GMT, 2001), WWII: Barbarossa to Berlin (GMT, 2002), Grand Illusion (GMT, 2004), The Great War in Europe, Deluxe Edition (GMT, 2007), Case Yellow, 1940 (GMT, 2011), and The Dark Sands (GMT, 2018). (GMT has one more Dark game in the wings, The Dark Summer, slated for later this year.)

So what’s The Dark Valley about? Well, some decades ago, thirsty Germans decided to march all the way to the Volga, found the water there too wet, and backed out so fast they forgot to take their beloved 6^th Army with them.

The deluxe edition feature thicker counters, more player aids (with rules reference for faster carnage), and a mounted board with new map art.

Of course, all known errata are incorporated into the rulebook and new counters.

But wait, there’s more! The reverse side of the board features the map to Raicer’s own Barbarossa to Berlin, and the game comes with a full set of thick, luxurious counters for Barbarossa to Berlin!

Double-sided map goodness

It is currently impossible to buy the mounted map on its own from GMT, but rest assured it’ll show up in the actual Barbarossa to Berlin reprint when it reaches a sufficient number of “votes” on the P500 system.

Originally published by GMT in 2012, this was the first expansion for Jim Krohn’s well loved 4X game. Before that? Krohn had launched the successful Band of Brothers series (2011) for Worthington Publishing. Since then? The man gave us the exciting space dogfight Talon (GMT, 2016) plus more expansions for all of his game systems.

To the quintessential 4X of the original game (eXplore, eXclaim, eXplode, and eX-wife), Close Encounters adds a bunch of other, modular Xs that allow players to pimp their experience just the way they like it.

The 2^nd printing is a straight reprint of the original version, albeit without the “improved” Space Empires counter sheets slipped in the 1^st printing: those sheets can be found in the reprint of Space Empires itself.

Alas, still no mounted map—probably because Close Encounters doesn’t come with a map in the first place.

Then jumps in a 10-year old, the precursor to what would eventually become the celebrated COIN series of counter-insurgency games, starting with Andean Abyss (GMT, 2012) and from there taking off towards as-of-yet unimagined horizons.

(Ruhnke’s new design, Nevsky—also published by GMT—is being sprinkled all over the world as we speak. Time to go and learn a new system.)

But let’s not forget that Volko Ruhnke first designed the award-winning Wilderness War (published by GMT in 2001), before turning in his homework about angry people with beards, threatening other angry people (sometimes with beards, but mostly unkempt sideburns) using WMDs—Warnings of Mild Disappointment—regarding the fact that some countries were not behaving the way they would like.

The fourth printing of Labyrinth is identical to the third printing; naturally, all known errata are included here. Because every time you make a typo, the errorists win.

My favorite game of all time was brought into this world back in 2006, and was the brainchild of my friend Chad Jensen (who, sadly, left us in 2019). Chad would go on to design a steady stream of games, and not just in the wargaming arena: Combat Commander: Mediterranean (GMT, 2007), Combat Commander: Pacific (GMT, 2008), Dominant Species (GMT, 2010), Fighting Formations (GMT, 2011), Welcome to Centerville (GMT, 2017), and quite a few more. Later this year, we should receive a final gift from Chad, in the form of Dominant Species: Marine. I can’t wait to say hello again.

Sometime in the ‘40s, an angry mob decided they wanted more space to hold tailgate parties and whatnot. The neighbors complained about the noise, to no avail. They ended up calling the police, who showed up years later (quite the traffic jams in those days) and gently set the whole thing straight, accidentally nuking a country twice in the process.

This fourth printing of Combat Commander: Europe is identical to the previous one. Which is to say, awesome.

Empire of the Sun first appeared in 2005 when Mark Herman, feeling like making his life more complicated, took his card-driven engine and applied it to a proper hex-and-counter game (as opposed to the point-to-point movement of all previous CDGs). And the rest is cardboard history.

Back in the mid ‘40s, getting a pizza delivered somewhere in the Pacific was no easy feat, what with a majority of carriers otherwise occupied with aircraft of all sorts. Most infuriating of all were the Japanese Zeroes—fast planes with a huge pepperoni logo stamped on their fuselages—buzzing around, reminding Americans that they weren’t getting any. Strong language was used, shots were eventually fired, and now we need a 52-page rulebook to untangle that sorry mess.

This 2^nd printing of the 2^nd edition (still with me?) shows up with a double-deep box containing everything the 1^st printing of the 2^nd edition did, plus a few minute adjustments to the rules, scenarios and charts. Most notably, it ships with Erasmus v2, an improved solo bot that learned a few tricks from its Pericles older brother.

Want some icing on that cake? Have some of the South Pacific scenario, first published in C3i Magazine.

Mark Simonitch had this one first published back in 2003, the second of his (now) extensive series of Place ‘XX games, all published by GMT and which include Ukraine ’43 (2000), Normandy ’44 (2010), France ’40 (2013), Holland ’44 (2017), Stalingrad ’42 (2019). Amongst his numerous other designs stands one exceptional title and a favorite of mine, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage (Avalon Hill, 1996). It was the very first wargame I ever bought, based solely on the cover and the description on the  back—could I pick ‘em or what? I had the great pleasure of meeting the man (as charming as you would expect) a couple of years back, and I had him sign the board of my first edition Hannibal. Yes, I still play it. I just experience an extra jolt of joy when I look at the board.

It all started innocently enough as an Easter egg hunt through the woods of Belgium. There were suddenly a lot more hunters than anyone had anticipated. Before long, it became obvious that the eggs would run out before the bullets did, and nobody was one bit happy about it. When Patton broke through with a relief force, he mentioned something about omelet and broken eggs.

The box contains a multitude of small changes throughout the game—you can actually download the new rulebook from GMT’s website and see a complete list of those changes.

Mounted maps do exist, but they have to be bought separately, and sadly won’t fit with the rest of the material in the regular-depth box.

(Many German troops had to provide their own winter clothing. Shut up.)

First released in 1999—that’s 20 years ago, kids—Cataphract is one of many collaborations between Mark Herman (vaguely alluded to elsewhere in this review) and the late Richard Berg (designer of the mythical The Campaign for North Africa (SPI, 1979) and Blackbeard (Avalon Hill, 1991 and GMT, 2008) among many, many other games).

Cataphract stands as volume VIII in the Great Battles of History series, and it retells the exploits involved in the re-conquest of the Western Roman Umpire under the leadership of Justinian. Heavy cavalry roamed the field and dared someone—anyone—to try and stop them at third base, before they made it all the way home and swept the umpire off his feet. Literally.

The 2^nd printing incorporates all known errata, and features the Battles of the Utus River (447 CE) and the Catalaunian Fields (451 CE) from the original Attila Scourge of God module.

For his second appearance on this list, designer Ted Raicer offers a true classic, the justly famous Paths of Glory—originally unleashed onto the unsuspecting public in 1999, but more recently reprinted in 2015.

So what’s the game about?

Some Ferdinand dude got shot in Sarajevo on a tranquil day back in 1914. (The assailant later claimed that the gun had gone off by accident, although how the man came to be half inside Ferdinand’s car and with a gun pointed at the illustrious passenger’s neck was never explained to anyone’s satisfaction.) Then all hell broke loose: European powers grabbed decks of cards and scattered cardboard counters all over the place. And let me tell you, those counters crawled through blood and guts (and the occasional ill-maintained trench complex) to bring about victory for their respective nations. Want to know how it ended? Just play the game.

This deluxe edition includes 20 optional cards and optional counters from the PoG Player’s Guide (yes, yes, the one from 2002). It also features a new mounted board printed on both sides: one with the original, classic graphics, and the other with a brand spanking new map!

Old and new

Just make sure you guard your supply line, for the love of God.

Last but not least, we have the 2^nd printing of SPQR Deluxe Edition, once again from the Richard Berg and Mark Herman dream team. SPQR is our oldest game on the list: it was first published back in 1992, and quickly became one of the games you simply had to play if you were a serious wargamer. (Me? I learned the whole GBoH system with this edition of SPQR. I’m completely hooked. Was I a real wargamer before? Jury’s still out.)

As volume II of the Great Battles of History series, SPQR (Something Popular, Quixotic and Rad) highlights the “figures of speech” duels that used to pit dungeon dorks against each other during the dark ages known as the ‘80s. A whole variety of weapons were put to good use, including the hyperbole, the oxymoron, the alliteration (feared on account of its long reach) and the much dreaded synecdoche.

This 2^nd printing of the deluxe edition is identical to the original deluxe edition—well, almost, since the new box also holds the Barbarian module, along with updated rules graphics.

Please note that all of the updated rulebooks can be freely downloaded from the GMT website.

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