In October of 2011, GMT Games announced a strategic partnership with Operational Studies Group. Essentially, over time, GMT will take on all production, warehousing, and marketing/fulfillment of OSG products, allowing Kevin Zucker and his OSG teams more time to focus on designing great games.
Many of our GMT customers are unfamiliar with OSG products. Here is an overview of OSG and of the three main series' of games that OSG offers:
INTRODUCTION TO OPERATIONAL STUDIES GROUP
Operational Studies Group makes gorgeous games that demonstrate real knowledge and affection for the Napoleonic period. All OSG games are painstakingly researched. You learn incredible amounts about Napoleonic battles and campaigns, and not just what happened-but why. The games all offer scenarios that allow you to pick up at any point in the campaign or even the lead-up to the battle.
Map and counter quality from a typical OSG battle game
OSG games embrace operational and tactical nuances that many games ignore. Some battles are lost, not on the battlefield, but by the movement to set up the battle, the exhaustion of men, the paucity of materials, threats to supply lines, etc. OSG games impart an understanding of combined arms, intelligence, command control, to reflect the real decisions Napoleonic leaders faced. They are a challenge, both to play and to play well.
OSG's THREE GAME SYSTEMS
OSG publishes games in 3 different systems. All three have similarities:
- hidden units
- leadership-driven movement
- command
- mechanics that are very similar.
In play, the three systems are quite different, but they all have an Operational "feel."
1. The Library of Napoleonic Battles (LNB) Series: These games are Grand Tactical scale, with units at Brigade level (500-800 men per strength point; one brigade per counter), with some regiments. Time scale is 1 hour per turn. Map scale is 480m (525 yards) per hex.
This series bring you battles lasting 1 or 2 days. These games zoom-in on each historical battle. They focus on the one day the battle occurred, and also have a "2 day scenario" where you can also play out the final manoeuvring of forces just the day before the battle.
This series is of moderate complexity. The game system features tactical elements such as cavalry charges, ranged artillery bombardment. A simple, optional "Card Enhanced" mechanic impacts reinforcements and movement. Each Quad game includes four battles. Titles include Four Lost Battles,The Coming Storm, and The Last Success. These battles can be played in one sitting. The three titles on the P500 - Napoleon at Leipzig 1813, Drive on Moscow 1812, and The End of Empire 1814 - are all middle-of-the-road complexity games.
Over time, this series of battle games will cover the most important battles of the Napoleonic wars at the same scale, with only one set of rules for use with all 70 battles. So you can read the rules to The Last Success and play The Coming Storm and all future games in the series without having to learn a new rulebook.
2. "Campaigns of Napoleon" System (CNS)- These are operational-level games set at Corps level, covering weeks of campaigning. They use off-map displays (for each Corps), March Attrition, Center of Operations. This series is the most complex of the three OSG game systems, and takes the longest to play. Titles include (the ones with links are games GMT has in stock or on the P500 list) The Habit of Victory, Highway to the Kremlin, Napoleon at Bay, and Sun of Austerlitz. Scale is 2 mi./hex and up.
The Campaigns of Napoleon System (CNS) looks at each of Napoleon's various campaigns as a whole. For example, The Habit of Victory covers the 1807 Campaign in Poland, from December 1806 (the dual battles of Pultusk & Golymin) through June 1807 (the battle of Friedland). The various sub-systems of the series indicate the scale, as each campaign varies in size. All use the same system rules:
CNS 1x Series = 3km/hex, 1,000 men/SP, 2 days/turn/1 division per unit.
CNS 2x Series = 6km/hex, 3,000 men/SP, 3 days/turn/1 division per unit.
CNS 5x Series = 16km/hex, 5,000 men/SP, 5 days/turn/1 corps per unit.
This strategic level (5x) series will ultimately cover every theater of war in Europe at 16km per hex (when finished you will have a 12-panel map from Russia to Spain). Highway to the Kremlin is part of the Campaign System (CNS), what we might think of as the "complex" line from OSG.
3. The "Days" system - This series is operational, set at Division level, covering several days of campaigning. There are no attrition rules in this series. It is the easiest to play of the OSG systems. Scale = 1,600m per map hex, 800-1000 men per strength point, one division per counter, 6 hours per turn. This is a very clean system that can be played in an evening. Some of the games include The Seven Days of 1809, Six Days of Glory, & The Last Days of the Grande Armee. The Days Series games zoom-in on each campaign to look at the few days around each famous battle. These games focus not just on the battle, but also the last few days of manoeuvring which brought about the battle.
LINKS
1. If you want to poke around on the OSG website it is
http://www.napoleongames.com/
Two articles there are highly recommend ...
o http://www.napoleongames.com/pdf/OSG-TLS-1.pdf
o http://www.napoleongames.com/pdf/OSG%27s%20Last%20Success1.pdf
2. For more about the series of battles and the strategic-level games
click here:
http://www.napoleongames.com/pre-ord.html
3. Here you can find a discussion of an ongoing Mini-campaign from
"The Last Success" (four battles of 1809):
Last Success, The (OSG): Napoleon's March to Vienna, 1809
http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?7@@.1dd5176c/175
Photo of the Mini-campaign in progress (the players use their own
wooden counter sleds)
http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@@.1dd5176c/174!enclosure=.1dd63d0b
