This is the game that made Tetsuya Nakamura famous. As you have seen from MMP’s Fire in the Sky and A Victory Lost, Nakamura provides a unique insight into military history. MMP is proud to present what is widely considered to be his finest effort. A Most Dangerous Time focuses in on the most dire moment of all Japanese history – 1570-1584. Oda Nobunaga, the most revered figure in Japanese history, fights against all of Japan and the victor will be the ultimate master of all of Japan.

Using a unique system, Nakamura provides a simulation of this period that is one of the most profound ever made. Don't miss this one. It is one of the great game experiences of our hobby.

110 cards, 440 counters, map, and rulebook.

2-4 players, 4-20 hours playing time.

We have a limited number of these packs. If we sell out, we will refund any additional orders.

December 1740: Young King Frederick II leads the army of upstart Prussia in a surprise invasion of Austrian Silesia. He hopes for an easy conquest of the rich province at a time when the Austrian Empire appears vulnerable following the death of Charles VI, King of Austria and Holy Roman Emperor. But despite internal opposition to the ‘Pragmatic Sanction’ that allowed a woman to inherit the throne, Austria’s new Queen, Maria Theresa, is cowed neither by Frederick, nor by France’s scheme to place a Bavarian puppet candidate on the throne of the Holy Roman Empire, nor by Spanish designs on Austria’s holdings in Italy. Amid these conflicting dynastic ambitions, Frederick’s local territorial coup proves to be only the opening act in a major European war that none of the great powers had anticipated - but all wished to profit from. It would ultimately span eight years and half the globe.

Clash of Sovereigns (COS), GMT’s 2-4 player card-driven game of the War of the Austrian Succession, has been 9 years in the making. It is a free-wheeling, faster-playing, stream-lined “nephew” of the widely-regarded Clash of Monarchs (COM).

FEATURES

• A 12-hour campaign game and three shorter scenarios covering 2-3 years apiece that can be played to completion in as little as three hours!
• 2-4 players.
• The French, Prussians/Spanish (“Pr/Span”), Austrians, and British/ Piedmontese (“Br/Pied”) each have their own separate card decks divided into Early, Middle, and Late war periods
• Half a dozen minor powers add their own blood and diplomatic wrinkles to the tableau – and can sometimes reshape it utterly by switching sides.
• Leaders are rated for Initiative, Offense and Defense modifiers, and Action Points.
• Distinctive national tactics and troop quality factors are ‘captured’ by Army Battle Ratings (which evolve over time) and event and Battle Tactics cards.
• A simple, but significant, naval sub-game simulates naval operations in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, including the annual Bourbon Treasure Fleet’s risky voyage home.
• Colonial conflicts in Canada and India are simulated by event cards
• Design-for-Effect economic factors are “baked into” the event and reinforcement cards and can therefore be resolved in only a small fraction of the time required by COM’s more complex economic model.

Components:

• One 22" x 34" mapsheet
• 150 Strategy cards
• 10 Day of Battle Cards
• 350 10/16-inch counters
• 120 1/2-inch markers
• Four 8-1/2" x 11" Player Aid cards
• Four 5-1/2" x 8-1/2" Power Mats
• One 24-page Rule Book
• One 20-page Play Book
• Two six-sided dice

2nd Printing

Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation 1517-1555 is the first game in over 25 years.to cover the political and religious conflicts of early 16th Century Europe. Few realize that the greatest feats of Martin Luther, Jean Calvin, Ignatius Loyola, Henry VIII, Charles V, Francis I, Suleiman the Magnificent, Ferdinand Magellan, Hernando Cortes, and Nicolaus Copernicus all fall within this narrow 40-year period of history. This game covers all the action of the period using a unique card-driven game system that models both the political and religious conflicts of the period on a single point-to-point map. 

Here I Stand is an innovative game system, being the first to integrate religion, politics, economics and diplomacy in a card-driven design. Games vary in length from 3-4 hours for a tournament scenario up to full campaign games that run about twice the time. Rules to play games with 3, 4, or 5 players are also included. The 3-player game is just as well balanced as the standard 6-player configuration, taking advantage of the natural alliances of the period.

In 1697 the Sun King, Louis XIV, emerged from a decade of war with his Continental ambitions still unsatisfied. Meanwhile, King William III of England sat easier on his new throne than he ever had before. With the Spanish succession crisis unresolved and looming, there were no illusions that the new century would be a quiet one. But neither France nor England could have anticipated the tumult of the years to come: a Second Hundred Years’ War, during which these two tenacious adversaries would compete fiercely and proudly along every axis of human achievement. On battlefields from India to Canada to the Caribbean Sea their armies and fleets would clash; in the salons of Paris and the coffee-houses of London the modern world’s politics and economics would be born; and finally a revolution would rock the foundations of society – a revolution that could have ended not in blood and terror but in a triumph of democracy and liberty that might have transformed the world beyond imagining.

Imperial Struggle is a two-player game depicting the 18^th-century rivalry between France and Britain. It begins in 1697, as the two realms wait warily for the King of Spain to name an heir, and ends in 1789, when a new order brought down the Bastille. The game is not merely about war: both France and Britain must build the foundations of colonial wealth, deal with the other nations of Europe, and compete for glory across the span of human endeavor.

Imperial Struggle covers almost 100 years of history and four major wars. Yet it remains a quick-playing, low-complexity game. It aims to honor its spiritual ancestor, Twilight Struggle, by pushing further in the direction of simple rules and playable systems, while maintaining global scope and historical sweep in the scope of a single evening. In peace turns, players build their economic interests and alliances, and take advantage of historical events represented by Event cards. They must choose their investments wisely, but also with an eye to denying these opportunities to their opponent. In war turns, each theater can bring great rewards of conquest and prestige… but territorial gains can disappear at the treaty table. At the end of the century, will the British rule an empire on which the sun never sets? Or will France light the way for the world, as the superpower of the Sun King’s dreams or the republic of Lafayette’s? 

England, 1459. The son of the great Henry V has not lived to fill his father's shoes. England has lost the Hundred Years War, and mighty lords amass lands and wealth rivaling the King’s own. Henry IV left the door open for any such powerful lord with good pedigree to reach for the throne, and the best candidate is Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York.

Mounting tension over the Crown leads to armed clashes, under the excuse of freeing the king from his evil counsellors, and finally ignites the Wars of the Roses that William Shakespeare would immortalize in his plays:

• A Yorkist rebellion that succeeds in placing Edward IV on the throne and exiling the Lancastrians to Scotland and France.
• A civil war pitting Warwick the Kingmaker and King Edward’s brother Clarence against the King and his other brother Richard Gloucester.
• The reinstatement for a few months of Henry VI and the invasion from France by his son and wife leading to a final contest between Richard III and Henry Tudor (later known as Henry VII) and the Battle of Bosworth that ends the Plantagenet dynasty.

Treason, bravery, political maneuver, and a cast of memorable characters mark one of the most intense and divided periods of English history.

In Plantagenet—the newest volume in Volko Ruhnke's Levy & Campaign Series—players lead one of the two factions across the three main periods of war, as individual scenarios or the entire Wars of the Roses.

Designer Francisco Gradaille adds overall and local political influence to Volko’s medieval operation system to reflect the ever-changing loyalties of the time while keeping play familiar to fans of the Series. Players will create and maintain a network of allied lords and nobles in order to obtain the provender and coin needed to supply and pay their armies. As ravaging and looting will damage each side’s reputation, each faction will strive to convince cites to join its side. Great battles will seek to kill or capture enemy lords—perhaps even a king. Two kinds of operational moves will be in play: the military and the political.

In the end, when the dust settles and all arrows have flown, one rose will sit on the throne. White or Red, York or Lancaster, gather your troops and banners and join the fight.

5th Printing

The battle of Sekigahara, fought in 1600 at a crossroads in Japan, unified that nation under the Tokugawa family for more than 250 years. Sekigahara allows you to re-contest that war as Ishida Mitsunari, defender of a child heir, or Tokugawa Ieyasu, Japan's most powerful daimyo (feudal lord). The campaign lasted only 7 weeks, during which each side improvised an army and a strategy with what forces their allies could provide. Each leader harbored deep doubts as to the loyalty of his units - for good reason. Several daimyo refused to fight; some even turned sides in the midst of battle.

To conquer Japan you must do more than field an army - you must be sure it will follow you into combat. Cultivate the loyalty of your allies and deploy them only when you are confident of their allegiance. Win a battle by gaining a defection from the ranks of your opponent. Sekigahara is a 3-hour block game based on the Japanese campaign waged in 1600. The 7-week war, fought along Japan's two major highways and in scattered sieges and backcountry skirmishes, elevated Tokugawa Ieyasu to Shogun and unified Japan for 265 years. Sekigahara is designed to offer an historically authentic experience within an intuitive game mechanic that can be played in one sitting. Great effort has been taken to preserve a clean game mechanism. (Despite a healthy amount of historical detail, the ruleset is a brief 6 pages.) Chance takes the form of uncertainty and not luck.

No dice are used; combat is decided with cards. Blocks = armies and cards = motivation. The combination of army and motivation produces impact on the battlefield. Armies without matching cards don't fight. Battles resolve quickly, but with suspense, tactical participation, and a wide range of possible outcomes. Legitimacy is represented by hand size, which fluctuates each week according to the number of castles a player holds. Certain events deplete legitimacy, like force marches and lost battles. Recruitment, meanwhile, is a function of a daimyo's control over key production areas. Objectives (enemy units, castles, resources) exist all over the map.

The initial setup is variable, so the situation is always fresh. Concealed information (blocks and cards) lends additional uncertainty. In this way the game feels like the actual campaign. Blocks are large and stackable. Every unit on the board is visible at once, and the strategic situation is comprehensible at a glance. Components use authentic clan designations and colors, and have a Japanese feel.

True to history, the objectives (castles and economic centers) and forces (armies of allied daimyo) are dispersed. Support for one front means neglect for another. The player is pulled between competing priorities. Each side wonders where his opponent wants to fight, and where he is unready. There is a great deal of bluff in the game. Each player must rally the several daimyo of his coalition, managing the morale and motivation of each clan. The forces are dispersed, and while there are reasons to unify them, the objectives are also dispersed, and the timeframe compact, so skirmishing will occur all over the island.

anto Monta: The Rise of Ferdinand and Isabella covers the period from 1470 to 1516, the height of the Age of Discovery and the years leading immediately into the period covered by Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation, 1517-1555. The game opens with Isabella’s disputed ascension to the throne of Castile, a position contested by a Portuguese-backed faction supporting Joanna La Beltraneja. Ferdinand’s possessions are similarly threatened by Aragon’s ongoing civil war against forces from the Principality of Catalonia, a faction often supported by France. How can these young Catholic Monarchs possibly deal with both these crises while still pursuing their agendas to unite their two kingdoms into a single Spanish realm, subjugate the Canary Islands, and finish the reconquest of Granada?

Opposing the Spanish player are three more emerging powers. Portugal has been immersed in the exploration of West Africa under the guidance of Prince Henry the Navigator. Can they push further around the coasts of Africa and establish direct trade with the spice merchants of India? Meanwhile the French, initially led by Louis XI the Prudent, are trying to emerge out of the Hundred Years' War against England and consolidate the power of the crown over the nobles of that land. Once ready to push south, the French nation will compete against Spain for lands from Navarre in the west to the city states of Italy in the east. And the Muslim forces are still roadblocks to all these ambitions. The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada will fiercely defend against further incursions against their highland strongholds. The Kingdom of Fez in North Africa opposes the Portuguese attempts to deny their monopoly over the spice trade. And additional Muslim forces from the Ottoman Empire and the Berber lands along the North African coast are sure to assist in the years to come.

And thus the stage is set for these four powers to compete on the battlefield, at the diplomatic tables, and across the oceans of the world. Can one of these powers unite their homeland and set the stage for a truly global empire?

THE GAME: In Tanto Monta: The Rise of Ferdinand and Isabella, each of the four players rules one major power and another secondary power as follows:

• Spain (Kingdom of Castile; Kingdom of Aragon)
• Muslim (Nasrid Kingdom of Granada; North African Powers: Sultanates of Fez and Tremencén)
• Portugal (Kingdom of Portugal; Beltranejos Faction)
• France (Kingdom of France; Principality of Catalonia)

This is a 4-player game, no more and no less.