Gold Club Counters, Mark III
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
May 2008

Now that the Gold Club is into its second year, we're finally catching up on promised deliveries to members. Twice a year, members receive sets of die-cut-and-mounted game counters drawn from our Daily Content offerings. This time the set is of 1/2-inch square pieces, a type used in many of our games.

Until last year, I wrote most of our Daily Content myself. Though we're definitely changing the mix and bringing in designs by many more creators, I still designed a fair number of the games in our line. That makes it difficult to craft variants for Daily Content — pretty much, if I thought of it in time to put it in the game, it's already in there. I've never withheld anything from a game in order to use it for Daily Content. So games like Cone of Fire and Plan Gold have been supported with history pieces by me, but the variants have come from other authors, like Dave Meyler's fine piece on Venezuela.

So by default, Daily Content pieces I write often focus on games I didn't design, but fascinate me in some way. So it is with Gazala. Brian Knipple designed it, and I found it very fun to play. I also had done a Panzer Grenadier game on the same battles, and so knew something about the armies involved. And I wanted to add more options. Thus the new Gold sheet has counters for Ariete at Gazala and Littorio at Gazala which looked at Italian armored divisions that either could have fought at greater strength, or could have been present and were not. Red God of War has a similar game system and gets some replacement pieces, Soviet brigades that came out too dark in the original run. We also have variant pieces for the 2nd Guards Army.

Alamein is Brian Knipple's grand masterpiece, one we haven't yet backed with as much Daily Content as I would like — I still have to finish the naval support variant I promised Randy "Ship Guy" York last summer. But it has had some, and on the first 2008 Gold sheet we have the Giovanni Fascisti Division that was stationed south of the battlefield and could have been called northwards. There are also a half-dozen replacement pieces for Alamein; I know fans prefer "new" stuff but I also hate to have any game marred by imperfect counters.

Another game that's caught my eye is They Shall Not Pass, by William Sariego. Even before we released the game, I wrote a piece about the German Army zeppelins that supported the attack, mostly because I was working out my zeppelin obsession with the Great War at Sea: Zeppelins book around the same time. But Comrade Sariego is a true professional, and always supports his game designs with extensive Daily Content. So we also have a whole pile of counters from his Designer Options and David Meyler's Air War Over Verdun.

Defiant Russia is another game from the mind of our comrade, with the usual designer support: Axis Options and Soviet Options. I also added Compliant Slovakia and Ambivalent Hungary. And its sequel, Red Vengeance, has May Day Options from the designer and I did a piece on the Polish Exile Army as well. Strange Defeat, a near-sister game, gets Dutch pieces to accompany Dave Meyler's article about the Dutch Army (what else?) and a replacement for the mis-printed British air support marker.

Dave Meyler's work is also evident in the Venezuelan variant for Sea of Troubles. And we have the hurricane markers for my "Rock You Like The Hurricane" variant for U.S. Navy Plan Gold. This is one of my personal favorites among my own Content work.

And then there's the piece I did because my little sons loved Thomas the Tank Engine, the Isle of Man landing craft for Third Reich. Many of the Third Reich variant pieces that have run in Daily Content ended up in the Rumors of War supplement with re-worked articles, but the Island of Sodor was not among them and when there was one counter left over, I gave it to the Manx transport.

Some of the new pieces are connected to earlier Gold member bonus sheets. Sweden gets its leader for Soldier Kings, the submarine Surcouf gets her airplane for William Sariego's Bismarck variant, and the "small" pieces for the Eylau I Corps variant are here, too. Each of these had corresponding larger pieces on one of the two previous Gold member sheets.

Only members get these pieces, so if you're not one, sign up now. If you're already Golden, make sure your membership's current — you wouldn't want to waste all this freeness.