“There’s more to historical board games than just hex-and-counter WWII”: Candice Harris on turning her video talents to making historical wargaming more accessible after her surprise BoardGameGeek exit

Candice Harris has been an ever-present, vivacious stalwart of the BoardGameGeek front page for more than five years, bringing her infectious enthusiasm and joy for gaming to visitors through her news posts, appearances on live play video series Game Night! and three years helming the BoardGameGeek podcast. That stint on the podcast – which she helped resurrect after it had lain dormant for almost 20 years – came to an abrupt and surprise end two months ago however, with little fanfare about her time hosting, and no suggestion of what she might do next.

Next, it turns out, will see Harris turn her video and presenting talents to the publisher side by showcasing and marketing designs from GMT Games, best known for its complex historical, wargame and strategy titles. Harris spoke to BoardGameWire about her plans for expanding GMT’s audience, the challenge of making complex game more accessible, and breaking assumptions around historical gaming and its designs.

BoardGameWire: Hi Candice! You’ve been a high-profile fixture of the news, video and podcast side of BGG for five years now – when did you realise that it might be time to move on to something new?

Candice Harris: Thanks for your interest! It has been a wild ride for me since 2018. I got deep into this amazing world of modern board games after taking a break from playing music actively. Then through meeting people in the Los Angeles gaming scene, I got connected with BGG (thanks to Jennifer Schlickbernd!) when Lincoln and Nikki invited me to record GameNight! with them, which eventually led to me contributing to BGG News in 2020, and eventually a full-time position on the BGG media team.

While I feel grateful to have landed a full-time job with a company connected to one of my hobbies, I’ve struggled with some challenges over the years, which eventually made me realize my work ethics are not aligned with BGG. Being an optimist, I kept chugging along trying to make it work, but eventually I sorta snapped.

What’s your new title and role officially at GMT, and how did the new job come about?

I don’t know that I have an official title or role at GMT, but I’m working with them part-time on a freelance basis and will be producing videos for their YouTube channel. I’ve had a great relationship with the folks at GMT for years, so after leaving BGG, they were the first publisher I reached out to, and regardless if I’m freelance/part-time, they’ve welcomed me to the marketing team with open arms.

GMT’s quite specific in terms of what it does as a publisher – how do you plan to approach their marketing strategy, what do you think could benefit them specifically? And is your focus likely to be around raising awareness of GMT’s games to a wider audience, or to help existing players who dabble in GMT-like titles more aware of what’s coming out of the company?

GMT is a unique publishing company in many ways. Sure, they’re most well-known for their wargames and historical board games, but they also dabble into other styles of games (i.e. Dominant Species, Thunder Alley, SpaceCorp, Battle Line). As an omnigamer, who still might be considered “new” in this hobby, I have a unique perspective to share on all of GMT’s games and I appreciate the diversity of their catalogue. My goal is to produce content (primarily videos), to show off what I find appealing about GMT Games and to expand their audience. Like, why isn’t everyone talking about how awesome A Gest of Robin Hood is?!

I am still surprised to this day how much I love wargames and historical board games, and I’m sure there are tons of other people out there who might not realize how much these types of games would appeal to them. Like many wargame companies, they are making big strides to put out more accessible games in this space, such as Twilight Struggle: Red Sea – an accessible, tense, two-player card-driven game on the Cold War that can be played in 45 minutes… or In the Shadows which is equally as easy to get into and quick to play, offering players an opportunity to gain insight on the battle of the French Resistance during World War II. People who love Watergate would probably love both of these games.

I love GMT Games as a company, the people behind it, and the innovative games they create, so I want to raise awareness of their games. Also, because of the challenges I’ve had getting into some of the more complex wargames and the COIN series, I want to help make these games more approachable and easier to get into. To me, the juice is worth the squeeze, and I want to reduce the amount of squeezing for others to try these fantastic games.

What do you think the specific challenges are around successful marketing for a niche tabletop game publisher, and how do you plan to go about overcoming those?

I’m sure there will be people out there who are averse to change and have opinions on content that I produce, but I am choosing to ignore any negativity. We’re all humans, learning, and growing. I’m not perfect and neither are the people at GMT Games… and I’m certainly not claiming to be a history expert or a master of any of the games I’ll be featuring in my content with GMT. I’m simply curious to learn more, passionate about exploring a variety of games, and sharing my enthusiasm with others. I’ve found so much joy playing games from GMT, and I’m excited to help other people out there discover if these games are appealing to them as well.

I get the sense from the GMT announcement that your role will include a lot of video work – what type of stuff do you envisage you’ll be creating for the YouTube channel / other places for GMT?

I basically want to create content that I’m always looking for when I go to learn a new wargame/historical game. GMT’s rulebooks can be challenging if you’re not used to that style, so I want to make content that helps people get started faster and easier. GMT has a bunch of games with asymmetric factions. I want to help people understand how to play different factions. GMT’s games cover a lot of different topics, and I want to show people that there’s more to historical board games than just hex-and-counter WWII games (not that they’re not awesome too). Since GMT’s catalogue is mostly focused on historical games, I also want to showcase their other offerings like SpaceCorp and Dominant Species. I have lots of ideas and content plans, and I’m excited that people at GMT value me, my opinion, and my creative approach to exploring these ideas with them.

While we’ve got you, can you give us your top three GMT games – or particular favourite our readers might not have come across?

Oooo, tough call! I never feel like I’ve played any of them enough to choose favorites, but I’ll share the ones I’m currently excited about.

Red Dust Rebellion – I love the COIN series, which are games that explore guerrilla warfare and COunterINsurgencies around the world with asymmetric factions with unique abilities and objectives. Red Dust Rebellion is one of the newer games in the series, and the first one that isn’t historically based. Each player takes on the role of one of four completely unique factions (The Martian Government, The Corporations, The Red Dust Movement, The Church of the Reclaimer) competing for dominance on Mars. It’s a fantastic game and highly thematic. I’m pretty sure new COIN players will fall in love with the system and venture into other volumes of this awesome series.

Atlantic Chase – Atlantic Chase is an innovative take on a hidden movement board game. It simulates naval warfare in the North Atlantic during World War II, a time when there was a lot of fog of war with commanders not knowing exactly where warships were as they traveled to their target destination. The game mechanism for capturing this is very cool, since you place trajectories to indicate where your ships might be. I definitely haven’t played this gem enough, but I plan to get it back to the table more regularly.

Combat Commander: Europe – I love multi-use cards and I lovvvvve card-driven games. Combat Commander is such a cool, unique, “dice-less”, two-player WWII game, where one player commands the Axis forces, and the other commands the Allies. Each side has their own deck of Fate cards, which are used for attacking, moving, etc. making for some awesome hand management decisions. There are tons of scenarios and maps you can play for almost infinite replayability. I got into it years ago, and just recently became re-obsessed with it. I’m planning to keep it on regular rotation and teach it to other friends, so you’ll for sure see some CC content soon.

Harris is also launching a new YouTube channel called Kickin’ It Creative – covering board games and her love of music – which she plans to upload the first video to this week.