Liberation, the game that saved PG

[Matt W]

I think that describes one of the major differences between PG and the maritime series. While there was a great deal of activity on the high seas, the number of times that significant actions on the scale of the games occurred in both wars was relatively small. As you mentioned it was imperative for the two series to have releases that move into speculative arenas if they were to have new releases at all. PG, on the other hand, has never come close to exhausting the real, even for the highly marketable and easily accessible actions (easily accessible meaning in languages that can be read by the current designer base and turned into scenarios). Thus the desire for alternate history was driven either by Mike's own interests (Hopeless, but Not Serious), Toys (Secret Weapons, DAK '44, GD '46, et al), New Toys and Foes (the Cold War stuff) or a combination (Polish Steel, Red & White).

Why do we see these two new items? Toys (the M Division in Tunisia) and New Toys and Foes (the Alsace campaign). I do think that Mike probably got a look at the number of people who hit his April Fool's joke and, combined with the value of Lions of Finland in the aftermarket, saw some possibilities for a limited number of sales, but in the end, I think this is just a fun addition to the line.