An Early Christmas?

For the wargamer of the hex and counter variety, one holiday tradition to mark on the calendar is Multi-Man Publishing's annual Black Friday sale.  Each year a number of games are discounted, some having deep discounts from retail pricing.  The 2015 Black Friday sale was no exception.  An inventory SNAFU at MMP HQ caused one game to sell out almost immediately.  Unfortunately for me, that was one of the games on my list.  Despite the initial disappointment in the unavailability of one game, I made good use of the sale.  A handful of interesting games were added to the collection.  After a wait of about three weeks, the games arrived.

The sale offers an opportunity to try new titles in series I already enjoy or try a new game in an untried series.  This year, I picked up:

Marengo and Talavera in the Napoleonic Brigade Series.  I have tried Austerlitz and Marengo in this series but Marengo was sold years' ago.  Maybe this will rekindle an interest in this now, seemingly dead series?

South Mountain and A Fearful Slaughter from the Regimental Sub-Series.  I have not given this series a try but The Gamers' earlier Civil War Brigade Series is one of my all-time favorites.

Speaking of Civil War Brigade Series, Three Battles of Manassas was picked up.  While I have the much older Augury Fury covering the Second Battle of Manassas, this was a chance to get the updated components including the First Battle of Manassas and a hypothetical Third Battle of Manassas.
  
No Question of Surrender from the Grand Tactical Series is unknown to me.  Game scale is based on company level actions during WWII

Leros - from the Tactical Combat Series offers a look at WWII actions at the regimental level with a battle covering several historical days.  Leros is a game that I have had my eye on since its release in 1996.  Twenty years later, I finally made the move to give the series a try.  

Kingdom of Heaven is a card driven, point-to-point movement game of the Crusades 1097-1291.  While reviews rate this one very highly as game on its own, I have thoughts of using it as a campaign engine. 

Like Kingdom of Heaven, A Most Dangerous Time is an area movement game set during Feudal Japan, 1570-1584.  In this game, I definitely hope to find an interesting and challenging campaign engine from which to generate battles that can be transferred to the gaming table. 

The Tide at Sunrise is a game of the Russo-Japanese War using divisions and brigades as the maneuver land elements and individual, capital ships for the naval conflict.  Beautiful map and components on a period I know very little.  This looks to offer a good source for generating battles for the tabletop. 

That is a handsome haul.  Now, which one will be tested first?  Many good  possibilities.