Not too long ago I covered a bunch of fun games that I considered games, which are fun games that are quick, fun and not too hard on the wallet. A while ago I saw a for a game called from a company from sunny Italy. A lot of games hit Kickstarter and some of them actually get delivered to you, so when this came two weeks ago (it was 6 months behind schedule which is on early delivery for Kickstarter projects) I wanted to paint it and see what this game is all about. One disclaimer here, I used a game board with hexagons as a backdrop for my pictures, the game does not use hexagons within its mechanics.

For those who have read my previous on my  (BA) journey, I have just completed my first few BA games in a tourney at the NOVA open. This article will focus on my overall experience in learning Bolt Action and my impressions of the game in general.

With typical beginner luck, I lost my first game 0-4, tied the next game 4-4 and got wiped out in my last game. After a long day of thinking on my feet, playing an unfamiliar ruleset, I walked away from my last game tired. But I loved every minute of play.

Bolt Action has been out since the early Twenty-teens (German 1st Edition Book published in 2012). I have no clue as to how I missed it for so long.

The game uses dice to activate your units. Each unit provides one order die. Each player throws a set of uniquely colored order dice into a bag. One per unit in your force. A die is blindly drawn, and the player to whom the die belongs gets to activate a unit. This mechanic is at the heart of the game, and the random simulation of the “vagaries of the battlefield” effect it provides is one reason, I believe, why the game is so good.

Huge episode live from the NOVA Open… We talk to Jon Russell right after my first event. Jon gives us a bunch of spoilers on what is coming out over the next few months for Warlord Games such as the naval game Cruel Seas.

Jon and I talk about a new game he showed me called “”. We are then joined by Steve Smith and we talk about Bolt Action Korea, you will not get better details on this new release anywhere else! During the second act we are joined by Ed Nelson and talk all about Beyond the Gates of Antares.

I hope many of you checked out my first article about learning how to play . It covered the initial steps I took to collect, paint, and read the rules which culminated in signing up for a major Bolt Action event. This article will detail the list I plan to use for the event and will cover about how list making plays a part in Bolt Action and other games we play.

Make a List and Check it Twice
It has always been my opinion that list building is the game behind the game. It keeps us thinking about the game when we are not painting or actually playing it. The vendors probably see list building as the unseen hand that forces us to purchase more models and to keep the buzz going 24/7.

Why does list building take up so much of our time? I think the answer is simple, it is an extension of the game we can “play” at any time. It also represents the analytical side of the game where we try to find the perfect combination. I am guilty of spending a lot of time list building, I really enjoy it and I am attracted to games that have list building in it.

While this may not be popular with some, I think other than assuring you have a rules legal list there is no “Perfect” list or any list that will assure you success. A lot of factors in games are not covered by lists,   terrain, your opponent’s forces, and missions. Nor can you predict how your dice rolls will come out. On top of this, during a game, we run into so many possible unique situations and we analyze these quickly in order to make decisions on what moves to make, as this is happening your list makes little difference, however knowing what the units can do makes a lot of difference.

Hi my name is Mitch and I am a gamer.

Our podcasts seem to have one drug reference in each episode, so it’s a well-worn joke to many of us here at NDNG. We’re always jonesing for that next gaming fix.

We are always looking for that new game to pick up in which we invest time and money for the ultimate payoff which is to have Fun.

So. over the last few months, I took the excitement of my latest enabler, Jon Russell from and decided to give Bolt Action a try. Bolt Action is now in its second edition and has been around for a while now. Two editions and I hadn’t tried it yet? Why not?

Perhaps it was for the same reason many gamers don’t try new games? We tend to look for the bad in a game in order to give us an excuse to ignore it. But, the only time I heard anything bad about Bolt Action was one person say it wasn’t his cup of tea. This excuse gave me the ability to avoid the game, to not paint 28mm models, and not pick up another money and time suck.

By Mitch Reed

What is

It is a 28mm skirmish game that takes place during the early age of pirates which is called the . During this time, the British and French fought a war in the Caribbean against the Spanish. Both the French and British enlisted the aid of independent contractors to help them in the fight and became what we call pirates or buccaneers. While much of pirate lore is told in works of fiction; the truth behind this that this was an actual historical war that lasted for almost 130 years and was not contained in just the New World. While I butchered the above history, do not fear, both of the books for B&P come with an in-depth history that will set you straight.

War gamers rejoice! In this episode we sit down with Mark Walker, a game designer who has published some of the best games that you should be playing like 65′ Squad Level Combat in Vietnam.

By Mitch Reed

Spoiled – and a PodCast!

When Version 4 came out for Flames of War many of us who were not fans of the desert eagerly looked forward to the day when the books on the Eastern Front would be released. Well, that day is right around the corner with the release of two new book, Iron Cross which covers the Germans and Enemy at the Gates which will cover the Soviet forces in Mid-War in and around Stalingrad.

Another set of books, one for Soviets and one for Germans, will be released by BattleFront in the coming months to cover the forces around Kursk.

I sat down with the NDNG team (Glenn, Iron-Tom, and eventually Matt from the great Canadian north) to go over the details of the new books, and their implications for Flames of War Mid War. You can listen at the link below.

Jammed back episode live from Historicon 2018.

A big showing by the  NDNG crew, and are around to talk about a wide range of subjects that we are sure you will love!

I am sure many of you are like me and find little free time available to roll some dice with friends. The term “quick game” is a misleading statement and we often feel that games that play quickly lack the details we like and may feel like an “arcade game”.

While I could have picked a ton of games to talk about here, I decided to focus on two new titles I just added to my collection; What a Tanker from Too Fat Lardies and an older title called Gunfighter’s Ball from Knuckleduster. I selected these games because they have a low model count, have easy to learn rules, can have more than two players and can be quickly played in less than 90 minutes.