Battle Report/AAR

By Kreighton Long

Last weekend six players assembled to compete in a Bolt Action tournament run by Jacob Kovel at the Williamsburg Muster convention in Williamsburg, VA.  Jacob, a veteran event organizer, kept the tournament running smoothly keeping all players on the proposed timeline.

Throughout the day there were a few instances of rules confusion among the players, of which I was guilty of, largely due to the recent transition from Second Edition to Third Edition.  When a rules confusion occurred, Jacob was quick to swoop in and clarify the correct interpretation, which were well received by the various players.

Jacob’s quick and precise clarifications is a testament to his veteran status as this was his third Third Edition tournament that he has run since the new release.  Competitors brought 1000 point lists and competed in three scenarios throughout the day.  The first scenario was Seek and Destroy, the second was Key Positions, and the third was Hold Until Relieved.

By Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Now that Bolt Action is upon us, and more pertinent to me, the new Armies of Germany book, lets see how to update my old v2 army to the new hotness.    When I was collecting for v2, I had one or two of different units, knowing I couldn’t really use more under the Reinforced platoon structure.   While a Rifle Platoon stays pretty much the same with a few added support weapons, you get other vehicles and support weapons and guns in separate platoons now, which means I need more stuff!

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell, pics by Scott Roach     

Header picture: From the Sharpe’s Rifle series, Sharpe retires with his french wife to a farmstead in France.. we decided this was that farmstead, and as such I put an objective in it

Warlord Games graciously allowed us a preview copy of Armies of Germany, and since I play a Blitzkrieg-themed German Heer army, I felt I should take out some of the new units and rules for a spin and see what’s new.

“Free” weapons on the HQ units are gone, now every member of the Officer team gets a Rifle, and pays for Assault Rifle or SMG, or gets a discount if armed with just their Luger.    Officer units can now take 4 other men, but only 1 can have an Assault Rifle, but everyone else can take SMGs or pistols.  FSJ you can add a 6th man, Waffen SS can take a 2nd Assault Rifle.

By Tom Gall

A number of weeks back I received my copy of Battlegroup Bagration, the latest source book written by Warwick Kinrade and published by the Plastic Soldier Company.

Battlegroup is a set of WWII rules, written back in 2012. It was made for 15/20mm and as a result for a gamer like myself, present the opportunity for me to utilize my Battlefront lead for more than one game system.

As Battlegroup has been around a while, the system has a long list of source books available which each focus on various time periods of the war.

Bagration, as you’ll recall, occurred on the eastern front during the summer of 1944, where German Army Group Center effectively disintegrated.

By Kreighton Long

On Saturday, 12 October 2024, Kalissa Skibicki organized a Bolt Action tournament at the Call to Arms convention in Williamsburg, Virginia.  Sixteen players brought their armies and positive attitudes for one last Bolt Action Second Edition tournament. Due to the travel involved for me to get down to Williamsburg, this tournament feels like a Bolt Action geek reunion where I have the pleasure of catching up with like minded people on an annual basis. I caught up with familiar faces and made some new friends throughout the weekend. Overall, the tournament appeared to have been a success with plenty of laughs and jokes to compliment the friendly competition of the day.

Kalissa’s highlight from the tournament was the influx of new players.  She commented that around six of the sixteen players had recently started playing Bolt Action and that this was their first tournament.  Moving forward, Kalissa, as well as her players, will need to become familiar with the revised rules of Third Edition which will require a not-too-small investment in revamping the tournament packs for Kalissa’s future tournaments.

After three rounds of games including Double Envelopment, Demolition, and No Man’s Land, the players gathered around Kalissa to hear the final results of their efforts.  Due to all sixteen players tying in the second round, the final push to secure a place on the podium came down to secondary points.  In this tournament, the secondary points resulted from order dice claimed minus order dice lost. After all the scores were tabulated, the winners were announced with one order dice separating first place from second.

By Kreighton Long

On 21 September, twenty-six players gathered at Titan Games and Hobbies in Timonium, Maryland for another Bolt Action tournament (2nd Edition) organized by Michael Kehs.  Mike was pleased to see his tournament crowd grow since the last tournament back in April to include recurring players from as far away as Ohio and a new player who ventured down from Connecticut.  Mike credits a level of his growing popularity to his success in reaching out to vendors for prize support.  In addition to healthy rewards for the top finishers, Best Painted Army, and FUBAR, players also can look forward to raffle drawings between rounds.  Well-earned credit needs to go to the Assistant TOs, Rob and Chris, for providing invaluable support with setup, break-down, raffles, and pictures.

The three scenarios chosen for this tournament were Meeting Engagement, Key Positions, and Sectors.  This tournament included a new gimmick from the previous one.  While last time players could find their turn ending prematurely if two odd colored Order Dice were pulled from the bag, this time players needed to keep an eye on Secret Objectives distributed prior to each game.  The Secret Objectives forced players to adjust strategies and to think more tactically to score up to an extra ten points, five per objective, each round.  From what I was able to overhear, the feedback from the Secret Objectives was mostly positive, and Mike confirmed that he will look into incorporating them at future events.  One improvement he plans on making is to specifically assign certain objectives to pair with certain scenarios and to balance them with each player receiving one hard and one easy objective.  In my three games, the Secret Objectives did present opportunities for me to play the game differently than I normally would, and added an extra level of intrigue to the game.  For example, in my final game, I had an opportunity to finish off one of my opponents units but instead moved my unit into my opponents half of the table to accomplish my Secret Objective of finishing the game with all my surviving units on my opponents half of the table.  While that choice had no true impact on the outcome of the game, the choice I faced did make it a little more interesting for me and bagged me an additional five points to my overall score.

by Matt Varnish 

A new edition of Bolt Action by Warlord Games is upon us, we were blessed with an advanced copy, and rather than spill the beans for all the competitive players like everyone else, we figured why not actually play a regular old fun game with fellow No Dice No Glory alum, Scott Roach.   We decided upon a desert game, so that he could dust off his Aussies and his Afrika Korps.   We tried to incorporate as many new things from the new edition, and as luck would have it we came across a fair amount of questions and sneaky changes.

First big change, the way army lists are built is different.   No longer can you take a lone ’88 or Pzr III, now these support units need to be in their own platoons.  My own Blitzkrieg army only has 1 HQ painted up so I’ll need to paint up more, since a Heavy Weapons platoon and Artillery platoon need their own Lieutenant or Hauptmann.  Speaking of lists, here is what we ran:

By Paolo Paglianti

It’s the most anticipated Flames of War tournament of the year: the top 120 players from around the world (not just the Old World, but also New Zealand and the USA) competing in a weekend of FOW matches, but more importantly, many friends reuniting under one roof for the same passion for wargaming.

I was fortunate enough to participate in my first ETC (European Team Challenge) in 2022 when my friend Søren Petersen invited me as a ‘mercenary’ for the Iceland team. I had a great time and it went very well! The following year, we returned as Team Italy led by the new Captain Livio Tonazzo, and things went very well indeed again. This year, the same team—consisting of Livio Tonazzo, Flaviano Maggioni, Giacomo Velini, Antonio Soncini, and Tiberio Vinante—is heading to Kraków, Poland. This time, the tournament is in the Late War format.

By Paolo Paglianti

Based in Lancaster, near Philadelphia, Historicon is one of the most important events for enthusiasts of modeling, painting, wargaming, miniatures, and, as the show’s name suggests, military history. It might be a bit smaller than Adepticon, since it involves visitors, players, and professionals focused on historical games rather than fantasy or sci-fi, but it is a concentration of everything our hobby represents.

At Historicon, you can try dozens of games, from chariot racing scenarios to a 10-meter table recreating the D-Day landings in 28mm, or simply participate in one of the demos – this year we tried the excellent “Achtung Panzer” by Warlords presented in person by the author Roger Gerrish, but there was also “Wings of Glory,” demos of “Triumph” (Ancient in 15mm a-la DBA), and a splendid scenario of a clash in Indochina between French colonial and Chinese troops recreated with FOW V3.

I also managed to spend some time with my friend Mitch Reed, for the second time in 2024 and in a true American Sport Bar with baseball games on TV and huge hamburgers!

By Paolo Paglianti

Although I have been organizing tournaments in Milan for various Wargames for over twenty years, this year’s Flames of War tournament was very special. First of all, I organized it again with the support of Battlefront and the Austrian store S-Games.at, both of them generously provided us with prizes. Moreover, it is the first time I have organized the Italian Nationals, a true honor for me. And finally, we had some foreign guests – and what guests!