Battle Report/AAR

As part of the Minor Nations Bagration book, Hungarians offer an interesting force for Late War now part of the v4 rules. I’m sure you’re eager to know how well they play? Maybe you’re a past Hungarian fan from the days of v3 or maybe you’re looking to put together a new Hungarian force. Let’s play a game and see how they perform.

Let’s start with the setting for our battle, a valley that has already seen plenty of action. I was aiming for something that can serve as hilly area in Hungary towards the end of ’44, early ’45 when the Hungarians were defending their homeland from the invading Russians. The terrain is mostly Gale Force 9 with a bit of Novus Design and some scratch builds.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish” Campbell

Editor’s note: Dennis and Jon played this game over two months ago. But we’ve had enough FOW and TY news (books, tourneys, etc) happen that we left this report in the stack for a while. Or, we’ll blame the courier pigeons that took the lazy route from the front, and stopped off for a nosh, then a holiday enroute to NDNG HQ

By Howard West

Creative Pursuit Games (CPG) located in Leesburg; VA hosted the PGH vs VA Team Yankee Team Challenge. The Team Challenge event was held on April 17th and 18th, 2021. CPG has been hosting small gaming tournaments during COVID based on the state of Virginia’s COVID-19 guidelines that are in place at the time of the event. Dane and his wife Kaitlin are great hosts and have a very nice and welcoming store.

The concept of the PGH vs VA challenge was developed shortly after the Team Yankee RED BLIZZARD tournament  that was held in January 2021.

The question that Dane had after RED BLIZZARD, was what can we do to have a different kind of tournament? We kicked around the idea of a RED vs BLUE tournament but realized you might end up limiting the number of players due to the Armies or Army that they own locally. Besides RED BLIZZARD was a RED vs BLUE tournament. We came up with the idea of having a team from Pittsburgh, PA, travel to CPG and take on a team from Virginia.

By Kreighton Long

Survivors from the mornings spoiling attack march back into town under the watchful eyes of their fellow defenders. The spoiling attack succeeded in delaying the advance of the British paratroopers and more importantly, their vehicle support.

The German soldiers have a short time to rest and refit for they know the British are close behind them. Ammo pouches are restocked and a few bites of food are swallowed just in time for the officers and NCOs to rouse their men to their battle position.

The church, which is located in the center of town just as God and religion was the center of life when the town of Colline de L’église was built so many centuries ago, must be held. A German sniper in the church’s bell tower reports sighting British infantry nearing the town and the engine of a nearby assault gun roars to life.

By Howard West

Hard Knox Games located in Elizabethtown, KY hosted a Flames of War Tournament on March 13th, 2021 as part of WOLFKRIEG 2021. This year due to the state of Kentucky’s COVID-19 event size restrictions WOLFKRIEG 2021 was been broken into two consecutive weekends. Weekend #1 for Wolfkrieg 2021 took place, March 13th, 2021 was Flames of War and March 14th was Team Yankee. This report covers the Flames of War for weekend #1.

Hard Knox Games has been hosting small gaming tournaments during COVID based on the state of Kentucky’s COVID-19 guidelines that are in place at the time of the event. Chad and the team at Hard Knox have a great store and is like walking into the vendor area at a gaming convention. This is the 12th year that WOLFKRIEG has taken place.

March 14th, 2021

By Howard West

Hard Knox Games located in Elizabethtown, KY hosted a Team Yankee Tournament on March 14th, 2021 as part of WOLFKRIEG 2021. This year due to the state of Kentucky’s COVID-19 event size restrictions WOLFKRIEG 2021 was been broken into two consecutive weekends. Weekend #1 for Wolfkrieg 2021 took place, March 13th, 2021 was Flames of War and March 14th was Team Yankee. This report covers the Team Yankee for weekend #1.

Hard Knox Games has been hosting small gaming tournaments during COVID based on the state of Kentucky’s COVID-19 guidelines that are in place at the time of the event. Chad and the team at Hard Knox have a great store and is like walking into the vendor area at a gaming convention. This is the 12th year that WOLFKRIEG has taken place.

By Glenn Van Meter

I was recently asked to try out Strategy Wave Studios’ Combat Storm system. I was excited to hear that a gaming company had decided to put rules to the plastic toy soldiers I grew up playing with. My friend Brad came over to help me give them a go. We quickly reviewed the rules together. In this system, each individual pose represents a different type of soldier such as a rifleman, grenadier, or sergeant, and they’re grouped in units of 3-12. Special weapons troopers like AT specialists and grenadiers still carry the standard infantry armament of their faction besides their limited ammo special weapon. We were pretty impressed with the depth of the rules. It wasn’t the beer and pretzels type system either of us had been expecting.

The army lists currently published have the green force playing the US Army and the tan force playing the WARPAC weapon-armed “People’s Coalition Front”. My plastic toy soldiers are actually a mix of green,  tan, and grey minis. Brad picked US Green and I decided to organize my PCF force in color-coded squads.

The rules also come with a wealth of printable paper scenery with a modern desert city theme and it all looks really good. Unfortunately I lacked access to cardstock and a printer. Brad and I decided that a more Vietnam jungle village table would work well as long as we had enough terrain on it. So we had a dirt road going diagonal from corner to corner, through a village with a bunch of plastic toy soldier sandbag emplacements, and a lot of jungle patches around that. The mission would be an encounter, with both forces starting on opposite short sides of a 6’x4’ table with the objective of slaughtering the opposing force.

By Howard West, Photos by Dane Van Norden

Creative Pursuit Games (CPG) located in Leesburg; VA hosted a Team Yankee tournament on January 30^th, 2021. CPG has been hosting small gaming tournaments during COVID based on the state of Virginia’s COVID-19 guidelines that are in place at the time of the event. Dane and his wife Kaitlin are great hosts and have a very nice and welcoming store.

In my previous article on I mentioned how some tournament organizers (TO) will provide the missions for the tournament, who the Attacker or Defender might be and that the points may vary per round. This tournament was a perfect example of this.

Dane also likes to provide a background narrative for the tournament, this one was called RED BLIZZARD. When Dane created the title for this the event, I doubt that he was giving the attendees a long-range weather forecast, but yes it did snow late Saturday evening thru Monday but it is January and it is winter in VA.

By Tom “Chairborne” Mullane

It’s been a long journey for me over the past 2 years. Travel down the rabbit hole of a new game system never comes cheap, and I’ve found myself pretty immersed in Blood and Plunder since Mitch Reed showed me how to play all those years ago. Since I started playing the game, both with friends and in tournaments I’ve had a tremendous amount of fun. I’ve made new friends, gotten to interview a premiere pirate historian, started a podcast, and even run demos for a company for the first time at a con. But one thing has eluded me. Over countless games and demos, I have never won a game. But this past weekend, I felt a change in the air. Maybe this weekend was my moment. Maybe the curse Tyler Stone put on me by talking to that witch in the Denny’s parking lot could finally be broken? I’d have to play the game to find out….

By Kreighton Long

The morning dew glistens, reflecting the light of the dawning sun. A nondescript crossroad in the countryside is quiet for now. The day before, a farmer moved livestock along the dirt roads. Today, officers and NCOs hasten soldiers towards a fatal encounter. Under the cover of darkness, British paratroopers jumped out of soaring aircraft as flak exploded around them, lighting the sky.

Throughout the night the paratroopers moved through the darkness, slowly gathering more and more men into their merry bands. A few small vehicles roll out of gliders to the delight of the Red Devils. Some miles away, a German commander receives reports of British paratroopers landing and maneuvering in his area of responsibility.

Looking down at his map, he guesses at the paratroopers’ objective, a town labeled on the map as “Colline de L’église”. As reports continue to come into the German headquarters, the officer takes the initiative and dispatches what men he has available to the crossroads hoping to stall the British advance to enable him to organize a stronger defense of the town.