BattleFront Games

by Tom Burgess (standing in as General Ritchie)

The game is afoot…..

Mark from Breakthrough Assault and I finished the operational moves for Turn 1 in the Breakthrough Assault and No Dice No Glory Collaborative Firestorm Gazala Campaign. Several battles have already been reported but there’s still time to get in those first-round fights.

King and Country need you!

As the British C-in-C, I wanted to share some thoughts about how we got to where we are in the turn one battles and what my hopes for each are.

Though we rolled a high number of battles for turn one, miraculously the British won the initiative in two of these against steep odds.  That was the good news. The bad news was that initiative came late and after the main German attacks had already been committed. The opportunities for spoiling attacks were limited to just one option.

See Turn 1 Battles

During the lockdown we looked at ways we could help our local gaming stores once the hint of normalcy returned. While under lockdown we chatted a lot with our friends from the UK, the staff of , and Mark Goddard came up with an amazing idea, why not kick off another Firestorm Campaign for . When Mark approached me with the idea I immediately wanted to help support this great idea and I even enlisted our Iron Tom Burgess the commander for one of the teams.

By Tom Burgess

One aspect of playing World War Three Team Yankee that many people enjoy is list building. Trying to design the most perfect list to take on all opponents in all mission is almost a hobby withing itself.  However commanders through history rarely ever get to “design” their force.

Instead, Commanders are generally are assigned units to accomplish a specified task. As much fun as it is to design a force and test it, it also can be very enjoyable to see how well you can do with a set force challenged to contest with specific historical conditions.

We are talking about playing historical scenarios rather than playing generated missions with designed forces.

Though World War Three Team Yankee is set in a fictional World War Three setting, Battlefront has done a great job including “historical” scenarios from this hypothetical war in their  World War Three Team Yankee books.

By Tom Burgess

I am very excited about the impending release of the new World War III Team Yankee American book. That may surprise many who know me as I have only ever played Soviet and East Block type forces in Team Yankee so far. But the reality is that US forces were my first purchase for Team Yankee and I have quite a collection of US units still boxed and waiting to be built.

I only shifted to Soviets to help the force balance in my local gaming area. By now my Soviets are quite complete and its time for me to go full throttle into Americans for Team Yankee with this new book.

The World War III Team Yankee American book is a significant expansion from the preceding Stripes US Forces in World War III book. All the formations and support that were available to the US player in Stripes are also in the new book. In addition to these, the new book has added the M1A1 Armored Combat Team, M2 Bradley Combat Team, M3 Bradley Cavalry Troop, Combined Army (Heavy) Company, Combined Arms (Light) Company, and the Light Attack Company.

By Chris Jackson

The new US book has been sent to the gaming stores and I was able to look at a copy, so after a long, anxious wait we can finally play with the American Army we have seen in news reports and grown to know and love.

Tanks that can swat anything in front of them like flies with near impunity, armored transport that can kill tanks and armored vehicles with the same ease they move across the battlefield.

Aircraft that kill from beyond the reach of most air defense systems, and other technology that allows the Americans to come and to dominate the battlefield like no one else can.

The downside to all of this high tech and nigh-invulnerable equipment is that it comes at a steep price. Even with the elevated points of the 2020 tournament season, a single platoon of M1A1 HC tanks could make up 60% of your points.

Battle Vault Episode 6!  The guys talk about Flames of War and Team Yankee with an interview with Keith Gilmore!

With so many days at home in this pandemic, I painted a lot of “old lead” (and plastic) have in my reserve. One of the projects I was lingering is a WW2 desert Italian army for . The infantry was already done, so I focused on tanks, armored vehicles, trucks, wheeled guns, and some planes. The entire army in a single go: I started to paint it deployed on my table for each step, and I discovered it was a natural “timelapse”. Here are the photos, with some tricks on painting the WW2 tanks!

By Tom Burgess

When the WWIII Team Yankee US nationals point levels went to 120 points this year, I was a bit beside myself on how I was going to expand my Soviet collection. At 100 points it already was huge and filling up my ground unit transport cases.

So I decided to go “vertical” and buff up my air support for my Soviets. I already had two of the older resin SU-25s that Battlefront offered previously and a friend offered me a set of the new Battlefront plastic SU-25s () at a price that I could not pass up. Since I now had both the older new sets, I thought it might do be nice to a bit of a combination review and comparison.

With Red Devils book coming out end of May, we have almost all paratrooper lists for the MID period in – we just miss the Blue Berets from USSR. Time to see how the Airborne troops improve their original army, and which one adds the most to the original roster.

Our dedicated Battlefront Podcast is back for # 5.