BattleFront Games

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.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Alright, back at it, Team Yankee Americans. In this post, I am outlining my Desert MERDC camo M113 hulls.    MERDC camouflage was designed in the 70s to be a standardized pattern that could have 1 or two of the 4 colours repainted and thus transition from region or season.   In reality, apart from some White added for winter, the camo remained and was eventually replaced.   I like the look of it for my desert forces rather than the blander tan you see on most Desert Storm vehicles.   Since I am doing Texas National Guard units (with Texas-based regforce attached) I loved finding a pic of an M901ITV from Fort Hood at the NTC in this very camo!

Disregard the green M150 TOW in the foreground

By Tom Burgess

One of my major projects of 2019 was to complete an all plastic German East Front Mid-War army. I chose to focus on Gepanzert Panzer Grenadiers. To do this I had two boxes of Battlefront’s ‘s and two Boxes of Plastic Soldier Company’s ‘s. So I thought this provided a nice opportunity to review and compare what these two companies offer for the same model.

Both companies provide the SdKfz-251/C in unit boxes of five vehicles. The Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) boxed set cost $29.99 (US) with crews/passengers but only the machinegun armed transport option and no decals.

Battlefront (BF) box set cost $45.99 (US) and comes with parts to build all five models as the transport (with or without 3.7cm anti-tank gun), the 7.5cm short assault gun, or the 8cm armored mortar version. The BF set also the proprietary unit cards, for use in Flames of War, as well as a sheet of waterslide decals.

By Paolo Paglianti

Time to complete our IDF force.  we saw the tanks and the armored vehicles, so now we will move to the Infantry, helos, and airplanes.

Having assembled and painted our Merkava 2s, the Perehs, the M113s, and some artillery/AA, we are still missing the infantry. IDF infantry is really good in defending an objective, and they can unleash a powerful volley of shots on any enemy moving to assault them. In our list, we chose to do a single infantry platoon, relying on a double Merkava 2 platoon to assault enemy positions.

By Chris Masucci

Looking to jump into a new game and a new time period is a tempting prospect for many gamers. With my local gaming group mostly focused on Bolt Action/Konflikt 47, a few of us recently made the decision to expand our gaming horizons and add a new game to our collection.

Team Yankee seemed like enough of change from our weird war 2 platoon scale endeavors. Jumping into a different time period and with a more zoomed out scope with company scale engagements brings with it the focus on armored warfare and large scale troop movements in a more epic feeling 15mm. With a new project at our heels, our game group quickly divided up what product we could get and all began to choose factions. Not wanting to go for any obvious choices, I decided to build a 1970’s era Egyptian tank company with a bit of support from a motor rifle platoon or two.

Editorial Comment: We all know it will be a while before Battlefront gets around to updating every force and list to it’s Version 4 format. Far too often we see players lament that their forces are not “officially” represented in the rules yet. But in may cases, as Clive shows us with his ideas for Late War Romanians, there are many suitable analogs that, with a little thought, can let  player break out his waiting models and get in great gaming action. Even in “official” events, players could take Clive’s suggestions to expand their gaming opportunities with models they have now.

By Clive Henrick,

During the late war period, the Romanian army is far less than what it was at Stalingrad, but it can still mount a defense and with support do local counter-attacks. It’s more of a defense army at its heart with dogged defenders, good at counter-attacks, but not one that you would normally think off to clear the table of the enemy.

Even without a Late War Romanian 4th edition book, the flavor of the Romanian forces can still be captured in Late War Flames of War by using a combination of German D-Day book and the German D-Day Command Cards.

By Tom Burgess

My good friend Ed and I were very excited to acquire last month’s release of the 21st Panzer Division expansion books/cards for the D-Day Germans in Flames of War Version 4. We both have a lot of 21st Panzer Division kit in our collections, but only Ed had any of it done.  So I rolled out my new US Sheman Company so we could get in a game with the new hotness.

By Paolo Paglianti

After having completed my British BAOR force and an antagonist URSS army, I wanted to move to a different theatre of Cold War. For a while, I was lingering on Fate of Nations setting, but the Oil War book gave me exactly what I was looking for: a new scenery for a brand fresh force, literally thousands of miles away from the ubiquitous NATO green.

As usual, I am going to create a core force of around 100 points for the two sides: at our club in Milan we like to have two opposing forces for every ruleset, so we can demo players wanting to get into the games we like. For Oil Wars, the first force I selected was IDF, and later this year I plan to complete the theatre with an Iranian/Syrian force.