BattleFront Games

by Tom Burgess

With the release of the “Version 4” Fate of a Nation, my friend Charles Christy and I were excited to get our Arab and Israeli forces back on the table. We went with 75 points for the points level because my entire Israeli force only comes out to 73 points in the new book!

My force was based around an AMX-13 company. This force has to be the worst Israeli formation. The AMX-13 is a flimsy tank that was retired after the 1967 war and has no business facing Charles’ 1973 force.

The worst part is that the formation only includes a maximum of three AMX-13 platoons and nothing else! Each platoon of four tanks coast only 8 points and the HQ just 4 points for two tanks. A full formation cost only 28 point total, but with front armor 4 it won’t take much to get this formation into poor spirits.

We return for part 2 of the three-part series of Kampfgruppes in Flames of War. For this report, I take a Kampfgruppe into combat.

For this game, I played against Brian Sullivan. I was expecting to go against his Soviets, or for him to make a list from my Americans. Instead, he decided to pull out his Hungarians for a run.

We used the More Missions matrix.

I was attacking and Brian was defending for our scenario. We ended up with No Retreat for our mission.

By NDNG_Dane

Lieutenant Dan here,
This past weekend, I was able to get in my third ‘Nam game. This game had a completely different feel from our first two games. Again I faced off against Comrade Paul, Fearless leader of the Local Forces. We played the “Fire Base Assault” mission at 60+ points each.

We both changed up the standard force list a little bit. Comrade Paul took a Special Tasks Battalion with the support options for a PAVN Infantry Battalion. I took the TO&E authorized, New Zealand 105mm Battery, that fought as part of the US 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam.

Today we are going over part one of a three-part series of Kampfgruppes (KG) in Flames of War.

The first thing you may be thinking to yourself if you played Flames of War in Version 3, is that the Kampfegruppe rule was taken out in Version 4.

I am actually referring to a little known, but very well written article that Battlefront put out when Desperate Measures was released. In that article, is a Random Kampfgruppe Generator.

The Kampfgruppe Generator is used to simulate what a German Commander might have faced when an operation got underway. He really didn’ know what he had till it was time to go into action.

For example, several of the tanks could have broken down on the way to battle. His company of Panzergrenadiers actually may be only Platoon size, or worse, squad size. Inits that existed in paper only. The Battalion of Panzers that were promised to him from reserve ends up being just too worn down Panthers.

By Robert Kelly

follow up to this article:  

The Canadian M113s had a unique and distinctive camouflage pattern. I might not be the best painter out there, but I always have the correct paint colours, cam patterns, and markings. I will now share my recipe so that you can make your Canadian M113s as accurate as possible using my simple air-brushing method (whether you have a quality airbrush or not and I don’t).
If you don’t have an airbrush, you can do the hand painted version using Vallejo paints (887 Brown Violet – also for uniforms, 830 Field Grey, and Matt Black with a bit of grey mixed in). These colours are a close match and we only started to airbrush our vehicles in the mid-80s anyway.

By NDNG_Dane

Lieutenant Dan here,

This past weekend, I was able to get in my second ‘Nam game.  This game had a completely different feel than our first game.  Again I faced off against Comrade Paul, Fearless leader of the Local Force Battalion.  We played the Up River mission at 65 points each.

Syria has been in the news quite a bit in the last few years, an area known for conflict and unrest continues to cover the front pages of newspapers. This isn’t about all the modern issues plaguing that area, today we look at Syrian forces from almost 50 years ago. In 1967, three Syrian divisions moved into an area known as the Purple Line. This line on a map served as the ceasefire line after the nations of Syria, Egypt and Jordan were defeated in 1967. Israel captured the entire region of the Golan Heights, a place where my dad actually deployed to on two separate occasions in the 1990’s. This ‘border’ is the official divisional line between Syria and Israel and is still monitored by the UN to ensure stability in the region.

You would have seen many wrecks like this one after this coordinated attack in 1973

by Tom Burgess

Usually, when I sign up to write a force review article I write about a force that I am playing. For Fate of a Nation, however, I’ve only played Israelis.

I usually am “that guy” who will build and play the “bad guys” when nobody else will.

When it came to building a force for Fate of a Nation I had to draw the line as I had no time to build and paint another horde army. I was also not very interested in the Arab armies because of how they played in the original (V3) release. But the in new Version 4-style (V4) Fate of a Nation, the Arab forces are much more interesting and I’m now excited to build an Egyptian force to oppose my current Israeli collection. Here’s why.

By NDNG_Dane

Lieutenant Dan here,
This past weekend, I was able to get in my first ‘ game against one of the Local Force Leaders – Comrade Paul. We played the “HOT LZ” mission at 45 points each.

Fielding the 173rd Airborne in Viet Nam

Airmobile Rifle Company HQ
Airmobile Rifle Platoon (x2)(short)
UH-1 Huey Aviation Platoon
Airmobile MG Platoon
Airmobile 81mm Mortar Platoon
Support:
Gunship Aeroweapons Platoon
OH-6 Aeroscout Platoon (2)
A4 Skyhawk Flight (2)

The Jordanians possessed one of the most professional Arab armies in the post-WW II period.  With a long British tradition and friendly relations with the Americans, they had plenty of British and American second-hand equipment for their small army.  However, the Jordanians were not eager for this fight.  King Hussein tried to act as the honest-broker to prevent the war, but when that failed, felt compelled to join the Arab side.  This is reflected in a better than average Remount/ Rally/ Counterattack score, but a morale of 5+ across the board.