BattleFront Games

By Matty MacKenzie

It’s the dawn of a new era in warfare, weapon development, tactics, and clandestine operations are all the rage in the 1980’s. The Cold War is in full swing, the Russians have pushed into Europe.

Their first step is moving deeper into Europe via Eastern Germany. Encountering heavy resistance and Canadian forces, who are ready to push back against the onslaught of T-72 tanks, this is where the new NATO book from Battlefront’s Team Yankee picks up.

The book opens with a nicely laid-out index, that I believe has gotten better over the years and through the course of several games produced by Battlefront. Team Yankee NATO Forces gives each country an equal shake in this publication.

What you will find inside is a little over 150 pages of NATO formations from Canada, France, Netherlands, ANZAC forces, and finally, Belgians. Each one of them receives about thirty pages apiece for you to go through and pick from should you wish to field formations from the new NATO countries available.

Dear HQ, are you seriously asking to kill an Elephant with an Elefantino gun? Yours, Italian at front without an 88. 

By Paolo Paglianti

Oops, we did it again! NoDiceNoGlory took part in the most important Flames of War event of the world, as we did in 2022. Each year, the European Team Championship is the moment where the most passionate and strong FOW players meet with their national teams. No easy battle, as here you find the best of the best – and not only from Europe, as New Zealand and US Teams also join the party. An amazing long weekend where I met tons of wonderful people with the same passion for wargames and lots of fun.

By Jim Naughton

A BMP for ALL SEASONS – the BMP-1P

Nordic Forces had a pequena sorpressa [little surprise] when I first read it. The first faction in the book is the Finns, and after shaking my head about a Finnish 1985 tank with KONTAKT-1 ERA I found the ‘Finnish’ version of the BMP-1. No missile, but upgradeable to the 9K111 Fagot (gotta love Soviet names; it means BASSOON) or in Western parlance, AT-4 SPIGOT. The picture was spot on. BMP-1P.

By Robert Kelly

This is my latest museum report from last year’s Grand Tour of Europe. I had always heard that Budapest was a city worth visiting and it didn’t disappoint. Budapest has many things to see and do and is quite inexpensive compared to places like London, Paris, or Copenhagen.  The Hungarian Army Museum is located on Castle Hill near the Buda Castle.

There are two ways to get to the top of the hill.  To ensure that you go right to the museum first, you take the minibus/golf carts that are parked at the base of the hill.  They are inexpensive, rather fun, and will drop you off at the entrance to the museum before it heads over to the castle (with the rest of the family). The second option is the funicular. It won’t drop you off right at the museum but it was impressive.

By Tom Gall

The weekend of June 10-11th 2023 features the Team Yankee Masters Tournament at Family Time Games in Indianapolis Indiana. This is a special “by invitation” event where in order to qualify you must rank within the top 16 places on BattleRankings.net. It’s a fun affair that Battlefront has sponsored since its inception.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

“GOOOOOOOOD Morning, VIET-NAM!”

With the upcoming re-release of ‘Nam by Battlefront, Scott Roach and I decided it was high time to break out our ‘Nam armies.    We had painted up our forces this winter for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, but we realised we just didn’t have enough jungle.  We had some of the ‘Nam jungle and paddies, but nowhere near enough.

We gathered up everything we had and one Saturday just laid out the drill, hot glue gun, and MDF and made a heap of jungle bases.  Once covered in AK ‘Jungle Earth’ we just added a bit of ground clutter and away we go. I think we still need a bit more, but this will be fine for our first game. We decided to (loosely) play the opening days of the Battle of Binh Ba.

By Richard Steer

Trains are great. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I’ve loved trains for as long as I can remember. It’s no surprise, therefore, that when Flames of War allows you to stick a giant anti-aircraft gun onto the back of a railway wagon, I’m going to jump at the opportunity.

To this end, I recently purchased four 10.5cm FlaK39 Railway Cars to add to my Late-War German collection. Unfortunately, there are no assembly instructions either included with the kit or on the web, so I’ve written up the assembly process I used in the hope that it will help others.

By Richard Steer

“Does anyone have any Wespes that I can borrow?” The request was posted by a friend on one of our local group chats ahead of a Late-War Flames of War tournament last year. Once the accusations of “meta chasing” died down, it led to a conversation about the role and effectiveness of artillery in the game.

As someone who primarily plays British forces, my contribution to the discussion was that while the Late-War British lists have a lot of artillery options, only mortars and AVREs offer good value. The British towed artillery piece, the 25pdr, is only Firepower 4+ and is expensive due to being Fearless Veteran. Where the Germans and Americans have cost-effective three-gun units of self-propelled artillery, the British Priest and Sexton troops are units of four, again being Fearless Veteran.

To cap it off, it’s not easy to make use of that Veteran skill because most British Formation Commanders are only rated as Trained. Almost everything that the 25pdr should be able to do in the game can be done more effectively by Crocodiles.

The 25pdr field gun played an immense role in British and Commonwealth actions throughout the war, and it’s a shame that they don’t see the table more often. To do my bit to help correct this, I challenged myself to build a British list that goes all-in on artillery.

By Jim Naughton

Just when you thought it was safe to use or ignore my original treatise on Warsaw Pact artillery, BF introduced new toys. With the introduction of Red Dawn there are two new indirect fire systems – the 2S9 Nona self-propelled gun-mortar and the BM-37 82mm Mortar.

Previously NDNG has published three articles explaining Warsaw PACT artillery: TOS-UP Part 1, TOS-UP Part 2, and TOS-UP Part 3.  I will draw a few insights from previous for comparison but I’m not going to repeat the information. Part I identified the artillery available in Team Yankee and gave the statistics.  The next section furnishes data on the two new weapons.

The 2S9 NONA (Noveysheye Orudiye Nazemnoy Artillerii or Newest Ordnance of the Ground Artillery) was introduced in 1981 to replace towed mortars in rapidly expanding Air Assault forces as well as the towed guns of the Air Assault Divisions.  The NONA began showing up in Motor Rifle Regiments in the late 1980s as production continued.  A variant was built into the BTR-80 and towed versions exist for mountain fighting, and for airmobile infantry units (which have little organic transport).  Battlefront represents the 2S9 baseline, built into the BTR-D hull.

The BF model is sold separately from the generic BTR-D package (which features infantry carrier, BTR-ZD, and BTR-RD variants) and represents an essential component of a ‘pure’ VDV force.  The NONA populates the niche in VDV units that would be filled by the 2S1 Carnation and is also available as a support choice in the same niche of the Support Section of the Force Diagram occupied by the Carnation.

By Michael Rafferty

“Enjoy the war, for the peace will be savage,” was a dark joke in the German Army during the last days of World War II. Now the walls are closing in and the Soviets are nearing Berlin. Germany is throwing every last man, woman, and child at them in a vain effort to stem the tide. With the Berlin German book, Battlefront has given us the last remnants of the German war machine that once held dominion over Europe.