Gaming

Version 2 of has been out for a bit now and while I’ve been itching to play to experience the changes first hand, life had other plans.

Finally this past week Eric and I were able to get together at D6 games in Rochester MN, and play a few matches. As we’d both played the original, we none the less started out with the intro game found in the book using their force suggestions. This meant a mirror match with each of us having a Samurai character, a bowman, a musket man and a group of 3 spearmen. In game terms, 11 points a side which is a modest force.

By Robert Kelly

In 1974 the Canadian Armed Forces issued a requirement for an Armoured Vehicle General Purpose (AVGP) to equip both Regular and  Reserve units. Three prototypes made it to the final evaluation from a field of fourteen. The Brazilian URUTU and the U.S. Commando fell by the wayside and the Swiss MOWAG Piranha 6 X 6 won the evaluation.

Recently I was invited to be a part of a gaming experiment at the home of wargame designer If you are an avid wargamer you already know who he is, for those not familiar with his work you really need to check out some of his games in the COIN Series from GMT Games.

These games focus on counter insurgency operations during conflicts such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, and the Global War on Terror and focus on politics as much as military operations. The series has won many well-deserved awards and is groundbreaking in expanding our hobby beyond pushing troops around a map.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell,

photos by me and James Smith

On the first weekend of November 2019, we had an event, the first Upper Canada Regionals, in Kingston ON (on the NY State border) for Late War 100pts.   It was held at Royal Military College (our version of Westpoint) and put on by Ryan Sullivan and his gang.    It was a good time, but more importantly, we were able to guinea-pig a new iteration on the Battle Planner, as below document and matrix:

Playing with a friend at home Blue vs Red is good. Meeting with lots of players at the local club for a tournament or a day-long huge game is even better. Playing a part in a world global campaign is really the next level of our hobby.

Battlefront and OnTableTop (yes, the guys we formerly know as Beasts of War) created the D-Day Global Campaign, a cross-media system to allow any player, any club and any tournament to be part of a six weeks D-Day campaign.

By Igor “Tadcaster” Torgeson

Choosing your Colours
After Matt Varnish’s , I’ve been tasked with British painting. Warlord’s new line of ships from the Age of Sail is close to my heart, as I spent some time as crew aboard HMS Rose, a replica of the British frigate from the Revolutionary war. Many of you will be familiar with HMS Rose, as she was purchased by 20th Century Fox and renamed Surprise for the film Master and Commander.

When it comes to painting British ships, I have good news and bad news. The good news is by the time of the Napoleonic wars, the colours of ships in the Royal Navy were mostly standardized. The bad news is I said “mostly.” Royal Navy captains had great latitude in the painting and upkeep of their ships, whether it was the hull, the sticks (masts and yards), or the brightwork (decoration).

I recently returned to playing in tournaments of one of the first miniatures games I got into,, and I now have a new appreciation for the game. I wanted to share this rejuvenation with you.

Why did I leave the tournament scenes? It wasn’t that I walked away from the game, I still played FOW socially, ran tournaments for both FOW and Team Yankee (TY). As many of you know I still covered the game here on NDNG.  I just walked away from competitive play for a while. My hiatus came about because I saw some things I didn’t like about the tournament scene.

A month or so ago, when the D-Days books first came out, I wanted to bring a friend who hadn’t played FOW into the scene, and a tournament at a new Local Game Store (LGS) seemed like a perfect opportunity. But, would the tourney scene be a positive experience for a new to FOW player? Or, would the hardened, competitive attitudes of some of the players prove to give him a negative experience?

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Hey everyone, what’s going on? As if I didn’t need a new project, but I’ve jumped right into Black Seas, by Warlord Games. This is their 2nd naval game, hot on the heels of Cruel Seas, Black Seas takes place in the Age of Sail, 1770-1830, including the Napoleonic Wars.   With my good buddy Scott ‘Obsidian23′ Roach picking the British, I would once again be painting blue and playing the French, much like my Black Powder army. I’ve decided to use Warlord Games’ suggested French Navy paint set, with a few tweaks of course.

An army marches on its stomach: Napoleon Bonaparte was right, but speaking of our games, we should misquote to “our armies march on their rectangular bases”. There is nothing more disappointing in seeing a well-painted army on poorly rendered bases – I’ve seen with my eyes tournament armies with their infantry merely stuck to the brown Battefront bases!

Basing your miniatures is not that difficult. First of all, you need a plan. For example, all my Flames of War Mid armies and my Team Yankee lists have two infantry platoons, as I really like to play with massed infantry. For this reason, I try to base the two units with a different “landscape”, so I can tell them apart at a glance, even when they assault the same target and mix up. For example, my US Armoured infantry platoon 1 is mounted on “urban” bases, while Platoon 2 is on “rural” ones.

By Chris Jackson

I think the Italians are one of the most fun nationalities to play in Flames of War. The light tanks, the so-called “medium” M14/41s, and all that glorious, glorious infantry. Awesome artillery, good support options and plenty of hulls, and even more bodies to throw at your enemy or just place in their way.

Paracadutisti are the best the Italians have to offer. There is no check on the 8 Million Bayonets table for these guys. They simply take the best ratings available.