Gaming

By David Garvin

As gamers from across the country and around the world settled on Bowie, Maryland last month, there was a buzz in the air. The numbers showing up seemed to be greater than ever and this was to be confirmed by the organizers: 190 registered players. This was by far the greatest Winter Offensive held by (MMP).

Winter Offensive is the annual gaming tournament held every year by the publishers of Advanced Squad Leader (ASL).

It is an open format tournament that features many games into the ubiquitous ASL. Many of these cover various battles of the US Civil War. But there is no doubting the fact that the big draw for Winter Offensive is ASL.

By Mitch Reed

Photos taken from the Command Post Games and Lost Battalion Games websites. 

Gettysburg is perhaps the iconic battle in American history and has spawned dozens of games in many different formats which enable gamers to re-fight the pivotal Civil War battle.

One of the first games I ever owned was the 1977 Avalon-Hill Gettysburg, a game in which I enjoyed playing for years. The market is full of games that recreate the battle, from small quick to play games to multi-map monster games with thousands of counters.

So, whatever scale you desire to play the battle in you will have no problem finding the title that best suits your interest. While many of the classic games came out decades ago, companies are still producing new games with new mechanics to bring the battle to life on your table.

to its fans is a great horse and musket game for the Seven Years War. This is approximately the years 1740-1763. The war itself started in 1754 and lasted until 1763. As was with the times in Europe it was turbulent with many factions and thus a good topic for action on the tabletop. For those of us within the United States, we know this war as the French and Indian War when the young George Washington was a junior officer with the British Army.

This set of rules is more for Europe, and the author Bill Protz has another set of rules specifically for the French and Indian Wars called

Let’s talk about BAR, what makes it fun and why it might be the game you’re looking for. This period in history has much to offer. Across Europe the political map was complex and the variety of forces involved and their fickle loyalties offer many a what if as well as historical material to plan a game.

Gamers are a not a shy breed and they have no problem creating, adapting, expanding, and even re-writing the games they play. New forces, linked campaigns, missions and new rules are some of the things I have seen created to help expand the games we play and bring some excitement into our community. So with this said, NDNG is now asking you to share the ideas you have an some of the content you have created. Starting with the  for written by some of our staff we plan to bring you user created content to expand your gaming experience.

I have been approached by so many gamers who have a lot of great ideas. Well now if you want share what you have created with us please send us a draft of your project to  and we will work with you to make it a good final product suitable to share with other gamers. You will get full credit for your ideas and in return you can have the satisfaction that you have helped other players to enjoy the games they play.

I cannot wait to hear from you and see what great stuff you have come up with.

NDNG came to life on 1 Jan 2018 when a few writers from WWPD.net decided to carry on bringing our community great content about what is going on in our hobby. Over the year the core group grew from five writers to almost 20 contributors who really do cover war gaming roll by role.

When we started we didn’t want to be just another review site or flood our readers with after-action reports that gave little insight into the games we cover. When we first created the site I reached out to Pete Simunovich at Battlefront and asked him to see if we could have a similar relationship with his company as WWPD did. He said something that has stuck with me ever since;

…. Are you a site that promotes the hobby with inspiration for hobbyists and a touchstone for hobbyists
or another review site? The first one is much harder but much more rewarding I think.

After , it’s time to deploy two armies and see how this ruleset works on the tabletop battle. As we told in the previous feature, we normally play 400 Army Points (AP) with 15 mm miniatures. In tournaments, we also use same period army: for this reason, here we have a 400 AP Later Carthaginian attacking the same size Bosphoran army. The two armies obviously never met in real History, but they came from the same DBMM period, the Classic 500 BC/476 AD. Will Hannibal prevail or meet another Zama?

by Brian Sherry

The Engines Walk

This past summer, Games Workshop released a new version of the old warhorse, .  Originally released in the late 80s, the game simulates mighty battles of the gigantic war engines of the 40th and 41st millenniums of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.

Like the original game from the old days, this one concerns the battles of Titans during Horus Heresy, a seminal turning point in the history of humankind.  Brother fought brother, and for the first time, the mighty war engines of the Adeptus Mechanicus known as Titans turned their massive guns on one another in the name of the Emperor of Mankind, or his treacherous son, Horus.

Over four thousand years of global warfare, from the sunny deserts with chariots clashes in the biblical period to the medieval reigns and countries battling each other for some religion or succession wars: there aren’t many rulesets so ambitious to even try to simulate battles with such an immense time span, from Kadesh to Cerignola. tries and succeeds in creating a wargame system that is both historical and fun, albeit not that easy to read. Let’s see how it works.

DBMM, the basics

To play DBMM, you need some d6s, a ruler in centimeters and an army. You can play with 28mm soldiers, but I think DBMM, for his grand scale, works better with 15mm. If you place two DBMM cavalry bases one after the other, the area covered by these two bases is similar to a football field, if you want to get an idea. With a 400 army point, the standard we’ve been using since the first DBM version, you can have fairly satisfying games and you can play on a normal ping pong tablet (1.80 x 1.20 meters).

By Mitch Reed, photos by Firelock Games

You have heard us talk about it on podcasts, seen us post on our Facebook page and now Oak and Iron is here!

The team that brought you Blood and Plunder has expanded its gaming line to include the battles on the high seas with , a 1/600 scale naval game that they have been showing off at events over the last few months.

We were lucky to get Mike Tunez the lead developer at Firelock Games so answer some questions about this great new game.

Check out our or go to Firelockgames.com to get in on this Kickstarter campaign right away.

Folks, sometimes we get lucky. Jon Russell wanted to get out the word about all the great news coming from Warlord games, so we quickly put together a podcast to get it to you. Tom and Mitch talk about Cruel Seas, Blood Red Skies, Fall of France, and the upcoming Korea book.