Bolt Action

By Kreighton Long

No World War Two military incorporated camouflage as extensively as Germany. Most rivet-counters/armchair historians can eyeball camouflaged German infantry and reliably tell you what branch of the German armed forces the camo-clad trooper served.

This is especially true for the Waffen SS. From their first actions in Poland in 1939 through the fall of Berlin in 1945, the SS was equipped with camouflage uniforms that visually set them apart from the Heer and Luftwaffe ground troops.

Unfortunately for tabletop wargamers, painting the different camouflage patterns of the Waffen SS can be an intimidating challenge. Personally, I held off painting my first SS infantry for years after entering the hobby due to a lack of self-confidence.

Since working up the courage to attempt painting SS camouflage, I completed numerous iterations, each time learning how to suck less next time.

By Kreighton Long

No World War Two military incorporated camouflage as extensively as Germany. Most rivet-counters/armchair historians can eyeball camouflaged German infantry and reliably tell you what branch of the German armed forces the camo-clad trooper served.

This is especially true for the Waffen SS. From their first actions in Poland in 1939 through the fall of Berlin in 1945, the SS was equipped with camouflage uniforms that visually set them apart from the Heer and Luftwaffe ground troops.

Unfortunately for tabletop wargamers, painting the different camouflage patterns of the Waffen SS can be an intimidating challenge. Personally, I held off painting my first SS infantry for years after entering the hobby due to a lack of self-confidence.

By Kreighton Long

The morning dew glistens, reflecting the light of the dawning sun. A nondescript crossroad in the countryside is quiet for now. The day before, a farmer moved livestock along the dirt roads. Today, officers and NCOs hasten soldiers towards a fatal encounter. Under the cover of darkness, British paratroopers jumped out of soaring aircraft as flak exploded around them, lighting the sky.

Throughout the night the paratroopers moved through the darkness, slowly gathering more and more men into their merry bands. A few small vehicles roll out of gliders to the delight of the Red Devils. Some miles away, a German commander receives reports of British paratroopers landing and maneuvering in his area of responsibility.

Looking down at his map, he guesses at the paratroopers’ objective, a town labeled on the map as “Colline de L’église”. As reports continue to come into the German headquarters, the officer takes the initiative and dispatches what men he has available to the crossroads hoping to stall the British advance to enable him to organize a stronger defense of the town. 

By Kreighton Long

A little while back a follower of mine on Instagram asked me how I base my miniatures so I put together a little tutorial to share with anyone curious.

There are two parts to a painted miniature when it’s on the gaming table. There’s the miniature itself, then there’s the base.

Depending on the scale and how the miniature is represented in the game both parts are essential to a jaw-dropping gorgeous army. Most of us may be able to recall instances of walking around convention halls, tournament tables, or gaming clubs and seeing that almost gorgeous army. I say almost because every so often one of the two aforementioned parts is a bit below the standard set by the other part.

By Kreighton Long

Gamers have a variety of means of marking progress and mechanics in their games. The means of doing so range as wildly as the reasons we need to track them. Whether the game calls it stress, fatigue, or pins, we can use tokens, dice, or counters.

Players of Bolt Action deal with pins, a game concept that functions against a unit’s morale.

Marking pins on the table can be as simple or fancy as the player wants it to be. For my games, I decided that I wanted to create a way of tracking pins that would blend into the table and compliment the aesthetic as much as possible.

After some digging around I came across appropriate casualty markers from .

For this project specifically, I used a . The core idea here was to create a scenic looking marker combining a casualty model with a slot where a 9mm D6 can be turned to represent the number of pins on a unit. After completing the test piece shown below I’m committing to working on a set for personal use with my WWII German armies.

By Kreighton Long

While the Waffen SS made extensive use of camouflage uniforms, the German Heer incorporated its own pattern, albeit not to the thoroughness of their SS peers.

In this article, I would like to share my process for painting Splinter Camouflage. This pattern is applicable for both Heer as well as Luftwaffe Fallschirmjager who sported similar patterns during the mid and late-war periods.

I recommend finding examples of splinter camouflage in history books or Google Images and leaning on them to help form the shapes of the different parts of this pattern. We will be using the following Vallejo paints in this tutorial:  German Cam. Beige (821), Leather Brown (871), German Cam. Medium brown (826), Black (950), and Luftwaffe Cam. Green (823). We will also use Citadel’s Seraphim Sepia as a wash.

By Tom Gall

There are a good number of quality WWII rulesets in existence, let’s explore some of these rules, point out what their strong/weak points are and compare what might draw you to one over the other.

The rulesets considered in this article are : by Battlefront, by Too Fat Lardies, by Warlord, by Plastic Soldier Company.

Each of these rules is generally company level actions with support, for the most part, feature individual models, and focus on the WWII era. All are D6 based. All have extra material that offer campaign experiences, lists, and flavor to feel like you’re been given command with a battle to win. All are either point costed and/or have a list building system which makes it easier to put together a game.

This week, we’ll look at two of the four: FOW and Battlegroup. The other two systems will follow in a later article.

By Tom Burgess

When Warlord expanded their Bolt Action campaigns in the Pacific to include Campaign: Mariana & Palau Islands I was ecstatic to see that they included coverage of the US Army in this campaign.

Though US Army Divisions serving in the Pacific far outnumbered the US Marine Divisions, addressing the US Army is always a second thought in Pacific wargaming if it gets any attention at all.

Kudos to Warlord for not leaving the US Army out on this book. One unit that I have always wanted to model, 2nd Platoon, Able Company, 1^st Battalion, 322^nd Infantry Regiment in the Battle, fought its first battle on Angular Island.

By Kreighton Long

Last week Warlord Games made the new book available for pre-order. This latest addition to their inventory of Bolt Action supplemental materials provides just over 150 pages of new content for fans of the 28mm World War Two skirmish game.

Focused on two campaigns in the South Pacific, this book attempts to provide engaging scenarios and unique unit and theater options for players representing the Japanese and United States combatants of the war.

The battles for the Marianas and Palau Islands all occurred during the summer and autumn of 1944, half a world away from the violent crescendos of the Normandy landings and Operation Market Garden in western Europe and Operation Bagration in eastern Europe.

By Kreighton Long

This past weekend the hosted CYBËR WÅRS 2020 giving attendees a virtual convention experience that will hopefully help alleviate some of the pent up pressure to geek out after months of closed shops and social distancing.

Throughout the CYBËR WÅRS weekend over a dozen panels took place over Zoom with interviews of movers and shakers in the wargaming community. During one such panel representatives from came together for a 2-hour conversation including some sneak peeks at upcoming releases and works-in-progress over at Warlord HQ.