Warlord Games

By Ian Birdwell

By mid-1944, the Red Tide sweeping across the plains of eastern Europe had finally begun to lap the borders of Hungary.

By August, Romania had switched sides, Hungary was being invaded, and it looked like Germany wouldn’t quite be able to get everything under control.

The fighting in Hungary represents one of my favorite periods in WW2. It’s the junction of almost every nation fighting in Europe. Hungarian infrastructure was destroyed by US and British bombing after all. Taking center stage was the fighting in and around Budapest.

This is the setting for warlord’s latest theater book for in Fortress Budapest.

Now as far as this review goes, I’m going to be taking you all through the broad strokes of the Hungarian section of the book. I’ll go through the new units added into the Hungarian arsenal and the brand new theater selectors able for the Honved!

By Tom Gall

Saturday February 23rd, seven of us gathered at D6 Games in Rochester to play some Cruel Seas. Seven became eight, then nine as people watching became interested in the action on the table top.

We used the to play some games. We didn’t call it a tournament, but I was looking to validate a number of the missions to continue to try and eek out any bugs. (Note this document is player generated and not official by Warlord games.)

The great attribute of this kind of play is, people can just show up with an agreed to point costed fleet for a day of Cruel Seas gaming.

Across the Flames, Star Wars Armada, X-Wing and other communities, it’s a pretty popular and fun style of play.

Here Chuck getting in his first game with his Germans is taking on Pat’s scratch built Finns.

The mat is by F.A.T. mats and you can purchase from the firelock games website. It’s 4’x6′ which in my opinion is a perfect size for Cruel Seas.

By Troy A. Hill

Images courtesy of and ©Osprey Publishing Ltd, Warlord Games 2019

I have to admit that I had only a casual sideline historical interest in Europe’s eastern front in WWII. To me, Hungarians and Romanians were always the armies of minor nations that gave the Germans some “cheaper” allies to play in campaigns or tournaments depending on which game system I was playing. How wrong I was.

Thanks to taking the challenge of reading and reviewing new Fortress Budapest Campaign book for Bolt Action, I have a new appreciation of just how important this section of the late war period was to Hitler’s war machine, and why he and Stalin invested so much time, blood and resources into battles that lead the Red Army to conquer Hungary.

By Tom Gall

Warlord has released for Cruel Seas navy fleet boxes for four different countries. The US, Imperial Japanese Navy, British, and Germans are all covered. Sometime this month we should see the addition of the Soviet and Italian navies.

Within the Core Box, along with the rules, counters and other necessities are four British Vospers and four German S-Boats. This is a good starting force but what might you want to pick up next?  What plays well?

This set of four articles will explore the navy boxes that Warlord has released starting with the German Kriegsmarine.

by Tom Burgess

has become one of my favorite games over this past year. I was immediately drawn to it as I’ve always been a big fan of Akira Kurosawa’s Samurai movies, but a year’s worth of gameplay with it has greatly heightened my appreciation for Test of Honour as a fast and exciting skirmish game.

This is especially impressive as skirmish games as a wargame genre are not normally my forte. This made me wonder why I was not seeing more of Test of Honour being played if it was a game system that could get a non-skirmish guy like me so enthralled with it.

My guess is that many people just have not really taken a good look at it or maybe have not managed to get in a demo game. My hope is that this article encourages some players to consider trying the game and hopefully to seek out a demo game.  So where to start…..?

Once again we have Jon Russell from Warlord Games on the show. We talk about what is coming out for all of our favorites games in 2019. You do not want to miss this one!

Some of the topics we covered

Cruel Seas

Blood Red Skies

Bolt Action

Bolt Action Korea (due out in August)

New Tournament System for Warlord’s games in 2019

… And so much more.

By Troy A. Hill

I confess. I’ve wanted to play a naval wargame for the past 30+ odd years and never have.

Back in the halcyone days of university, I remember the HMGS chapter renting out the “old” gymnasium on campus once a year and playing with their 1:350 (or was it 1:700?) waterline models. That event took all weekend, and they had binders full of charts and ship information. It was glorious to watch, but seemed an impractical way to game with your mates. Not everyone has access to a gymnasium floor, nor room to store all of those models.

Since that time, I’ve had my eye out for a tabletop naval game that had a player base of regulars that met in a game store. A game that I would not mind investing my gaming dollars in, nor storing the minis in the limited space available to me in my tiny Los Angeles apartment. Negotiating berthing rights with my spouse in such cramped quarters for large ships, even in 1:700 scale would be daunting.

Fortunately John Stallard at Warlord Games decided to build and release .

By Tom Gall

Now that our local group has a few games of under our belts, we wanted to get in a larger game that was scenario and point driven. Each side built a 650 point list and cast away their lines. Set off the coast of France, British airmen are in the water and our little flotilla needs to go and pick them up. We played this one at D6 Games in Rochester Minnesota, USA.

The Allies were sporting three type II Vospers, with two having regular crews and 1 having an inexperienced crew. Last we have a Fairmile with a regular crew.

By Tom Gall

Warlord Games released their much-anticipated ruleset covering small ship skirmish actions, which they’ve entitled

The core box offers the rules, and a starter set of British Vospers as well as German S-Boats. Perfect to get a game going with a friend. In addition, there are already nine expansion boxes offering more ships from four different nations.

The rules themselves are divided into basic and advanced sections with a set of eight scenarios to get you going. Interspersed are some histories, many a pretty picture, ship/plane stats, instructions to make your own stats and last some rules for campaign settings.

by Troy A. Hill (Photos by the author, graphics courtesy of Warlord Games)

I’ve managed to get my US Bolt Action army into a playable state that I’m not embarrassed by. I do still need to finish my various vehicles for it (a few are still in boxes).

My sell-off of models from my previous games garnered me enough hobby dollars to hit up my Friendly Local Game Store (FLGS) for a new box from Warlord. Combine this with the new Western Desert book for Bolt Action, with some additional forces, and I’ll be good for the upcoming Duel in the that No Dice No Glory is sponsoring this February at Orccon in Los Angeles.