Warlord Games

By Jacob Shober

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you…

—Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, 6 June 1944

The Allied forces faced one of the most difficult tasks ever undertaken by military forces in the assault on Fortress Europa.

D-Day became one of the events which through its incredible bravery, sacrifice, and test of the human spirit, will never be forgotten for generations to come. Among the other Allied forces, the American landings and paratroopers overcame immense odds to secure the beaches and important inland targets. This allowed the Allies to plant one solid foot that could not be shaken off on the European mainland; the first step towards Berlin and ending the war. The American forces, selectors, and special characters in the D-Day rulebook are a great addition, to both thematic-based forces, as well as providing new tools at your disposal.

By Jacob Shober

The first twenty-four hours of the invasion will be decisive. . . . [T]he fate of Germany depends on the outcome. For the Allies as well as Germany, it will be the longest day.

—Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, 22 April 1944.

D-Day has finally come to , and I can definitely say that the campaign book does it justice. At least from the German perspective, one can definitely feel the gravity of the situation, the desperate hold on the beachhead bunkers and fortifications as wave upon wave of Allied troops storm the beach, drop from the skies, and rain high-caliber naval shells on top of them.

It also shows much of how the Germans appropriated French armor and guns for their own purpose after the successful invasion in 1940. From both a historical and gameplay viewpoint, this campaign book has a lot of content to offer, from the units, to the fortifications, and lastly, the theater selectors.

By Troy A. Hill

Images from the book and/or the

The latest addition to Warlord Games series of campaign books for Bolt Action, Campaign D-Day: Overlord (D-Day), lives up to my expectations.

Almost every WWII game with an ongoing campaign or theatre of operations book is releasing something this year. The year of 2019 marks the 75th anniversary of the breaching of Hitler’s Fortress Europe. Warlord has a fitting combination of games for their soon to launch

That campaign is to combine results of their three flagship WWII games: Bolt Action, Cruel Seas, and Blood Red Skies.

While Warlord has not released details of that campaign yet, the book for D-Day is sure to figure into their plans for the campaign.

By Dennis “Matt Varnish” Campbell

Napoleon.   Stop me if you’ve heard this one before:   “Man takes over country, then takes over Europe, and has grand ideas of marching to Moscow, but is then thwarted by logistics and winter”

Scott’s place on a Saturday, with some Sharpe’s Rifles on the tele

Napoleonics? Why? Well, for me with my gaming background starting mainly with sci-fi and fantasy (Games Workshop) I had never really looked at historicals, and certainly not Napoleonics. I knew who Napoleon was, and the era, mainly from watching Sharpe’s Rifles, a series where A: Sean Bean’s character doesn’t die, and B: Has Elizabeth Hurley in it (see header pic)

Recently my best friend Jon Russel from told me about a new addition to the game . Warlord’s WWII aerial combat game introduces well-known historical aces. In a shift, they are about to release a new ace in the line-up. The ace?

Johnny Red, a fictitious character from the comic series of the same name. Not only do I want to tell you about this new release and the Johnny Red Series I also want to talk to comics in wargaming.

First, before I get started, it’s important to note that a was released on April 3rd. Be sure to pick it up and have a look!

As the game Cruel Seas continues to mature, one of my friend Chuck Hiner and I got together for him to try out his new Japanese fleet that he had just completed painting. We decided to play at 1000 points which would allow both of us plenty of options.

Chuck had picked up the , and was wondering how he would approach building a fleet. Included in the fleet box is one Hei minesweeper, four Sampans, six T-14s, a Val, and of course the six of the little kamikaze boats. Chuck decided to get an addition Hei minesweeper and use two of them as the backbone for his force.

, in sunny (and smoggy) Los Angeles California was recently home to a 28mm scale face-off between Rommel’s DAK and a mixed band of allies. The event was hosted by NoDiceNoGlory.com, with prize support from , and , and the chapter. This event was played with the Bolt Action rules set and featured armies primarily from the Western Desert book released last year by Warlord Games.

The event was inspired by Brad at the and based loosely on his event, Suns Out, Guns Out down in Australia, as well as inspiration from the gents at the . Even though we ran the event with tournament style, one-on-one games on 4×6-foot tables, the goal of this was for to compete for the overall victory of one’s side, and not try to dominate each game to be the top player.

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.