By Troy Hill

Photos by the Author

If you’ve been following our blog, you’ll know that Mitch Reed has begun playing from Warlord Games. He’s mentioned on a few podcasts that I’ve begun the game as well.

Rather than re-walk the newbie road that Mitch has already traversed with three stories and a podcast here on No Dice No Glory, I’d like to take a look at one of the offshoots from Bolt Action: Tank War.

(You can find Mitch’s previous posts on BA here: , , and ).

Bolt Action typically uses the infantry platoon as its core force and limits armoured options for the player to only a few vehicles at most. Tank Wars changes that equation and uses the main Bolt Action rules (with some alterations) to allow armoured vehicles as well as fully mechanized infantry units to play a larger role in the game.

Interview by Troy Hill, Photos courtesy of Sylvia Urquhart Smith

No Dice No Glory is pleased to introduce the newest member of our staff, Sylvia Urquhart Smith.

Sylvia is a common attendee at major gaming events and was recently reporting live from the NOVA Open when Mitch Reed got to talk to her. He was able to convince her to lend her talents and experience in the table-top gaming scene to us here at NDNG.

If you’ve been to an event with Sylvia, you’re likely to remember her as “the lady in the dress,” due to the unique 1950 style of dress she wears to be easily recognizable.

Here on NDNG, you can expect to see her posting and interacting in our social media feeds.

I recently began corresponding with Sylvia, to learn more about how she became involved in gaming.

Gamers may know Sylvia’s husband, Steve Urquhart Smith, from his involvement in designing, writing, and playing games. His most recent efforts have been directed at the upcoming Korea book for Bolt Action from Warlord Games.

Below is my conversation with Sylvia, edited for grammar and length.

By Players at the tourney: Johnny Vasquez, Justin Rodriguez, Hyato Tukakosi, Scott Miller and Tom Richards 

Photos by: Hyato Tukakosi and Troy Hill

Compiled by Troy Hill (Edited to include Justin R’s comments).

I recently organized the Pacific South-West regionals, a two-day, five-round FOW MW Tourney held at . No Dice No Glory and  sponsored the tourney (along with the Team Yankee tourney the day before).

Since the tournament occurred one week after BattleFront’s new books for the Eastern Front, Iron Cross and Enemy at the Gates hit the shelves, I allowed lists from the new books in the event.

Afterwards, I asked players to send in their thoughts to several questions about how the new forces affected the games they played. Below are their responses. The only editing I have done is for spelling and grammar, as well as organizing their comments by category.

Final Standings: Surprisingly, the top player fielded a force from Armoured Fist – a Death or Glory list. Another Brit list took fourth. Soviet lists were second, third, tenth and fourteenth. Germans bunched in the middle of the pack at fifth through eighth place, with one at eleventh. The fourth Soviet player, Ramses, is a younger new player in his first season of playing Flames of War. Give him some time to learn both the game and his army, and he’ll climb the ranks.

Avast ye mateys, once again Talk Like a Pirate Day is upon us; this buccaneer is going to tell you how to take the first steps in playing the game which commemorates this day every day, Blood and Plunder. I was shanghaied onto the B&P sloop for well over a year now, and I have shared some grog with the swashbucklers at .

Many of you have read about the game and some of you have even played it. I know a lot of folks are like scurvy dogs who see the names like Sea Dogs, Les Enfants Perdue, and Freebooter and get confused on how to actually buy a force for this game. To be honest is easier than walking the plank. With this article, you will learn the ropes of this game and be able to tell a mizzen mast from the poop deck.

When I first started playing this game I was able to use to build my force, however, the folks from Firelock starter their own that includes all of the new forces, including those from No Peace Beyond the Line. I will take you through this excellent force builder and talk a bit on how to build a list.

My first article for WWPD was about the British Airborne.  And unfortunately thanks to the changing hosting rules of Photobucket.  My pictures there are lost for all time. But to be frank, there wasn’t much to see. It was a lot of blisters sitting atop a British Flag. Which my wife kept asking me if I was selling. The answer was always and still is, no. Especially now that this is all done.

This year saw the biggest improvements so far for Canadian Nationals. Read on!

We are live from Huzzah Hobbies in Ashburn VA

In this episode, I am joined by Glenn Goddard and our new NDNG contributor Turhan Buckley. We just played Turhan’s first game of Blood and Plunder, and it was our first game using the forces in No Peace Beyond the Line. We talk about the game and Turhan’s impressions of playing with Pirates.

Not too long ago I covered a bunch of fun games that I considered games, which are fun games that are quick, fun and not too hard on the wallet. A while ago I saw a for a game called from a company from sunny Italy. A lot of games hit Kickstarter and some of them actually get delivered to you, so when this came two weeks ago (it was 6 months behind schedule which is on early delivery for Kickstarter projects) I wanted to paint it and see what this game is all about. One disclaimer here, I used a game board with hexagons as a backdrop for my pictures, the game does not use hexagons within its mechanics.

By Benny Christiansen

When you get your hands on not one, but two new books; and you have a chance to get a game squeezed in during the weekend, you have to make a priority list. What is the first thing you want to look at and test!?

For me, and my friends, it was the infantry. I am a big fan of infantry, and I love the way it can move and no longer just lie down and take punishment. They are, to me, a real asset now.

The German DAK book had left the Germans with a somewhat less than optimal infantry. I don’t play the Germans, but if the lists are less than optimal, fewer people will play them in tournaments, nor even in pick up games. So the new German book, Iron Cross, has been expected with great anticipation by players who field German Infantry. I find that the book has provided these players with a good source for good infantry choices.

For those who have read my previous on my  (BA) journey, I have just completed my first few BA games in a tourney at the NOVA open. This article will focus on my overall experience in learning Bolt Action and my impressions of the game in general.

With typical beginner luck, I lost my first game 0-4, tied the next game 4-4 and got wiped out in my last game. After a long day of thinking on my feet, playing an unfamiliar ruleset, I walked away from my last game tired. But I loved every minute of play.

Bolt Action has been out since the early Twenty-teens (German 1st Edition Book published in 2012). I have no clue as to how I missed it for so long.

The game uses dice to activate your units. Each unit provides one order die. Each player throws a set of uniquely colored order dice into a bag. One per unit in your force. A die is blindly drawn, and the player to whom the die belongs gets to activate a unit. This mechanic is at the heart of the game, and the random simulation of the “vagaries of the battlefield” effect it provides is one reason, I believe, why the game is so good.