By Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Now that Bolt Action is upon us, and more pertinent to me, the new Armies of Germany book, lets see how to update my old v2 army to the new hotness.    When I was collecting for v2, I had one or two of different units, knowing I couldn’t really use more under the Reinforced platoon structure.   While a Rifle Platoon stays pretty much the same with a few added support weapons, you get other vehicles and support weapons and guns in separate platoons now, which means I need more stuff!

Blood and Plunder, a very well liked game here in these parts of Minnesota, hasn’t been seeing a lot off time on the game table. Frankly as a community up here in Minnesota things have been more than a bit dormant and while a game or two would pop up now and again, we just haven’t been good advocates for it until there was that fateful Facebook posting, you know the one, does anyone play Blood and Plunder near by …. you fill in the blank.

I’m sure you’ve seen those kinds of posts from time to time for games you care about, and the question to take to heart is what do you do about it? At a minimum responding and saying “I play and I’m located (your location here).” definitely helps and if luck is with you, maybe you’ll meet a new friend and get to play some games.

By Kreighton Long

With my first Bolt Action Third Edition specific army mapped out it was time to get out the sprue cutters, glue, and paints.  My first target was to test out how I wanted to build and paint my Bersaglieri infantry.

I prefer the look of the helmets rather than the XXX for the Bersaglieri, so I started with one sprue’s worth of infantry with helmets.  After considering available options I decided that my infantry would start with an NCO with a rifle, and LMG team, and additional riflemen.

By Troy Hill

The first question any player asks when starting a new game is usually along the lines of:

Are the Starter Sets any good? Should I purchase that first?

In most games, the answer is yes.

For Conquest: The Last Argument of Kings, it holds true there as well.

I’ve built almost two starter sets worth of W’adrhun so far, and I’m seeing just how valuable those sets are.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell, pics by Scott Roach     

Header picture: From the Sharpe’s Rifle series, Sharpe retires with his french wife to a farmstead in France.. we decided this was that farmstead, and as such I put an objective in it

Warlord Games graciously allowed us a preview copy of Armies of Germany, and since I play a Blitzkrieg-themed German Heer army, I felt I should take out some of the new units and rules for a spin and see what’s new.

“Free” weapons on the HQ units are gone, now every member of the Officer team gets a Rifle, and pays for Assault Rifle or SMG, or gets a discount if armed with just their Luger.    Officer units can now take 4 other men, but only 1 can have an Assault Rifle, but everyone else can take SMGs or pistols.  FSJ you can add a 6th man, Waffen SS can take a 2nd Assault Rifle.

By Kreighton Long

We here at No Dice No Glory snagged ourselves a preview copy of the first “Armies of…” book to follow the release of Bolt Action Third Edition — Armies of Germany.

In an effort to do my part for the war effort I focused my reconnaissance on the units and selectors that caught my eye.

With roughly 180 units to consider adding to your list there is no shortage of options for German players.  Veteran German players will be able to find a unit option for nearly all, if not all, of the fun toys in their collections.

By Phillip Gurtler

The first weak streaks of sunlight were beginning to filter through as Milwer Nylber glanced down at his watch.

He muttered under his breath as he lifted his eyes back up and across no-quar’s land. His relief wouldn’t be here for another hour and with the death of Yawdryl Chythl a few days ago, Nylber was left in charge of the squad’s four other remaining rhyflers. Each of these young quar looked up to him and it was his job to keep them alive.

As his eyes swept the barren land scape in front of him, they stopped briefly on the pair of destroyed Crusader Tractor’s that had led the last assault on their lines. The two metal monsters were stopped mere meters from the trench and had threatened to overwhelm the entire line before being stopped by a field howitzer that had been rushed forward.

As they went up in flames, Chythl had screamed: “Follow me boys, we have them now!”

Charging out of the trench, Chythl’s doru sub-machine gun had barked like a mad dog as he encouraged his squad forward in a furious counterattack. Nylber had climbed out of the trench just in time to watch as Yawdryl Chythl was struck down by the first burst of fire from the Crusader trenches. Nine rhyflers had followed Chythl over the top that day. Only the five of them crawled back to friendly lines that evening.

This war wasn’t anything like the minor conflicts he had grown up fighting. Those were small wars of daring and élan, of quars fighting with honour. But those were stories of wars past, and this new age of industrialization had changed this Long War of 700 years into something new and terrifying.

By Richard Steer

Every year, the Hutt Miniature Wargames Club hosts the ValleyCon wargaming event in Upper Hutt, New Zealand. 2024 was the club’s 25th anniversary, and fittingly, ValleyCon 2024 was its biggest event yet. 170 gamers came together from across New Zealand to spend two days playing in tournaments for eight gaming systems.

I played in the Flames of War tournament, which had 20 players with 98-point Mid-War lists using Dynamic Points in five 2.5-hour rounds. I try to bring a new army to each ValleyCon, and 2024 was the year that I finally built a British ‘Death or Glory’ Armoured Squadron.

By Michael Rafferty

One time I almost played Harpoon.

I was at Fall-In 2021 (which was also Historicon) where I met a lot of great guys, including Mitch Reed who recruited me to write. It was a great time and unlike everyone else, I kind of liked the casino. Back in 2019 I won a couple hundred dollars betting on the Browns, one of the few times the Browns have ever won anything for me so I have fond memories there.

Rambling aside, I saw there was a Harpoon game scheduled and it was run by the creator, Larry Bond. What joy! I’ve been wanting to try Harpoon for awhile since I’ve wanted a good set of rules for modern naval combat. Naval wargames may be my favorite type of historical wargame and I wanted something when I could launch missiles at Soviet ships. This was perfect.

By Tom Gall

A number of weeks back I received my copy of Battlegroup Bagration, the latest source book written by Warwick Kinrade and published by the Plastic Soldier Company.

Battlegroup is a set of WWII rules, written back in 2012. It was made for 15/20mm and as a result for a gamer like myself, present the opportunity for me to utilize my Battlefront lead for more than one game system.

As Battlegroup has been around a while, the system has a long list of source books available which each focus on various time periods of the war.

Bagration, as you’ll recall, occurred on the eastern front during the summer of 1944, where German Army Group Center effectively disintegrated.