By Kreighton Long

At this past April’s Operation Roundup Tournament I eagerly competed in the Best Painted Force finishing towards the top but not high enough to place.  The category that hurt my score the most was my lack of a display board.  Historically, I’ve avoided building a display board as I would rather invest the time, energy, and resources into painting miniatures and terrain.

Humbled, I decided that I can’t win unless I play the game and this game requires a display board.  Driven by spite I committed myself to investing some of my summer break into building my first display board. As this is my first attempt at a display board the unofficial motto from the start was “good enough”.

By Paolo Paglianti

It’s the most anticipated Flames of War tournament of the year: the top 120 players from around the world (not just the Old World, but also New Zealand and the USA) competing in a weekend of FOW matches, but more importantly, many friends reuniting under one roof for the same passion for wargaming.

I was fortunate enough to participate in my first ETC (European Team Challenge) in 2022 when my friend Søren Petersen invited me as a ‘mercenary’ for the Iceland team. I had a great time and it went very well! The following year, we returned as Team Italy led by the new Captain Livio Tonazzo, and things went very well indeed again. This year, the same team—consisting of Livio Tonazzo, Flaviano Maggioni, Giacomo Velini, Antonio Soncini, and Tiberio Vinante—is heading to Kraków, Poland. This time, the tournament is in the Late War format.

‘There are some defeats more triumphant than victories.” – Michel de Montaigne

By Patrick S. Baker

The second installment of the Total War series started out as Crusader: Total War but was quickly renamed to Medieval: Total War (Medieval) to better describe the actual scope of the game. Development of Medieval started shortly after the successful launch of Shogun: Total War (Shogun). The game was developed by The Creative Assembly (CA) and published by Activision. It was released in August 2002, just two years and one month after the release of Shogun.

Throughout the development of the game, the team at CA sought to build on the foundation laid by Shogun, while also aiming to create a more expansive and historically rich experience. The selection of a medieval setting allowed for a diverse range of factions, units, and technologies. The new setting also provided a vast arena for the developers and the players.

The CA team placed a strong emphasis on historical accuracy and authenticity in Medieval.  To achieve this, they recruited the help of several distinguished Medieval and Military historians. Most notably Dr. David Nicolle and Dr. Richard Holmes. Drs. Nicolle and Holmes expertise in medieval politics and warfare ensured that the game’s units, factions, and events were historically accurate.

By Tom Gall

Gencon sold out this year for all 4 days, 70,000 gamers which makes for a very busy downtown Indianapolis Indiana. I went for Able Kompanie’s Flames of War and Team Yankee tournaments that they ran Thursday-Saturday.  This is a tale of some of my adventures.

First a few shots from around the con before I cover the tournaments.

“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.” -Winston Churchill

By Patrick S. Baker

RAF August 1940: The Battle of Britian (1986)

The first edition of RAF August 1940: The Battle of Britain, designed by the award-winning gamer designer John Butterfield, was published by West End Games in 1986.  Butterfield is best known for his solo designs.  His designs are appreciated for their straightforward rules and immersive game play.

His best known games are the D-Day series (D-Day at Omaha Beach and D-Day at Tarawa) . Further, Butterfield is the designer that introduced the use of cards, rather than dice, to control the action in solo games.  RAF is among the first, maybe the first, solo game to be largely card, versus dice, driven.

In the game, the solo player is put in charge of the British Royal Air Force (RAF) during the Battle of Britain.

After the Germans defeated France and drove the British Expeditionary Force off the Continent in the Battle of France in June 1940, the United Kingdom (UK) stood alone against the might of the German Wehrmacht.

By Kreighton Long

My summer of terrain projects continues with a set of homemade rivers.  I set out to echo the method by which I created a set of ponds several years ago.  The materials I used were chipboard for the base, plastic table covers for the river, Vallejo’s Silver Grey paint, Apple Barrel’s Black and Melted Chocolate paint, Delta Creative’s Trail Tan paint, Craft Smart’s Olive Green and Espresso paints, PVA glue, sand, and various basing flock and tufts.

For the plastic table covers I used LovePads 1.5mm thick clear desk pads.  I prepped the table covers by cutting them to size, ironing them under a t-shirt to smooth out the material, and cleaning them with glass cleaner.

By Paolo Paglianti

Based in Lancaster, near Philadelphia, Historicon is one of the most important events for enthusiasts of modeling, painting, wargaming, miniatures, and, as the show’s name suggests, military history. It might be a bit smaller than Adepticon, since it involves visitors, players, and professionals focused on historical games rather than fantasy or sci-fi, but it is a concentration of everything our hobby represents.

At Historicon, you can try dozens of games, from chariot racing scenarios to a 10-meter table recreating the D-Day landings in 28mm, or simply participate in one of the demos – this year we tried the excellent “Achtung Panzer” by Warlords presented in person by the author Roger Gerrish, but there was also “Wings of Glory,” demos of “Triumph” (Ancient in 15mm a-la DBA), and a splendid scenario of a clash in Indochina between French colonial and Chinese troops recreated with FOW V3.

I also managed to spend some time with my friend Mitch Reed, for the second time in 2024 and in a true American Sport Bar with baseball games on TV and huge hamburgers!

By Michael Rafferty

D-Day Upon Us – D-Day +10 Battle Report Part 2: The Revenge of Zombie Whitman

It was Saturday morning and time to start the battle. I divvied up the sides as people arrived, those getting here early were able to pick the forces and the last arriving got assigned the remainders. We had 11 people for the event, making it one of the largest for our local group this decade! Ok, this decade is only four years old, and we haven’t run many events, but I was happy with the turnout.

The Allies had the first turn, since they were the ones on the offensive. Against Caen, the 101^st’s first company came on and started moving on the Fallschirmjager. In retrospect, I probably gave everyone too much artillery, but I definitely gave the Fallschirmjager too much. They were also entrenched in the city and surrounding area, so they were hard to kill. This brings us to a house rule we used for this event and will use going forward.

In order to speed up play and allow things to die quicker, we changed bulletproof cover. Instead of forcing a firepower roll, creating a separate roll for every failed save, we had it give the team a +1 to their save. This made play smoother, which letting weapons like machine guns do more damage. There were a lot of Fallschirmjager and not many died to the initial Allied shooting in Carentan, but more died than would normally happen. By the end of the game, the paras were pushing the Germans out of Carentan but had taken heavy loses.

— Create a civilization to stand the test of time!

By Patrick S. Baker

(Read Part one here)

Moves: Legal and Business

In 1996, MicroProse released Sid Meier’s Civilization II (Civ II) for the personal computer (PC) and Avalon Hill then sued MicroProse over the use of the name, Civilization, asserting they had reclaimed the previously licensed copyright. As this lawsuit worked through the legal system, Activision released Civilization: Call to Power, also for the PC, in 1998. This set off a three-sided legal battle over the use of the name.  At the same time “the video game industry … was like the Wild West, with companies starting up, closing, buying and selling other companies, and also trading, assigning and purchasing Intellectual Properties (IPs) at a furious rate.”

By Paolo Paglianti

Although I have been organizing tournaments in Milan for various Wargames for over twenty years, this year’s Flames of War tournament was very special. First of all, I organized it again with the support of Battlefront and the Austrian store S-Games.at, both of them generously provided us with prizes. Moreover, it is the first time I have organized the Italian Nationals, a true honor for me. And finally, we had some foreign guests – and what guests!