By Caroline Gilmore
The day is May 1, 2024: China is about to attack Taiwan, North and South Korea are poised at the precipice of conflict, and in India, unexpected floods force people from their homes.
Thus begins “Rising Tides,” the annual kinetics wargame organized by Strategic Crisis Simulations (SCS), an undergraduate-run organization at George Washington University.
By Tom Gall
This year I was pleasantly surprised to be in London on business at exactly the same time as Salute the largest independent game convention in the UK. This year, the 50th anniversary, was perfect timing for the first time ever attending. The event is held at the ExCel center on the east side of London. It was super easy to get to by the London Underground via the new Elizabeth Line. Once inside, queue up to enter…
Different than AdeptiCon or GenCon, no badge pickup, just get in line, get to it. Also different from those other Cons was something that really had me going, I wanted to sign up for a variety of games to play. Maybe a tournament? Or something? I did pack a tape measure and dice but going in this idea of going to a game convention and not knowing if you’d even get to play anything was well, weird.
With Salute it’s different than the states, there it’s run by the South London Warlords club. A good portion of the games were run by the variety of game clubs in the area. Then intermixed with the demos games were row after row of vendor, demo games, vendor, vendor, demo games. Different, but refreshing especially if you were looking to try out new things as well as shop.
By Tom Burgess
Henry Turner is one of the most prolific 3D Files creators for wargaming. I first came across Henry’s work searching for STL files to supplement my Back Seas fleets. In addition to those glorious ships he has offered “6mm” collections for the American Civil War, Napoleonics, and others. Now he has entered the Medieval era with his new 100 Years War Kickstarter.
Henry asked No Dice No Glory if we would be willing to do a review of his new 100 Years War Kickstarter. As I did a review of his 10 to 28mm “Battleground 1983: Warsaw Pact” project previously, I volunteered to follow up with this one. This Europe Asunder – 100 Years War Kickstarter goes active on April 28th, 2023 and runs until May 12th, 2023.
By Jim Naughton
Just when you thought it was safe to use or ignore my original treatise on Warsaw Pact artillery, BF introduced new toys. With the introduction of Red Dawn there are two new indirect fire systems – the 2S9 Nona self-propelled gun-mortar and the BM-37 82mm Mortar.
Previously NDNG has published three articles explaining Warsaw PACT artillery: TOS-UP Part 1, TOS-UP Part 2, and TOS-UP Part 3. I will draw a few insights from previous for comparison but I’m not going to repeat the information. Part I identified the artillery available in Team Yankee and gave the statistics. The next section furnishes data on the two new weapons.
The 2S9 NONA (Noveysheye Orudiye Nazemnoy Artillerii or Newest Ordnance of the Ground Artillery) was introduced in 1981 to replace towed mortars in rapidly expanding Air Assault forces as well as the towed guns of the Air Assault Divisions. The NONA began showing up in Motor Rifle Regiments in the late 1980s as production continued. A variant was built into the BTR-80 and towed versions exist for mountain fighting, and for airmobile infantry units (which have little organic transport). Battlefront represents the 2S9 baseline, built into the BTR-D hull.
The BF model is sold separately from the generic BTR-D package (which features infantry carrier, BTR-ZD, and BTR-RD variants) and represents an essential component of a ‘pure’ VDV force. The NONA populates the niche in VDV units that would be filled by the 2S1 Carnation and is also available as a support choice in the same niche of the Support Section of the Force Diagram occupied by the Carnation.
By Mitch Reed
A common question from new Blood & Plunder players is about what ships they should collect to play in sea battles and the most common answer we have is “it depends.”
In playing with the ships in Blood & Plunder over the last few years the best advice I have is that you can go big or go small and a lot of that depends on the force you play and your personal playing style.
By Troy A Hill
I put my preorder in for Warlord Games new Pike & Shotte Epic Battles Push of Pike boxed set, and it arrived this past weekend. Warlord continues their epic streak of 14-ish mm Epic Battles scale releases.
Special shoutout to Morgan, who packed my set. Everything looks spot on, and I couldn’t be happier with the set.
That said, I’m totally confused now. Growing up in ‘Muricah! and only getting to study the American Civil War (ACW), one can imagine my surprise to find out that our British cousins had their own civil war (English Civil War, or ECW) a couple of centuries before ours. So, now I’m wondering who the English versions of Lee and Grant were?
By Mitch Reed
When we think of the past we often tie the notable personalities of that period. In Blood & Plunder, the notables are at the forefront of the game.
Years ago one of the first things I noticed about B&P was that the characters, whether famous or infamous are a major part of the game. Every force needs a leader, so why not gamify some of the names we associate with the early colonial Americas?
By Michael “ACON” Rafferty
AdeptiCon 2023 is in the books!
AdeptiCon 2023 was held March 22nd – 26th in Schaumburg, IL. This year we had over 6,500 badged attendees, which is the largest AdeptiCon we’ve ever had. It looks like we’ve fully recovered from the COVID slump and things are bigger and better than ever. This was the second year of having a full second venue at the Hyatt, which grew from just hosting historicals to also hosting Lord of the Rings and A Song of Ice and Fire.
We also had a 1:1 scale Urbanmech
This is part two of our coverage on War Stories from Firelock Games! In the last episode we rolled up our characters and today we expand the squad by adding the two Phil’s and the designer of War Stories, Gabe Garcia. We play a quick game and then give you our thoughts on this new WWII RPG.
By David Garvin
When I first played Squad Leader back in 1983, I found that 35-page rule book to be rather complex. The rules were laid out in Programmed Instruction in order to facilitate ease of learning. This just meant that the player only had to read a few pages, play a scenario and then progress. By the time the player had gone through the book, he or she could then play any scenario.
This method of instruction continued through the original series, up to and including GI: Anvil of Victory. By that time, the player could play any of 47 scenarios released with the games, and a number more of officially-released scenarios. There were a few third-party scenarios, including some from On All Fronts and even Dragon Magazine. That said, as I attempted to parse some of the rules while hanging out with my friends, the language was at times dense.
Later as I delved into Advanced Squad Leader, (ASL) I found the rule book to be too much for me to initially comprehend. It was around 1986 and I failed to put any serious effort into learning the rules or the game. Programmed Instruction was now a thing of the past, and even though there was a learning chapter, my friend Gary and I just never really got into it.
Imagine my surprise then, many years later as I was learning how to play, that not only were many people playing ASL – likely more than at any other point in its history – but also that there was a very large and vibrant international community of players. In fact, one of the first of many third-party producers made ASL scenarios in French!
