By David Garvin

In a previous post, I interviewed Dr. Andrew Hershey, designer of many Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) scenarios and Historical ASL campaign games, colloquially known as HASLs. It was quite evident after reading that interview, that there is quite a bit of research behind many ASL Scenarios and especially HASLs.

As such, by playing any well-designed HASL, one can gain a better understanding of the nature of the conflict at large and the feel of certain battles. For me, one of the best examples is found in the HASL Kampfgruppe Scherer: The Shield of Cholm (KGS). It was produced by le franc tireur in 2011 and designed by the aforementioned Dr. Andrew Hershey.

By David Garvin

Order of Battle: World War II is a computer game that harkens back to the old Panzer General series of games. The similarities are superficial but close enough that any seasoned grognard who played the old game will feel at home.

At least I know I did.

This is available now via Steam from Slitherine and if someone is looking for a quick and fun game to play this is it.

By Mitch Reed

My first Flames of War army, which I swore would only be the only one I would ever use, was my late war British (painted as Canadians). While I did collect other nations, I always built and created British or Commonwealth lists as my collection grew. As the game went into V4, I had a lot of later war kit that did not have a new list, now with the British Bulge book, I can now get my Challengers and Comets back on the table.

By Glenn VanMeter

On 17 September our Tales of the Sail podcast was fortunate enough to partner with the Calvert Marine Museum to put on a Blood & Plunder tournament at their Talk Like a Pirate Day family event. This was an unusual gaming event for us as it was not held at a game store or a convention, but at an attraction open to the general public.

The tournament was also quite a distance away from most of the participating gamers, which is why we gave it the label of a “Destination Tournament”.

Due to the planning this event required, we needed participants to sign up ahead of time. Fourteen brave souls decided to make the trip to the museum, located in Solomons Island, Maryland. Tom Mullane came down from Connecticut to run the event with me. Most players were from the Maryland and Virginia area, but one or two came from Pennsylvania. We even had a four-player group come from as far as North Carolina complete with team shirts.

By Kreighton Long

With my Bolt Action Romanian army built and bloodied on the table, it’s time, once again, to look forward to a new project. Scrolling through my mental list of armies I aspire to paint and field I felt temporarily at a loss. While discussing my dilemma with a friend over a mid-war game of Bolt Action, he suggested I try something in the early-war period, so as to pair against his own early-war armies.

The suggestion was well received and we spent a good portion of the remainder of the game discussing my options. A combination of desiring to get the most mileage out of my next project and to build a less common army brought me to the stoop of the Italian Army.

The recent releases of Warlord’s Bolt Action: Campaign Italy: Soft Underbelly and plastic Italian Army opened the door and ushered me inside. As all my terrain is themed around European battlefields I decided to focus my research on the Italian participation in European campaigns and battles. Some quick online research into the campaigns fought by the Italian Army in Europe gave me some quality gaming options to consider including campaigns in Southern France, Greece, and Russia.

By Tom Gall

This past Labor Day afforded the opportunity for a number of us Flames of War players to get together at D6 Games in Rochester Mn for a casual day of gaming. As sometimes happens when you have a group gather the desire strikes to do something larger with Flames of War. Our hearty band decided to set up three 4’x6′ tables together to make an extra large Flames of War game.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish” Campbell

I have been blessed to live in Ottawa for a few reasons, but one is the strong gaming community we have here. I think ours is larger than Montreal and is definitely larger than Toronto’s, cities with 2x and 5x our population.

I know back when I played WHFB and 40K back in the golden era (1996-2006) we had a very strong showing of Ottawa-based gamers at tournaments including the Grand Tournament. When my group of players switched over to Flames of War and started hosting tournaments, we organized a decent following and hosted the Canadian Nationals for many years.

Now that I have dipped my toes into Ancients and other historicals (Napoleonics) I find that, yet again, we have a strong following, this time in the form of the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers (OMG) some of whom are consistent Art de la Guerre (ADLG) rankings, players. So, I have started attending club nights which are held typically twice a month, and as luck would have it, their rotation of games had ADLG so I tidied up some of my Romans in 28mm and showed up to get trounced!

Today we are live at Labyrinth Games in Washington DC with their first Wargame Wednesday event. We speak with the event director and then with Stephen Rangazas about his COIN game “The British Way”, that looks at end of the British colonial empire   We wrap with  Kevin Bertram from Fort Circle Games. 

By Robert Kelly

This is part two of my Grand Tour of Europe museum reports. We booked a Baltic Cruise out of Copenhagen with stops in Stockholm, Tallinn, Helsinki, and Saint Petersburg and sailed in mid-May.  Due to the war in Ukraine, the cruise company offered us an extra day in Stockholm instead of stopping in Saint Petersburg. We took them up on the offer but were disappointed we couldn’t visit Russia.  After the first day in Stockholm, we were glad to have an extra day in town.  There is so much to see that if we hadn’t had the second day, I probably wouldn’t have made it to the Swedish Army Museum.

The museum is located in the downtown core and is not far from the harbour. I was able to walk there in no time. Stockholm is an expensive place to visit and fortunately, the museum offered free admission. A rare bargain indeed.

Here is everyone’s favourite Swedish tank, the S Tank on gate duty. Unfortunately, it was the only armoured vehicle out front. And there was room for more. That seems to be a trend in Europe.  You find very few large vehicles at the downtown museums, but they usually have separate tank museums.

By Jim Naughton

PART III – (part 2 here) Now we’ll take a look at the complications – the effect of shifting targets, larger batteries, and Krasnopol. Refer to Battlefront’s source books World War III Soviet https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=7154 and World War III Warsaw Pact https://www.flamesofwar.com/hobby.aspx?art_id=7455 for details.

RANGING IN
The big weakness of artillery comes when your forces close in for the kill. ‘DANGER CLOSE’ makes you move the template, stop shooting or switch to smoke. PACT artillery suffers less than that of the Soviets. In fact, with an observer, it’s more likely to range in on the first attempt than the other two attempts combined.