X-COM Franchise Retrospective (Part Four)

By Patrick S. Baker

Intellectual property (IP), licensing and copyright laws are complex and confusing, especially when it comes to properties that were created under contract, or created by one party for a second party, or developed by multiple entities. Further, the video game industry was like the Wild West in the late 1990s and early 2000s, with companies starting up, closing, buying and selling other companies, and also trading, assigning and purchasing IPs at a furious rate. All of which begs the question of how did the IP that was X-COM get from MicroProse in 2001 to Firaxis Games?

By Kreighton Long

It’s not too hard to find decals to add rank patches to your GIs. The Warlord Games set of US Infantry even comes with decals in the box. For those of you who are gluttons for punishment or want the bragging rights of painting tiny lines on your already tiny toy soldiers here are the steps for how I add rank patches to my 29th Infantry Division army.

By Mitch Reed

One of most interesting box sets for Oak & Iron is the Blackbeard’s Revenge pack which features some unique historical ships for your collection. The box comes with two ships, the frigate Queen Anne’s Revenge and the sloop Revenge which were the ships of Blackbeard and Stede Bonnet respectively. Both of these ships are a must for a player who wants to play the pirate faction in the game since they are only available for that faction.

By Richard Steer

Soviet artillery is quoted as being “the god of war”, so it is no surprise that there is a large array of artillery choices available in the  book for Flames of War. Being so spoiled for choice leaves players with some difficult list-building decisions. Mortars or guns? One big battery or two smaller ones? Which of the 8pt units is the best? Is Soviet artillery even worth spending any points on in the first place?

To test this, I built a model that simulates each dice roll in the scenario being tested to find an outcome, then repeats that simulation thousands of times in order to find the likelihood of each particular outcome occurring. The targets are dug in Careful infantry teams, with five teams under the Artillery Template, or nine teams under a Salvo Template. The other assumptions are that the Spotting Team is the Formation Commander, and a +1 penalty is added for Ranging In on terrain.

It is important to remember that dice can do strange thing, and the numbers may not line up with your experience. There are always going to be patches of good or bad luck, or that one in a thousand chance which could occur in a game, but knowing the most likely outcome does help you have realistic expectations that can assist with your planning for the game.

By Kreighton Long

When playing Bolt Action I’ve run into the headache of trying to find an NCO who fell to a successful sniper or find an officer to see if he’s close enough to a unit to buff their order check. Taking an extra ten seconds or so to find the right model is a minor inconvenience at worst but there are means of expediting this step while adding fun historically accurate details to your painted toy soldiers.

The American GIs in World War Two painted a white stripe or bar on the back of their helmets so that soldiers they were leading, presumably from the front, could identify their leader and follow them into battle. American Officers donned a vertical bar while Noncommissioned Officers sported a horizontal stripe.

Below are the steps I took to hand-paint my platoon and squad leaders for my Bolt Action 29th Infantry Division army.

By Tom “Chairborne” Mullane

As the summer days begin to grow shorter, and a brisk fall wind starts to pull me back to my job in the classroom, I have also been forced to reckon with the end of the Campaign. Many battle reports have been submitted from around the world, much plunder has been taken, and best of all, a lot of games have been played.  Which in the end is of course the point. You still have until September 10th to submit reports to BandPcampaign@gmail.com if you want to throw your lot in with the rest of us pirates and scalawags.

For those who submitted reports for Spain, (Particularly those who managed to snag objectives) I apologize for not getting back to you sooner, but I was on vacation. But now I’m back and it’s time to give away some free stuff.

By Richard Steer

One of the features of the 4th Edition of Flames of War is that many of the missions require both the attacker and defender to take and hold Objectives. This is a challenge for infantry-based forces, as having your lead infantry platoons pinned down can easily cause your attack to stall. Fortunately for Late-War British Forces, the Canadians solved this problem in 1944 with the development of the Priest Kangaroo: the conversion of surplus self-propelled guns into armored personnel carriers. I won’t go into the history here, but a good summary can be found at MilArt.

By Mitch Reed

The gaming community is full of games that re-fight the American Civil War and new games are hitting the market all the time, American Civil War is just the latest game to enter the fray and I think it is worth a look for many reasons. Based out of Holland, Peter Van Dop, the man behind BelloLudi’s games has a fresh outlook on what gaming can do and how to grow the hobby which is meshed into the DNA of his games.

NDNG BattleVault Episode 20 – Battlefront Production Shutdown
00:00:00 – Intro
00:00:42 – Recent Ops – Ed and Tom cover recent FoW and TY event results and winning lists
00:33:56 – Special guest John Mathews, Battlefront Miniatures Global Sale Manager, joins Tom and Ed explain the impacts of the current production shutdown
01:11:38 – Rules Ed Forgot and Tom Butchered
01:23:03 – Upcoming US Flames of War and Team Yankee Events

By Tyler Stone

In , we walked through the basics of assembling your force for games of Blood & Plunder. In this article, I’ll go over what changes when building a force for a Sea or Amphibious game. We’ll look at including and outfitting ships, as well as how some of the Structure rules affect our list choices.

Remember, ships are just structures that move, after all. Like part 1, this writeup isn’t a guide to building the most powerful warship to ever cruise the seven seas, although I will still offer the occasional Tactical Tip. Also like part 1, this article will assume use of the , so click the link if you’d like to follow along.