NDNG BattleVault Episode 19 – US Team Yankee Masters 2021 List Review

By Paolo Paglianti

I really like to have custom bases for my miniatures, as you can see and read here (), here () and here (), I normally try to have small dioramas for my Flames of War or Team Yankee infantry teams. When I began painting my new Iraq army, and I come to the three platoons infantry formation, I wanted something different. One of the three platoons would fight on rocky ground, the same I used for my “Sicilian” bases for my British WW2 Paras. Some great inspirations come from my friend Luca Papisca and his US bases!

For the other two platoons, I chose an “urban street” scenario and a “rural village” scenario, using my new 3D Resin Printer (). I think 3d Printing is a true revolution in modeling and in our hobby: not only because you can print the tanks you need, but especially since you can “create” almost everything you want, you just need some creativity.

By John Meier

For many days scrolling through the official WW3 Team Yankee Facebook page, I’ve seen many people ask how to play Israel from the oil War book. Many problems that Israel has are low anti-tank and no spearhead unit unless you take a tank formation. Another problem I’ve seen from lists posted or from watching battle reports is that Israeli players don’t take the Pereh ATGM or if they do take it they don’t target anything but tanks.

So the best way I’ve found to play Oil War Israeli is the infantry company. Players get four Galil Assault Rifle teams, three FN Mag team “machine gun” all of these come with LAW AT, one mortar team, 3 RPG teams, one Dragon team, and finally 5 m113 transport with three 50cal shots and two 30cal shots most machine guns on a transport you can find. Their soft stats are fearless vets. Players rally on 3s, last stand on 3s, and counterattack on 3s. Assaulting into a platoon is not advised, for 11 points players get a great objective holder and you have enough stands so take an objective if you need to.

By Mitch Reed

I try not to mix my work on NDNG with my day job since despite them both having “wargame” in the title they are vastly different and done for very different reasons. Last summer I was asked by the USMC Warfighting Lab to help them playtest a game called Assassin’s Mace which is based on the Operational Wargame Series rules and is developed by the USMCWL. I was immediately impressed with the game system and felt that the hobby community would enjoy hearing about it.

By Glenn Van Meter and Tom Mullane

We are about a week and a half into the Blood & Plunder Global Community Campaign (,) and things are getting heated between the various nations involved. Players all over the world are submitting games they’ve played to to help their favorite nation.

Last week we had an update from Guy over at Blood & Pigment via the Campaign Newsletter, and we found out that with 26 entries so far the French were in the lead with the Dutch and English tied just one game behind them. The Brethren of the Coast were lurking in 4th place. Spain was still getting her ships together and hanging out with the pack of minor nations such as the various Native Tribes, Portuguese, and the Swedes. Scotland had an especially strong showing, leading the rest of the minor powers (and Spain) by one game.

As part of the Minor Nations Bagration book, Hungarians offer an interesting force for Late War now part of the v4 rules. I’m sure you’re eager to know how well they play? Maybe you’re a past Hungarian fan from the days of v3 or maybe you’re looking to put together a new Hungarian force. Let’s play a game and see how they perform.

Let’s start with the setting for our battle, a valley that has already seen plenty of action. I was aiming for something that can serve as hilly area in Hungary towards the end of ’44, early ’45 when the Hungarians were defending their homeland from the invading Russians. The terrain is mostly Gale Force 9 with a bit of Novus Design and some scratch builds.

By Kreighton Long

In honor of my new home in Virginia, and for a less commonly seen WWII US Army theme, I decided to design my US Army on the 29th Infantry Division.

The 29th was a National Guard division recruited from northern Virginia, Maryland, and southern Pennsylvania.  The division deployed to the European Theater of Operations and took part in the amphibious landing at Omaha Beach, bocage fighting in Normandy, siege warfare at Brest in Brittany, then urban fighting and battles of maneuver in Germany.

By Mitch Reed

As a young wargamer, two of my most favorite games to play was and by Avalon Hill. The games portrayed the strategic naval campaigns in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans respectively and help me fall for naval war gaming as a pre-teen. In 2019 the developers at took both of these games and updated them into a single game called Admirals’ War: World War Two at Sea. Recently I invited my pod of vaccinated gamers over to play the four-player version of the game and Admirals’ War brought back the fun of the Avalon Hill games of my youth.

By Ian Birdwell

Introduction

With new books and lists comes the opportunities to discuss new command cards, and the Hungarian ones are a doozy for all kinds of gamers. Personally, I’m pretty excited about the expansion into the realm of Axis minors, they add a ton of depth of field for the game on the Eastern Front in terms of gameplay while also opening new doors to explore the complex history of the war in the East. And those two perspectives, gameplay vs history, really characterize the command cards for the Hungarians in a big way.

So let’s get down to business in discuss the nuances and intricacies of the command cards that bring back some crowd favorites while opening the door to some brand new opportunities; through first a brief overview of some of the new units and abilities added into the Hungarian faction, then noting the new formations at hand, before finally bringing it all together in building a list from the cards.

By Glen Van Meter

This summer No Dice No Glory’s Tales of the Sail podcast is teaming up with the and to bring players the Summer of Plunder: 2021 B&P Worldwide Community Campaign. Members of NDNG and Blood & Pigment are each governing a different nationality and will be encouraging players to not only get games in but will also be able to assign special and sometimes secret missions. For our parts, Tom is the Spanish Governor, Tyler is the French Governor, and Glenn is the Dutch Governor.