Panzerschreck 2021 Tournament Report

By Richard Steer

Panzerschreck is an annual Flames of War tournament in New Zealand, hosted by the Manawatu Duellists club in the city of Palmerston North. It has the honor of being the longest-running FOW event on the NZ wargaming calendar, having first been held in 2001 when the game was still in open beta.

The format of the 2021 tournament was 160pt Late War doubles, with 2.5 hour rounds played on 8’x4′ tables. Teams were required to field a valid force with a minimum of one formation per player, with the points able to be split between players however they wanted.

The Many Squads of Advanced Squad Leader

By David Garvin

In the many wargames I’ve played, most countries’ soldiers were treated fairly equally. Some units were stronger than others, and some were faster than others, but in , units do not only differ by nation, but also by class and type. Section 25 of Chapter A of the rule book is dedicated to the various nations; however, there are other parts of the rule book that lay out the various characteristics of the many countries that fought in the Second World War and the Korean War.

Chapter A covers the nationalities that fought in Europe, Chapter G expands into the Pacific and Chapter W covers Korea. In order to maximize your forces in ASL, a complete understanding of your national characteristics is vital. Before getting into the meat of the characteristics and traits, a note from the authors of the rule book is in order. As they say, “Nationality Distinctions vary troop capabilities from one nation to  another, and while patently unfair in their application of stereotyped and over-simplified traits to all troops of a country without exception, nonetheless do serve to give the game much of its flavor.”

X-COM Franchise Retrospective (Part Two)

By Patrick S. Baker

X-COM: Terror from the Deep

With copies of the first X-COM game flying off the shelves, MicroProse, now merged with Spectrum Holobyte to form MicroProse, Inc., wanted a sequel to the game in just six months. The Gollop brothers hesitated at this proposal, declaring that all could be done in this timeframe was changing sprites and re-using the original code.

So, instead of developing the sequel the Gollops licensed the game code to MicroProse, that would produce the sequel, named X-COM: Terror from the Deep, in-house. Meanwhile, the Gollops went to work on what would become the third game in the series.

Terror was released on 1 June 1995 for DOS PCs and then ported to the PlayStation the next year. The game tells the story of the Second Alien War, some forty years after the First Alien War. Following the destruction of the Alien Brain on Mars, extraterrestrials under the Earth’s seas awaken after millions of years. These new aliens begin to terrorize ships and ports, and abducting humans. The X-COM organization is revived to fight this new alien menace from the deep.

2021 Team Yankee Masters

By Howard West

Team Yankee 2021 Masters was held at located on 8796 Michigan Rd, Indianapolis, IN 46268 on June 26th and 27th, 2021. Family Time Games is a really nice gaming store and has a nice stock of both Flames of War and Team Yankee products. They also stock many other Boardgames, RPG’s, Miniatures, Cards, and other Gaming supplies. Stop and visit the store if you are in the greater Indianapolis area.

Team Yankee Masters is an invitation-only event hosted by each year in June for the top sixteen players as ranked by Battle Rankings in the United States and Canada.  The rankings are based on players placements in various Team Yankee Tournaments across the country during that years season. The Team Yankee tournament season runs from May 1st previous year to April 31 of the current year.  Formal invitations where mailed out to the qualifiers in early May. The 2021 Team Yankee Masters Tournament was sponsored by , Family Time Games, and

Converting a Romanian 75mm Artillery Piece

By Kreighton Long

While window shopping for light artillery models for my WW2 Romanian army I found limited options to choose from. While Great Escape Games makes a fine looking Romanian light artillery piece (one will make its way into my arsenal eventually) I wanted to challenge myself with a bit of conversion work to add variety to my three-light artillery Romanian list for Bolt Action.

For my conversion attempt I began with the wooden spoked wheel variant of the WWI French style 75mm gun as found in the Warlord Games . The crew themselves needed a little customization to make them more Romanian which is where the conversion work was done for this piece. I did attempt to find a way to modify German, Soviet, and American helmets to the point where they would pass as Romanian but the solution alluded me.

Firestarter: Who were the Boucaniere?

By Tyler Stone

Firelock recently announced their , the gun-toting women ‘Boucaniere’. The project “funded” in record time, and digital modeling is underway for a full release of the ladies. We’ll be seeing them in live metal soon, but where do these women come from, and how do they fit into Blood & Plunder?

The only lists that Boucaniere appear in are the French ‘Chasseurs’ and ‘Caribbean Militia’ subfactions. These factions reflect the early 17th century French settlements in the Spanish Main. Despite their reputation, these settlers were not adventurers, but refugees of religious persecution.

Ahhh… Gaming again and a batrep

By Troy Hill

I didn’t realize how much I missed other gamers until I had to go about 18 months without seeing them.

True, we stayed connected on social media. And a lot of us used TableTop Simulator, or Roll20 to get in virtual games.

But there is nothing like being back in person. Seeing friends (for me, new friends that I barely got to know last winter. I forget if we had a March game day (maybe?)

This technically wasn’t my first game back from the great distancing. We had one of those in June. Back then we had four players at our North-east Indiana Bolt Action day. Our group gets together once a month for Bolt Action on the second Saturday of the month, and again on the fourth (occasionally the fifth weekend if there is one). This Saturday we had five players for Bolt Action. Not bad. We’d had a few drift off to other games, or still ensconced in catching up with family. Five is a good number. Except someone has to take on two opponents…

Yep. That someone was me. And mistakes were made.

Summer of Plunder – World Campaign Month 1 recap

By Tyler Stone

We have had our first full week of campaign gaming in July, and the latest results are flooding in! The Brethren of the Coast have widened their lead, claiming 22 of the more than 100 games played. They’re not ahead by much though, and the English are doggedly pursuing the unruly pirates with 20 games to their name. Hot on their heels are the Spanish and French, each claiming 19 games.

No Dice No Glory Episode 99: Tails of the Sail 18

Glenn, Tom, and Tyler take a dive into Oak and Iron. Tune in to see what the game is about, what you get in the starter, and what to expect when you’re trying it out. We also update the community about the current state of affairs in the Blood and Plunder Campaign. Glenn and Tom make their bets for July, and finally, we give away our biggest Trivia prize yet with a question about a Pirate King from Madagascar.  Thanks for listening!