Cruel Seas by Warlord games is a WWII naval skirmish game for PT boats, coastal cutters, and smaller craft. Within our gaming group, the rules have seen renewed interest so time for more battle reports and some highlights of how we keep the game fun.

We played this game at D6 games in Rochester Minnesota just before the holidays.

We used the More Missions document which is a player-created set of random missions that allows you to roll up everything from terrain to what it is your fleet is being asked to do. This can be found on the .

By Ian Birdwell

This year Battlefront found the perfect item to get my out of my finals-funk of grading and paper writing, the publication of the 21st Panzer booklet to supplement the D-Day German book. If you haven’t seen the overview Tom Burgess wrote, take a gander at it (.

This particular article is going to be more geared towards a discussion of the lists of your 21st panzer forces on the battlefield, going over the shining stars of the formations within the book, the one item to leave at home, and how to bring your V3 force up to speed with V4’s update to the 21st Panzer in Normandy. 

In terms of the lists to look at, Tom did a great examination of the benefits of the formations and the general role of the forces, this article plans ongoing slightly more in-depth regarding them. Initially, we’ll touch on the most important of the formations of the 21st Panzer, the Beute StuGs! The shining example of awesome within this formation remains the humble Beute StuG, who doesn’t love a tank destroyer with AT 12 to back up your Panzer Grenadiers?

This is where the formation shines in my eyes, being able to bring to force what amounts to the formation of Marders. Especially with the rise of heavy tanks like Churchills in gaming clubs across the globe, I suspect that this formation is going to be fairly popular- at least I know I’m in love with it.

By Tom Gall

The US Civil War (1861-1865) ushered in a new kind of naval warfare. Ships made of metal, powered by steam, ships pushed into service which were never quite made for the task. It was an amazing time and is a great period to game.

Neil Stokes of the St Paul Irregulars has authored a wonderful set of rules call Steam and Black Powder that do a great job capturing the challenges of battle in this era and make for a very fun time.

The rule book is 48 pages, with the first 14 pages comprising the rules and the rest made up of tables, ship stats and some historical actions to try out on the tabletop. It’s a fairly quick read and won’t take you much time to get up and running on the tabletop.

A turn is comprised of 5 steps with each side going at the same time, there is no activation system which 0n the one hand eliminates problems like last/firsting but also removes some amount of “drama” hoping you’ll get the drop on someone.

The game uses inches for movement and suggests 1/600 models. In my case I’m using 1/1200 since that is the hardware I have on hand. We didn’t experience any issues and I did not make any adjustments for scale. It just worked.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

With the new version of Team Yankee now out, I can finally put some thought into Team Yankee again!    Last year I had vowed to simply stop playing V1 Team Yankee until the new rules came out, after playing my Syrians and getting confused at and 2 local events in the spring between V1 TY rules and V4 Flames rules.  My Syrians did decently despite the list being garbage and me not taking the french gear that I should (Gazelles, Milans), winning probably through weight of numbers alone and not skill or anything.

However late 2019, I acquired a US Team Yankee force in a trade and what a perfect way to get into the new army, with some new rules!   Tristan, the previous owner, had wanted a Desert Storm army, to be different than all the NATO West Germany-based MERDC forces you saw back when V1 Team Yankee first came out.    So what is more iconic than the might of America, charging across the Desert?

By Glenn Van Meter

I think that what draws many of us, as gamers, to new systems is often the “coolness” or “flashiness” factor of seeing the miniatures on the table. Oftentimes, this can draw us in, even if we don’t know anything about a particular period of historical gaming, or even have a background in the scale or style of game we’re looking at. This, to an extent, is what caught my eye initially with By Fire and Sword, Produced by Wargamer out of Poland.

By Mitch Reed

Gallipoli and the Near East are two campaigns that have become iconic and thanks the many movies, TV shows and books on these campaigns we have some great examples of how the conflict in these theaters went down.

This article will detail the forces in these two theaters and will be the third and final preview on what is in store for you in Blood and Valor from I would recommend that you look over the first article (or second) in this series that explains the construct on the force lists in the game.

By Tom Gall

Chuck and I got together at D6 Games in Rochester Mn this past week to pit our forces against each other using the new v2 Team Yankee rules by Battlefront. We decided to play a 115-point match which is the point level that has been set as a suggestion for tournaments to use for 2020.

By Chris Masucci

Being somewhat versed in WW2 wargaming years ago with Flames of War V2, my recent gaming time has been taken up more and more with Warlord Games’ 28mm take on WW2, Bolt Action. Scaling down the company level engagements of Flames down to a more platoon and infantry centric scene, Bolt Action has seemed to echo older editions of Warhammer 40k in the more recent years. Having an interest in the system already, late last year I finally decided to expand my collection into the realms of Bolt Action’s official sci-fi expansion

By Mitch Reed

In my last article I told you all about the armies you will find fighting on the Western Front in Blood and Valor from Firelock Games. In this article we will go over the forces that fought in East Africa during the Great War. If you did not catch my previous article, I would recommend you do, the first half of the article talk about how formations are built and what units comprise a unit.

Last year when I asked (begged) Rufus and Kai DeVane to help with Blood and Valor it was my intention to include the fighting in East Africa which is omitted from so many games. My love for the theater is due to the many books I have read on the subject, the colorful characters who played a role in the campaign and the fact that it breaks the trench deadlock vision that many gamers have when the Great War is brought up.

If you play 3d wargames, you will want to have awesome battlefields. And which scenario could happen without some hills? The ones made by producers like Battlefront or Games Workshop are wonderful, but if you need a number they can become quite expensive. So, here is how we can do easy, scenic, beautiful hills with very affordable costs.