by Dennis Jensen

On March 12th-15th I attended Cold Wars 2020 at the Lancaster Wyndham (formerly the Lancaster Host.)  As always, I had plans to teach at Hobby University.  At this show I was scheduled to teach one beginner’s painting class using Games Workshop Squigs, host four-speed paint competitions and take part in an interview panel about entering painting competitions.  My wife was scheduled to help with Paint and Take and my boys were going to play games, and paint figures.

There was some concern that the show would be canceled due to the threat of COVID-19 as other, larger events, were being canceled, however, the show went on.  As the weekend progressed more and more events around the country were canceled leading a few of us to refer to Cold Wars as “The Last Convention in America.”

By Tom Gall and NDNG Dane

The (PSC) will be releasing shortly* a much anticipated new set of rules covering World War III, while a “what if”, a conventional war has touched off and the forces of NATO and WARPAC are enjoined in battle across Europe, each in a desperate struggle to take/give ground before presumably, the nukes might fly.

Titled Battlegroup: NORTHAG, the book focuses on the Northern Army Group section of the front, thus NORTHAG. The setting is 1983 which Warwick Kinrade choose as it was a time of heightened tensions between the powers and was the dividing line before the introduction of a wide range of new equipment.

In this series of articles, we’ll be looking at the rules, the British and Soviet army lists that are included with the new book and finish up with a couple of BatReps.

By Paolo Paglianti

Time to complete our IDF force.  we saw the tanks and the armored vehicles, so now we will move to the Infantry, helos, and airplanes.

Having assembled and painted our Merkava 2s, the Perehs, the M113s, and some artillery/AA, we are still missing the infantry. IDF infantry is really good in defending an objective, and they can unleash a powerful volley of shots on any enemy moving to assault them. In our list, we chose to do a single infantry platoon, relying on a double Merkava 2 platoon to assault enemy positions.

From the creature comforts of the game-cave, it was time for a little , featuring 150pts of French Caribbean Militia vs a Pirate force.

Set near the local governor’s house, we marshaled our forces and rolled up a scenario from the No Peace Beyond the Line book. The dice picked our fate an escort mission and with the Pirate force no less doing the escorting. Obviously they’ve taken someone of import captive that the French must try and rescue from a grizzly fate.

Ed and Tom practice Social Distancing and hit the air-waves from separate locations for a “locked-down” installment of No Dice No Glory’s BattleVault podcast.

By Chris Masucci

Looking to jump into a new game and a new time period is a tempting prospect for many gamers. With my local gaming group mostly focused on Bolt Action/Konflikt 47, a few of us recently made the decision to expand our gaming horizons and add a new game to our collection.

Team Yankee seemed like enough of change from our weird war 2 platoon scale endeavors. Jumping into a different time period and with a more zoomed out scope with company scale engagements brings with it the focus on armored warfare and large scale troop movements in a more epic feeling 15mm. With a new project at our heels, our game group quickly divided up what product we could get and all began to choose factions. Not wanting to go for any obvious choices, I decided to build a 1970’s era Egyptian tank company with a bit of support from a motor rifle platoon or two.

Editorial Comment: We all know it will be a while before Battlefront gets around to updating every force and list to it’s Version 4 format. Far too often we see players lament that their forces are not “officially” represented in the rules yet. But in may cases, as Clive shows us with his ideas for Late War Romanians, there are many suitable analogs that, with a little thought, can let  player break out his waiting models and get in great gaming action. Even in “official” events, players could take Clive’s suggestions to expand their gaming opportunities with models they have now.

By Clive Henrick,

During the late war period, the Romanian army is far less than what it was at Stalingrad, but it can still mount a defense and with support do local counter-attacks. It’s more of a defense army at its heart with dogged defenders, good at counter-attacks, but not one that you would normally think off to clear the table of the enemy.

Even without a Late War Romanian 4th edition book, the flavor of the Romanian forces can still be captured in Late War Flames of War by using a combination of German D-Day book and the German D-Day Command Cards.

By Troy A. Hill

As I write this, the world, including the gaming world, has screeched to a halt. Covid-19 has crippled activities the world over. Gamers, like all others not in essential industries, are being told the shelter in place, and avoid social contact to stop the pandemic.

For gamers, from this tragic time, arises a golden opportunity. The pile of lead, resin and plastic shame in our hobby dens can finally be addressed. I’ve begun a small dent in my own pile of shame, finishing up some DAK and Italy campaign Germans for Bolt Action. I’ve also got most of my Demo-Kit for (BRS) in various shades of paint awaiting decals and final matte spray.

Fortunately, my copy of Air Strike! appeared in my post box before the order for social distancing came into effect. Now that I’ve had a chance to flip through it and give it a good read, I want to take the opportunity to address the idea of whether the book is a good entry point into the game for a new player.

In the “old days” of the DBM, I met Simon Hall various times when I went to competition around UK and – boy – he is a really good player. It was around the end of the 90s. Two years ago, I began to play WW2 games, so imagine my surprise when I discovered Simon was developing a new ruleset for that period in collaboration with Mark Bevis and Plastic Soldier Company. Actually, two sets of rules, with similar structure and philosophy: Division of Steel, for 6mm-15mm Company level battles, and Man of Steel, for 20-28mm 1:1 skirmish battles.

Simon is a veteran in writing wargaming rules. He is the mind behind and he also covered the Renaissance and the Napoleonic ages. He invented the (CCC), already tested in his previous set of rules, and now he is using it in Division of Steel and Man of Steel. So, who better to ask, than Simon, about his new WW2 rules?

By Tom Burgess

My good friend Ed and I were very excited to acquire last month’s release of the 21st Panzer Division expansion books/cards for the D-Day Germans in Flames of War Version 4. We both have a lot of 21st Panzer Division kit in our collections, but only Ed had any of it done.  So I rolled out my new US Sheman Company so we could get in a game with the new hotness.