Our coverage of Blood & Valor isn’t done just yet! Over the last few weeks, the previews of ‘who’ will be storming the trenches and gun emplacements of Blood & Valor. This week, I’m here to look at the ‘why’ – or rather, to give you a look at the scenarios for the game. Oh, and also, some armored fighting vehicles. You can ‘tank’ me later.
Welcome to the first episode of the BattleVault, a monthly US podcast dedicated to all things by Battlefront Games.
In the first half, Ed and Tom talk about last month’s new release of the 21st Panzer Division book and card set.
In the second half, they look ahead to the upcoming World War Three (Team Yankee) British book release.
The boys close episode one out with “Rules that Ed forgot” and a look at Flames of War and WW3 Team Yankee events coming in Feburary and March 2020.
Finally the day has come, something new for the British Faction in Team Yankee. I cant say the wait was worth it, mostly because i hate waiting. But the Wait is over, and now i have so much money to spend. There is a lot to be excited for in this now book. Super Heavy Tanks, light zippy recce and FINALLY, a new AA option. Add to that MRLS and the IFV and you have a great bunch of options to bring to the table now.
by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell
Well, its not exactly your classic Team Yankee Match-Up: Hungarian People’s Army vs the Texas National Guard, but here it is. Scott ‘Obsidian23’ Roach has been busy over the holidays finishing off his Hungarians (plays as Soviets in terms of list used) and since he has Hungarians for Flames of War and Bolt Action, why not for Team Yankee as well?
We decided to play 120pts, which is the new North American tournament standard, as we have a semi-local event in April, and I will be using my M1 company that I’ve been working on over the holidays ().
Episode 3 of Tails of the Sail, a podcast dedicated to Firelock Games. The boys are joined by Mike Tunez and talk about what is in store for 2020.
If you played any wargaming set of rules in 15mm on a standard 1.80 x 1.20 m tables, you’ll notice every wood becomes a parking lot. With armies like Russians or Iranians, deploying dozens of BMPs or cheap Chieftains, you end up with crowds behind buildings or floods of transports hiding under every available tree. It’s not something wrong in the rules – they work just fine – but with the scale of the troops: 15mm vehicles on a standard table seem often simply too big.
We talked a lot in our local Milan “X Legio” club, and we got an idea: change the scale. From the 15mm we moved to the 6mm, less than one third, to see if the games improved. Spoiler: they did!
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?
