By Troy A. Hill

“Suddenly a low flying aircraft buzzes them and a flare is fired beyond the trees. As they walk the men look up, first at the plane and then at the flare as it hung in the air slowly moving toward the ground. As their eyes lower to the horizon, they widen. Across the road behind another stone wall are figures with the distinctive silhouette of German soldiers. Alarmed the five American stragglers realise they are facing the enemy, feeling a rush of adrenaline they raise their weapons.” – excerpt from Campaign D-Day: Overlord by Warlord Games and Osprey Publishing

That snippet is from the opening text for mission #5 in the new D-Day: Overlord book for Bolt Action. Our gaming group at Brookhurst Hobbies in Garden Grove California is gaming in the Normandy theatre, and we decided to give this scenario a try this past weekend.

Today we have Walter and Davis Vail the creators of Heart of Leviathan. An amazing dreadnought period game that covers tactical ship combat and will go on pre-sale on 5 July at

By David Garvin

If you’ve been intrigued by my posts here on NO DICE NO GLORY, and you want to start into Advanced Squad Leader (ASL).  I can well imagine that you’re thinking “Well?  How do I start?”  Simple question and with typical ASL style, there is no easy answer. There are a few paths to playing ASL. In this article, I’m going to lay out five paths to playing ASL. Then I’ll tell which path I took.

By Tom “Chairborne” Mullane

Thanks to John Spiess, and the generous folks over at (who are hosting Historicon in only a few short weeks), a small group of students were able to dip their toes into war gaming this past year.  Back in September,  It was suggested by John and by fellow NDNG writer Tom Burgess, that HMGS might see fit to give these kids some money to start a club here at the high school I teach in.

With the 500 dollars we received, coupled with Brian Sullivan over at Battlefront, The students ordered a full set of paints, all the Midwar books, and enough terrain to get them started.  Brian also threw in some hills and buildings for free with our order. But as the year drew to a close, and with it the 75th anniversary of DDay, I asked if students would be interested in a different extracurricular project.  What you will see here are the results of their efforts.

Embarking on a Great Crusade D-Day Mega-Game

The Huntsville Historical Gamers gathered on 8 June to recreate the Allied Invasion of Europe. Operation Overlord was the codename for the Allied invasion of northwest Europe. The assault phase of Operation Overlord, was known as Operation Neptune. Operation Neptune began on D-Day (6 June 1944) and ended on 30 June 1944. By this time, the Allies had established a firm foothold in Normandy. Operation Overlord also began on D-Day, and continued until Allied forces crossed the River Seine on 19 August 1944.

By Jacob Shober

Converting is one of my favorite parts of assembling miniatures; customizing them by changing (whether simply or drastically) from the original model, to create your own flavor of character or pose.

This is sometimes daunting to a beginner, as you see tutorial after tutorial on using green stuff, plasticard, brass rods, and various other extra parts. Sometimes, you end up spending as much as if not more on extra materials to convert your model as you did on the model itself.

This does not need to be the case, however, as this article will show. Sometimes, it is as simple as shaving off a tiny bit of plastic, “cutting and pasting” from other parts on the same sprue, or even using parts of the sprue itself. Below are several examples of tricks I have used to customize my own miniatures, so you too can bring your models to life in your own special way.

Tactics talk is back! North American FoW champ is back with Ian Birdwell and they talk all about the Fortress Europe book.

By David Garvin

When I went to my first gaming tournament, it was a local Flames of War tournament. About a dozen or so of us showed up and it was grand fun. We played three rounds in a day and I recall not winning a single game, yet having a blast. My force was composed of a Germany grenadier company. It was essentially custom built and I knew how to use it, in spite of not winning (the games were close, as I recall).

I later went to the Canadian Nationals in Ottawa. For this tournament I had an armored infantry company from the US 2^nd Armored Division. It was late war and I did much better. There were two days of play and I got in 6 matches.

We had a great crowd and there was quite a bit of competition that really got me to hone my skills. The next year I did even better; it was early war and I had a German Panzer Company, based around Panzer 38 (t) E tanks.

By Matt MacKenzie

The new(ish) ‘Nam 1965-1972 book is out and consider me excited! It is my absolute honor to bring you Marines in Vietnam, I grew up just after the last troops were pulled out of there. I’ve seen all the movies, documentaries and now it’s time to (re)launch Vietnam in 15mm with a revamped rules set based on V4 for Flames of War. It’s my intention to present the options and lists you are able to put together from a time when Marines were taking the fight to the NVA in the jungle and streets of South East Asia.

You’re an errand boy. Sent by grocery clerks. To collect a bill. -Col. Walter E. Kurtz

It wasn’t an average Friday for the folks who run wargames at the Pentagon for the US Air Force, Instead of starting off their weekends, a few of these professional wargamers stuck around to play a game of in order to become familiar with the hobby side of wargaming.

Some of you may recall from my podcast welcoming Phil and Nate to the NDNG team that my day job is to conduct wargames for the US Air Force. While many may believe the two worlds are similar I would point out, despite a few similarities, they are vastly different.