15mm

By Tom Gall

The Wargaming Company makers of Et Sans Résultat (perhaps better known as ESR) have started to update and release their line of campaign books. The first in the refreshed line is To Assure My Dynasty, . These new campaign books are collectively called Series 3 to set them apart from past volumes.

With the book in your hands, the very first thing you’ll notice is, it’s a hardback. The prior series were spiral-bound volumes. Definitely a noticeable increase in quality but what about the content?

The campaign guide is 184 pages, all in full color. The book is broken up into several sections, first giving you a bit of background about the peninsular war, the countries, armies, and personalities involved in the conflict.

The next section covers how to use the book, with guidance on the size of the table, players, how to set up the maps, working with rosters, and how to handle scenarios that last for an extended period of time. After that is the campaign, 13 historical battles broken up into two logical parts. Last but not least is an extensive guide to the army uniforms each unit wore.

By Tom Burgess

Battlefront is continuing to expand its plastics range now adding Anti-Aircraft options to its Soviet Late War line. As these are now a formation unit in most motorized/mechanized Soviet Late War formations, they have become a bit of a “must have” that I did not have. So I decided to pick up a box to add to the T-34/85 Soviet Tank Battalion I planned to run in the 2020 US Flames of War Masters Tournament. I eagerly awaited for these to show up at my local game store, Hard Knox Games.

By Tom Burgess

Motivation to finish models when you are facing a huge backlog of miniatures can be daunting. It has been for me over the years and I had to come up with a system to keep ahead of all the new stuff I was buying. I do buy a lot of kit from Battlefront each year.

Even before the COVID impact on 2020, I resolved to complete 365 teams from my huge backlog of Flames of War, Team Yankee, and ‘Nam boxes. As a means to motivate myself to chew through that backlog, years ago I started keeping a log and posting it on the WWPD and then the No Dice No Glory forums when I finished models. It always felt good to post pictures of what I had completed and to mark them done on my tracking spreadsheet.

By Tom Burgess

Though I already have plenty of BRDM-2s, SA-9 Gaskins, and Spandrel AT launchers I could not pass up the great deal that the new World War III: Team Yankee (WW3:TY) Soviet army box was.  This gave me five BRDM-2 sprues that I was not sure I needed. I considered selling them or giving them away but decided I’d go ahead and build them to help get me to my goal of completing 365 Flames of War and WW3:TY teams in 2020. I also thought I could do a decent review article since I could compare these new plastic models to the older resin-metal models.

By Tom Burgess

Battlefront has released its Bagration German book.  I was interested and how, or even if, the Battlefront team could make a unique new book when so much of the standard German units seem already accounted for.  Though I was already quite content with the new book as is, it’s normally the Command Cards that take a new force book to the next level.  That is the case here as I think these new Bagration German Command Cards take an already excellent book product and knocked it out of the park with these new command cards.

By Tom Gall

The Flames of War Late War series continues with the latest book Bagration German. This is force is the mirror to the . Battlefront has slated the book, command cards, unit cards are more for a January release. Already if you look at the Battlefront site, you’ll see a .

Will this book make up for the Russian advances contained in the Bagration Soviet book? Is there a new meta ahead?  Will Hetzers Hetz? What surprises await? Let’s dive and see what Bagration German offers for you!

By Tom Gall

Christmas comes early for Soviet Team Yankee players in the form of the book with its impressive array of new units and new formation options. In this article, I’m going to share with you what I’m thinking about in terms of list building ideas, how I’m planning to supercharge my Soviet Team Yankee armies to dominate the battlefield.

No matter if you are a new or experienced Team Yankee player, you’re probably looking to do your best to win some games. With the new book, Battlefront is giving you additional tools towards that goal. I’m going to come at this from a few different angles. One is what if I was an entirely new player, what would I recommend you buy to put together a fun and competitive force?  As an experienced player, how will I modify my existing lists?  Last what older lists might I refresh and bring out again?

By Howard West

Background – a group of us at Legions Games in Pittsburgh, PA have been playing Flames of War for many years and Team Yankee since it was released. Several of us wanted to start playing something different but not that far away for our passion for Flames and Team Yankee.

A smaller group of us had already started assembling NAM armies in the Winter of 2018/2019 and several of the Flames guys thought NAM would be a good 2nd game for them vs TY or Fate of the Nation. So now we are off to the races. As I was completing several of my units for my NAM force several of our folks asked me how did I paint the completed units.

By Tom Gall

With the release of the Bagration Soviet book for Flames of War version 4, you might think this is a book that has no interest to you when you have no Soviet forces. There is some gold at the end of the book that might just change your mind.

The majority of the book is devoted to Late War Soviet forces, true. There are 50 pages of list material to consume.

After that there, several sections of extra material that I think will pique your interest. Remember a key feature of the D-Day series of books for version 4 has been extra missions and mini-campaigns. While I’m sure you’re familiar with the  the D-Day books and now Bagration added further missions for you to try your hand at.

By Tom Gall

There are a good number of quality WWII rulesets in existence, let’s explore some of these rules, point out what their strong/weak points are and compare what might draw you to one over the other.

The rulesets considered in this article are : by Battlefront, by Too Fat Lardies, by Warlord, by Plastic Soldier Company.

Each of these rules is generally company level actions with support, for the most part, feature individual models, and focus on the WWII era. All are D6 based. All have extra material that offer campaign experiences, lists, and flavor to feel like you’re been given command with a battle to win. All are either point costed and/or have a list building system which makes it easier to put together a game.

This week, we’ll look at two of the four: FOW and Battlegroup. The other two systems will follow in a later article.