28mm

By Kreighton Long

For the last year I’ve had a squad of Vietnam War USMC Recon primed and sitting in my queue.  Every time a new project would join them and pass them up I could feel their crayon-craving stares boring into my soul.  Eventually I could take no more of their non-verbal harassment and promoted them from my queue to my painting desk.

After some brief investigating I decided to paint them in the ERDL lowland camouflage that was commonly worn by USMC Recon during the Vietnam War.  While replicating the complex pattern shown below in detail is beyond my skill level and patience I endeavored to replicate the colors well enough to represent the camouflage patter.

The paints I used are Vallejo’s Black (950), USA Uniform (922), German Cam. Medium Brown (826), Golden Olive (857), and Pale Sand (837).

By Tom Gall

Just a few more days until Bolt Action v3 is out and time to dig into the system of missions for playing the game. As you might recall from second edition, there were 12 missions to choose from. Late in the life of v2 there was additionally a tournament package or two that were circulating for playing from.

With the dawn of v3 and the core book, missions are divided into two types, Battle Scenarios, aimed more for a pick up game where both side have similar deployment zones and victory conditions, and Story Scenarios, when you’d like something with a bit more flair. These scenarios are meant to be less even and more situationally designed with one side trying to drive to a particular goal and the other trying to prevent.

by Matt Varnish 

A new edition of Bolt Action by Warlord Games is upon us, we were blessed with an advanced copy, and rather than spill the beans for all the competitive players like everyone else, we figured why not actually play a regular old fun game with fellow No Dice No Glory alum, Scott Roach.   We decided upon a desert game, so that he could dust off his Aussies and his Afrika Korps.   We tried to incorporate as many new things from the new edition, and as luck would have it we came across a fair amount of questions and sneaky changes.

First big change, the way army lists are built is different.   No longer can you take a lone ’88 or Pzr III, now these support units need to be in their own platoons.  My own Blitzkrieg army only has 1 HQ painted up so I’ll need to paint up more, since a Heavy Weapons platoon and Artillery platoon need their own Lieutenant or Hauptmann.  Speaking of lists, here is what we ran:

By Troy Hill

The wait is over!

“This is what you’ve all been waiting for. This September, the fighting intensifies. Warlord Games and Osprey Games are proud to announce a new edition of the world’s greatest World War II wargame… “~ Warlord Games

…premiering late September, 2024.

Warlord has an announcement on their website here.

EDITOR’s NOTE: Since that includes more information than was in the original press release, this story is being updated with additional information.

This seems to be the year for World War 2 action from Warlord Games! The exhaust and smoke from the battlefield of Warlord’s new Achtung Panzer! game is hot an heavy, and now Warlord announces the impending release of Bolt Action 3rd Edition.  Wow!

In a press release from Warlord Games, Alessio Cavatore is tagged as the rules guru behind the new version. Since he’s been at the controls of the game since its inception, that’s no surprise.

by Matt Varnish

Good morning everyone, hope all is well.    While I have been slaving away the past few months with rebasing entire units of French and redoing every single officer, and painting WAY too much gold braiding, I have also taken some time to make up a few characters for Sharp Practice.    Sharp practice is a semi skirmish ruleset for a variety of time periods, but is in the adventurous vein of Sharpe’s Rifles, the excellent show where the good guys always lose (the French)

In Sharp Practice, in addition to the usual infantry, horse and skirmishers that anyone with a Black Powder army already has, there are also leaders and heroes as well as some other characters on single bases.   There are a great many charts to roll up for them and see what special abilities they had, and a LOT of them under the Cad section has them chasing after women.. I mean, this IS AFTER ALL based on Sharpe !

By Troy Hill

A lot of interest is brewing about Warlord’s impending new arrival, the Achtung Panzer game. And rightly so.

I had the opportunity to lead members of our local gaming group through a (very) basic game this weekend. Reviews were positive from the players, post-game.

Rather than give a blow-by-blow of the battle, I’d like to look back at some of the rules, what we kept looking up, and how the game rules functioned as the players challenged my memory (like a rusty steel trap with a broken spring) and kept me looking up rules.

By Troy Hill

Images courtesy of Warlord Games

Warlord is doing it again!

What are they doing?

Creating another game that expands into an underserved niche. If you feel the need to run some tank on tank combat in 28mm without all that pesky infantry bogging you down, Achtung Panzer! could be the game for you. 

But we have a ton of WW2 games now!

I hear you. Warlord’s flagship is Bolt Action, WW2 level Skirmish platoon level combat on the tabletop. There’s also Flames of War in 15mm at the Company level. Not to mention the Too Fat Lardies range of WWII games, and countless others available via sites such at Wargame Vault.

Warlord even has their Tank Wars variant rules for Bolt action.

But this is not Bolt Action rehashed.

Today we have John Chang the designer of Black Powder Red Earth a 28mm ultra-modern tactical skirmish game. We talk about the game and the design process the developers went through to get the game to market.

by Troy Hill

I’ve been looking for a great game outside of the historical tabletop genre. One that will take me back to my fantasy gaming roots. And I might have found THE ONE.

No, not the one from the behemoth company out of Nottingham. The one from that other, upstart company out of Nottingham.

By Tom Gall

Terrain in the form of buildings for the tabletop has evolved over the years. The technology for what makes for a great building continues to evolve. Scratch builds, plastic model kits, cast resin, pre-painted resin, MDF, 3D print just to name a few. Depending on how long you’ve been around you might have a variety of samples from from technology stage.

I was especially happy many years back when Miniature Building Authority and Battlefront/Gale Force 9 offered pre-painted terrain called “Battlefield in a box” that once the packaging was open you had something to use on the tabletop. It was nice to not be adding to my paint queue for a change.

Old favorites like Novus Design while great kit still had a “you must paint it” step. They just recently retired from the business and will be missed.

Micro Art Studios recently released a line of Normandy-themed buildings with “pre-painted” MDF in 28mm. This article takes a look at the line.