28mm

By Phil Gurtler

Why Black Powder Red Earth 28mm?

Simply put, it is a hyper lethal, near-future skirmish game set in the middle east and the type of game I have been waiting for. This past year I’ve been craving an ultra-modern skirmish game to supplement my regular diet of WW2 games.  After some research online, I found a couple of potential options. Spectre Operations, In Country (also known as INX and will be showcasing V2 at Adepticon this year) and Black Powder Red Earth 28mm.

Of those, Spectre Operations and INX failed to catch my attention. But BPRE28mm grabbed me by the lapels and refused to let me go for months. Every two weeks I would seriously debate dropping the $300 on the starter set from their website.  Flash forward almost a year, and I am spending a few months at Fort Meade needing something to do. I headed to the local store and found out they have both the starter set and a beautifully painted store demo copy. That’s it; let’s rock this casbah.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Well all right, this is something I’ve been waiting for, the first non-Army book for Bolt Action, the v3 Compendium articles written by the Community. One thing I loved about Bolt Action v2 was the many campaign books and the extra flavour they brought to the game. I wasn’t a huge fan of the many one-off vehicles that became staples of all competitive lists from the old Campaign books, but I mean, that’s what’s expected when they aren’t really playtested?

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

In my previous article here, I mentioned trying out three lists and seeing what I’ll take to some upcoming events. Troubles at the Kruppe plant (aka 3d Printing issues) mean the Panzer IIs were still on the factory floor, and thus I would take either the gunline army or Mixed Bag list out for a spin vs Scott Roach.

Our order for the new Armies of Germany book and my MMG teams not having arrived yet meant probably not the Gunline list, so I decided to put together a list that had many of my new units painted and I could try out the ‘Hit Squad’ idea:

Blood and Plunder, a very well liked game here in these parts of Minnesota, hasn’t been seeing a lot off time on the game table. Frankly as a community up here in Minnesota things have been more than a bit dormant and while a game or two would pop up now and again, we just haven’t been good advocates for it until there was that fateful Facebook posting, you know the one, does anyone play Blood and Plunder near by …. you fill in the blank.

I’m sure you’ve seen those kinds of posts from time to time for games you care about, and the question to take to heart is what do you do about it? At a minimum responding and saying “I play and I’m located (your location here).” definitely helps and if luck is with you, maybe you’ll meet a new friend and get to play some games.

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.