Battlefront

By Tom Burgess

As part of the Breakthrough Assault and No Dice No Glory online Firestorm Gazala Campaign my friend, Charles, and I managed play Battle 4 from turn 1 in the campaign. I’d be playing the defending British with a force themed on the 7th Motor Brigade, while Charles was to roll with a 5th Panzer Regiment force with some loaned support from the 132nd Areite Division’s tanks.

We naturally decided that the British would take a defensive stance while Germans would be attacking. Using the Battle Plans matrix we rolled up “No Retreat’ for a mission. Charles set up the table using my terrain while I finished updating my list from a battle I played on the previous day. Charles set up a mostly open deep desert board. I chose to defend on the slightly more hilly side and where I could have better access to the short table edge.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell

Those that know me, know that I am a huge plane nerd.    So it might be odd that I did the A-10’s for my Team Yankee Americans last and not first. The reason for this was threefold:  In the previous version of Team Yankee, aircraft were too easily killed by AA fire, even humble vehicle machine guns.

Second, the very high AT weapons weren’t really needed in a game without M1A1s, Challengers and T-80s.  Third, they were the Battlefront resin kits, with the weapons in the wrong spot, painted in a Desert Scheme that wasn’t really used, plus I did not have access to decals even if I did repaint them.

by Tom Burgess (standing in as General Ritchie)

The game is afoot…..

Mark from Breakthrough Assault and I finished the operational moves for Turn 1 in the Breakthrough Assault and No Dice No Glory Collaborative Firestorm Gazala Campaign. Several battles have already been reported but there’s still time to get in those first-round fights.

King and Country need you!

As the British C-in-C, I wanted to share some thoughts about how we got to where we are in the turn one battles and what my hopes for each are.

Though we rolled a high number of battles for turn one, miraculously the British won the initiative in two of these against steep odds.  That was the good news. The bad news was that initiative came late and after the main German attacks had already been committed. The opportunities for spoiling attacks were limited to just one option.

See Turn 1 Battles

By Tom Burgess

One aspect of playing World War Three Team Yankee that many people enjoy is list building. Trying to design the most perfect list to take on all opponents in all mission is almost a hobby withing itself.  However commanders through history rarely ever get to “design” their force.

Instead, Commanders are generally are assigned units to accomplish a specified task. As much fun as it is to design a force and test it, it also can be very enjoyable to see how well you can do with a set force challenged to contest with specific historical conditions.

We are talking about playing historical scenarios rather than playing generated missions with designed forces.

Though World War Three Team Yankee is set in a fictional World War Three setting, Battlefront has done a great job including “historical” scenarios from this hypothetical war in their  World War Three Team Yankee books.

By Tom Burgess

I am very excited about the impending release of the new World War III Team Yankee American book. That may surprise many who know me as I have only ever played Soviet and East Block type forces in Team Yankee so far. But the reality is that US forces were my first purchase for Team Yankee and I have quite a collection of US units still boxed and waiting to be built.

I only shifted to Soviets to help the force balance in my local gaming area. By now my Soviets are quite complete and its time for me to go full throttle into Americans for Team Yankee with this new book.

The World War III Team Yankee American book is a significant expansion from the preceding Stripes US Forces in World War III book. All the formations and support that were available to the US player in Stripes are also in the new book. In addition to these, the new book has added the M1A1 Armored Combat Team, M2 Bradley Combat Team, M3 Bradley Cavalry Troop, Combined Army (Heavy) Company, Combined Arms (Light) Company, and the Light Attack Company.

By Tom Burgess

When the WWIII Team Yankee US nationals point levels went to 120 points this year, I was a bit beside myself on how I was going to expand my Soviet collection. At 100 points it already was huge and filling up my ground unit transport cases.

So I decided to go “vertical” and buff up my air support for my Soviets. I already had two of the older resin SU-25s that Battlefront offered previously and a friend offered me a set of the new Battlefront plastic SU-25s () at a price that I could not pass up. Since I now had both the older new sets, I thought it might do be nice to a bit of a combination review and comparison.

By Tom Burgess

One of my major projects of 2019 was to complete an all plastic German East Front Mid-War army. I chose to focus on Gepanzert Panzer Grenadiers. To do this I had two boxes of Battlefront’s ‘s and two Boxes of Plastic Soldier Company’s ‘s. So I thought this provided a nice opportunity to review and compare what these two companies offer for the same model.

Both companies provide the SdKfz-251/C in unit boxes of five vehicles. The Plastic Soldier Company (PSC) boxed set cost $29.99 (US) with crews/passengers but only the machinegun armed transport option and no decals.

Battlefront (BF) box set cost $45.99 (US) and comes with parts to build all five models as the transport (with or without 3.7cm anti-tank gun), the 7.5cm short assault gun, or the 8cm armored mortar version. The BF set also the proprietary unit cards, for use in Flames of War, as well as a sheet of waterslide decals.

Editorial Comment: We all know it will be a while before Battlefront gets around to updating every force and list to it’s Version 4 format. Far too often we see players lament that their forces are not “officially” represented in the rules yet. But in may cases, as Clive shows us with his ideas for Late War Romanians, there are many suitable analogs that, with a little thought, can let  player break out his waiting models and get in great gaming action. Even in “official” events, players could take Clive’s suggestions to expand their gaming opportunities with models they have now.

By Clive Henrick,

During the late war period, the Romanian army is far less than what it was at Stalingrad, but it can still mount a defense and with support do local counter-attacks. It’s more of a defense army at its heart with dogged defenders, good at counter-attacks, but not one that you would normally think off to clear the table of the enemy.

Even without a Late War Romanian 4th edition book, the flavor of the Romanian forces can still be captured in Late War Flames of War by using a combination of German D-Day book and the German D-Day Command Cards.

By Tom Burgess

My good friend Ed and I were very excited to acquire last month’s release of the 21st Panzer Division expansion books/cards for the D-Day Germans in Flames of War Version 4. We both have a lot of 21st Panzer Division kit in our collections, but only Ed had any of it done.  So I rolled out my new US Sheman Company so we could get in a game with the new hotness.

By Preston Jacob

We all get into wargaming for one reason or another. Maybe you have a certain interest in a historical era, you enjoy the ruleset of the game, or maybe you just like how the models can be painted. For me, I got into wargaming on a lost bet.