British

By Kreighton Long

As the pandemic continues to dominate our news feeds and our minds I’ve been trying to focus on the future and how exciting it will be to attend club days and tournaments.

Warlord Games is doing its part to ramp up my excitement with the planned publication of their second D-Day Campaign Book with nearly two hundred pages focusing on the Anglo-Canadian Sectors from Gold, Sword, and Juno Beaches to the capture of Caen and the German defeat at the Falaise Pocket.

As you can expect from Warlord, this book contains new historical scenarios, units, and theater selectors.

Look for Bolt Action: Campaign: D-Day: British and Canadian Sectors to be released this coming Autumn. With the disruptions from the pandemic, Warlord has not put an official release date on it yet but indicate they hope to have it out potentially in October.

By Tom Burgess

The No Nice No Glory and Breakthrough Assault’s online Firestorm Gazala Campaign is now rolling into it’s third and final phase. The campaign has been driven so far by the 47 games played around the world from Turn 1 and Turn 2. The battle still hangs very much in the balance and either side could claim victory based on how the next four battles in Turn 3 go.

Turn 2 Analysis

The five battles in Turn 2 went three to the German/Italian forces and two to the Commonwealth forces.  Most importantly, British players in Turn 2 won some of the battles that mattered. The British line held to the south of Gazala at Knightsbridge (B5) and southwest of Gazala at El Adem (B6). However, to the southeast of Gazala at Belhamed (B7), Rommel did turn the flank and is now on the outskirts of Tobruk.

By Ed Hall and Tom Burgess,

In Turn 1 of the Campaign, Ed’s combined German/Italian forces attacked Point 171. defended by an Indian Motor Brigade. Ed chose Maneuver in that battle and we ended up playing Dust Up () which ended up as a German win.  For the next try at Point 171, he choose Attack and we ended up with No Retreat. So we slide the big hill, i.e. “Point 171” to the British side of the table and had them try to hold it from the combined German and Italian attacks.

By Tom Burgess,

My friend Charles and I recently met up to have another go at a Firestorm Gazala campaign. We had played a game, in Turn,One of the Campaign, where Charles’s Panzers managed to break up my British Motor Company and Crusader force. See that AAR . After breaking my reinforcing Crusaders and destroying all of my Anti-tank guns, his Panzers had free reign to take down my defending infantry.

Charles hoped to keep that momentum going for our next Turn Two battle.  This made a lot of sense since Charles was effectively just continuing the attack northward with the 5th Panzer Regiment. So he chose to play Battle One from Turn One at  El Edem (B6). This area was just to the south of Tobruk (see inset map).

Knowing I would be facing a mostly tank force, I based my defending force off of a British Rifle Company, with maxed out 6 pdrs. I also beefed up my Crusaders with a Grant Troop to assist the Firestorm Grant unit already provided from the campaign scenario.  I was very glad to have two Grant Troops as my Crusaders fared very poorly against Panzers in our last battle. Charles force was very similar to our last battle, but he did swap in a full unit of Panzer-IIINs to get some higher firepower.

By Ed Hall and Tom Burgess

Continuing with the Breakthrough Assault and No Dice No Glory online Firestorm Gazala Campaign.  Ed wanted to play Battle 5 at area C5 “Hill 171.” Ed selected 80 points, before the addition of Firestorm Troops as the point level for this battle.

We both chose formations representative of the forces committed to this battle.  So for Tom that would be a Motor Co, backed up by a reinforcing Crusader Squadron. Ed wen with an Afrika Korps Shutzen Co. Tom chose a Defense stance to model the situation and Ed chose Maneuver.  Using the Battle Plans matrix this resulted in a Dust Up Mission.

By Tom Burgess

Turn One of the Firestorm Campaign was a complete success…maybe not so much for the British effort per say but overall we had 21 games from around the globe reported in. Additionally, Battlefront has risen to the occasion and is now offering two boxed sets each turn as awards for those who submit the most/best written Battle AARs.

So the campaign, as joint Breakthrough Assault and No Dice No Glory effort, is doing exactly what we had hoped it would do, generate themed Flames of War games.  Though Mark, allowed any mid-war forces be used for games in this campaign, the AARs I have seen all have used proper Mid-war Desert British, German, and Italian miniatures on nice desert boards. Huzzah to you all in the field!

So how did Turn One’s 21 battles turn out from the British Perspective?

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 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: Ron Winkler

After several weeks of lockdown occupied mainly with painting my accumulated inventory of figures, I felt the need to try a solo wargame. Since I haven’t had much practice with I decided on the Battle of North Point scenario in the book using my 15mm inventory of 1812 US and British Napoleonic figures.

The scenario came from the Black Powder main rule book page 144. The first picture on the page shows Continental Unit uniforms from the Revolutionary War. Subsequent pictures depict 1812 uniforms for both sides. The battle map shown displays all units deployed in line at the start of the battle. I decided to have the British march down the road then deploy for an attack to add a little variation.

With some adjustments, I was able to assemble units for both sides as provided in the scenario. Because I was using 15mm figures I felt using centimeters instead of inches for movement and firing was appropriate. Also, having no game table, I converted the dining room table for use with the consent of the WAR OFFICE (wife).