Flames of War

By Chris Jackson

Photos by the author, except as noted. Header photo by Chad McElhinney, of Battlefront US

On Saturday, 25 January 2020 forty-four dedicated Flames of War players descended on Sin City…I mean Las Vegas, Nevada for the West Coast Flames of War Nationals.

They came quite literally from sea to shining sea.

The usual suspects were all represented. Able Kompanie out of Indiana, Screaming Eagles from Minnesota, 757 Rangers from Virginia, the Pittsburg crew, Texas’ Tough Ombres, several California groups, and a Dark Horse, a new group spanning from West Texas to Arizona called the Desert Mountain Nomads.

I fell in love with the big tournaments the first time I went to one in 2007. You get to make new friends from all over the country and even internationally. You get to see new playstyles and see new army lists you would never have thought of fielding get played masterfully.

Welcome to the first episode of the BattleVault, a monthly US podcast dedicated to all things by Battlefront Games.

In the first half, Ed and Tom talk about last month’s new release  of the 21st Panzer Division book and card set.

In the second half, they look ahead to the upcoming World War Three (Team Yankee) British book release.

The boys close  episode one out with “Rules that Ed forgot” and a look at Flames of War and WW3 Team Yankee events coming in Feburary and March 2020.

by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell,

photos by me and James Smith

On the first weekend of November 2019, we had an event, the first Upper Canada Regionals, in Kingston ON (on the NY State border) for Late War 100pts.   It was held at Royal Military College (our version of Westpoint) and put on by Ryan Sullivan and his gang.    It was a good time, but more importantly, we were able to guinea-pig a new iteration on the Battle Planner, as below document and matrix:

Playing with a friend at home Blue vs Red is good. Meeting with lots of players at the local club for a tournament or a day-long huge game is even better. Playing a part in a world global campaign is really the next level of our hobby.

Battlefront and OnTableTop (yes, the guys we formerly know as Beasts of War) created the D-Day Global Campaign, a cross-media system to allow any player, any club and any tournament to be part of a six weeks D-Day campaign.

The new Late War books sparkled lots of interest here in Italy: old players from V3 dusted their armies buried at home and began to play back, while Mid War veterans found a reason to expand their  WW2 legions. on NDNG, the new “balance” with tank costs almost halved creates a more mobile metagame, with lots of armoured vehicles going around on the wargaming table.

As a result, we’re going to have . The first one happened on October 6th and saw almost 20 players coming from all Northern Italy (and one from Switzerland!), while we are already accepting entries for the second one, on December 15th (99 points Late War Tournament).

Thanks to Mitch Reed, I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to build and review a box of the new . My German vehicles are all resin and metal to date. This is my first delve into doing any of the new plastic kits. Okay so let’s get going.

It has been one of the hottest summers ever for WW2 gamers. Battlefront deployed a full array of Late War books: the “transitional” Fortress Europe with all four armies on the Western/Russian front, the US D-Day and the incoming German Normandy focused one. At our club in Milan, we decided to play the D-Day scenarios in US D-Day book to “celebrate” both the 75^th anniversary of that fateful day and the starting of the Late War FOW season.

“This war is not limited to the unfortunate territory of our country. This war is not over as a result of the Battle of France. This war is a world war. All the mistakes, all the delays, all the suffering, do not alter the fact that there are, in the world, all the means necessary to crush our enemies one day. Vanquished today by mechanical force, in the future we will be able to overcome by a superior mechanical force. The fate of the world depends on it.   I, General de Gaulle, currently in London, invite the officers and the French soldiers who are located in British territory or who might end up here, with their weapons or without their weapons, I invite the engineers and the specialised workers of the armament industries who are located in British territory or who might end up here, to put themselves in contact with me.”
Charles de Gaulles
Extract from BBC broadcast, 18th June 1940

NOTE the history is first, Formations, Units and Cards at the bottom

Reporting and photography by Troy A. Hill

We are live with Troy at Southern California’s Strategicon/Gateway Convention.

Troy talks with the crazy people running and playing in The Longest Day, a 24-hour-long Flames of War tournament. He also talks with Strategicon Events Chairman, the HMGS-PSW Convention chair about an upcoming convention, and with several independent game designers from the Pacific Southwest. Click the MORE tab to see links and photos for each.

Photos below:

It is indeed Tiger time. The D-Day book for the Germans is out and we look at the armoured formations you can run out of this new release for Late War. No other commander during WW2 made such an impact in a tank as Michael Wittmann.

As a true Panzer Ace, his Tiger took its fight to the allies and he fought until he was finally KIA in August of 1944. Stopping by his final resting place in 2007 in a small cemetery in France was a small highlight of a trip that took me from Arras to Vimy and everything in between.

Before we look at the Heavy Tank formation from the D-Day book, why don’t we start a little ‘lighter’. Let’s have a good look at the Panzer IV Tank Coy, this list will likely be very popular to German tank purists.