United States and United Nations Forces in Bolt Action Korea

by Tom Burgess

Warlord Games has released and within it, forces from the United States and United Nations figure prominently.  Warlord has managed to pack a tremendous variety of platoon options all using the United States generic reinforced platoon list as the baseline.

This is appropriate as so many of the United Nations countries that committed troops to the Korean effort were from armies that had largely been rebuilt and reequipped following World War II by the United States. Accordingly, many of these nations’ armies looked a lot like the US Army’s formations.

In addition to the generic reinforce platoon list, the United States and United Nations player can utilize period selectors that more accurately represent these forces at various stages of the war.  This is important because these forces elevated heavily from the initial unprepared, poorly equipped, and undermanned type units that the US rushed to Korean Peninsula to try to stem the initial North Korean push south.

It’s all in the Cards – American Command Cards for Normandy

By Tom Burgess
The US forces are getting ready to hit the beach in D-Day American Forces in Normandy 1944. This in itself is a great expansion of the Flames of War Version 4 Late War universe, but the new US Normandy Command Cards truly take the US book options to the next level. I was amazed at the richness and depth that these Command Cards bring to the force offerings in the book. In my opinion, this is the best Command Card deck to date and I really hope this is the model we will see used across future Later War Command Card decks.
So let’s take a look at how the D-Day American Command Cards break down. There are a total of 40 Cards in the deck. I like to break these down into five categories; Generic, Effects, Unit/Equipment Upgrades, Heroes, and Division Cards.

Bands of Brothers: D-Day Airborne and Rangers

By Mitch Reed

The movie Saving Private Ryan featured a group of US Rangers and Paratroopers working together to defend a bridge right after the invasion of Normandy. Now places the same forces at your command in their new D-Day book.

You will notice that like most V4 lists, these forces are focused more on the actual OOB of these units in 1944. This is due to the fact that if you wanted to play paratroopers in the past, you had to hope that they had the right support features you needed.

That is no longer a problem in V4, because now you have the flexibility to tailor your forces just how you want them.

They Shall Not Grow Old

I walked out of the movie theater about three hours ago, and my heart is still thumping. No, it wasn’t Scarlett Johansson or some adventure flick and it wasn’t the next Fast and Furious installment. It was film taken over 100 years ago, of the men who served in the Great War. This blog features a lot of posts about historical wargaming from different eras and genres, and they are read and shared.

But something we don’t write much about is about the real people we are recreating on our tabletops. This isn’t a recount of some historical battle or a game I played, or a system tried out. Rather it will be my attempt to put into words, the images and stories I experienced at the picture show.

Review: 1-48 Tactic, Beer, Pretzels and Potato Mashers

Not too long ago I covered a bunch of fun games that I considered games, which are fun games that are quick, fun and not too hard on the wallet. A while ago I saw a for a game called from a company from sunny Italy. A lot of games hit Kickstarter and some of them actually get delivered to you, so when this came two weeks ago (it was 6 months behind schedule which is on early delivery for Kickstarter projects) I wanted to paint it and see what this game is all about. One disclaimer here, I used a game board with hexagons as a backdrop for my pictures, the game does not use hexagons within its mechanics.

Fate of a Nation: A Quick Spoiler

The folks from have yet another new release that many of us have been waiting for. A few years ago, we saw the first venture into the Arab-Israeli conflict with the original Fate of a Nation book which focused on the 1967 war, now in 2018 we revisit the strife-torn region and expand the conflict beyond the Six-Day War.

While I know many folks who loved the models with the original release, I knew few gamers who seriously played it. A lot of people wanted to see the 1973 conflict, or felt the game was limited to great Israeli tanks against hordes of Arab tanks.

No matter what the rationale for avoiding the game before, the second iteration of Fate of a Nation has a lot of things that you will enjoy and it may be worth a second look. This article will not delve into each list and nation in the book. My more talented compatriots will do that over the next week or two. So, consider this a quick look at this book.

Review: PSC 15mm Valentines

Assembly of Mk II finished.

Plastic Soldier Company has released their and 20mm scales. They were kind enough to send NDNG a set of 15mm for review.

Out of the box, the 15mm sprues are impressive, yet daunting. Two hull tops are included – one with side skirts, one without. The instructions list the side-skirt hull as the Valentine III and IX model.

These tanks are a welcome addition, with both Flames of War and BattleGroup focussing on Desert War in North Africa right now. Players of any 15mm WWII game with an eye toward North Africa, or even the Eastern Front with Valentines as Lend-Lease can make good use of this set.