tournament

By Howard West

Hard Knox Games located in Elizabethtown, KY hosted a Flames of War Tournament on March 13th, 2021 as part of WOLFKRIEG 2021. This year due to the state of Kentucky’s COVID-19 event size restrictions WOLFKRIEG 2021 was been broken into two consecutive weekends. Weekend #1 for Wolfkrieg 2021 took place, March 13th, 2021 was Flames of War and March 14th was Team Yankee. This report covers the Flames of War for weekend #1.

Hard Knox Games has been hosting small gaming tournaments during COVID based on the state of Kentucky’s COVID-19 guidelines that are in place at the time of the event. Chad and the team at Hard Knox have a great store and is like walking into the vendor area at a gaming convention. This is the 12th year that WOLFKRIEG has taken place.

By Howard West

I started playing in 2016 and attended my first tournaments in 2017. I had been playing for several years earlier and have been playing other miniatures games since the mid-seventies.

My first Team Yankee army was British and really enjoyed playing that army and decided to take it to two tournaments. In these tournaments, I faced five NATO opponents and one Warsaw PAC opponent. I played against two West German, two British, one American, and one Soviet opponent. At those two tournaments, the mix of armies entered was about 60-70% NATO vs the Warsaw Pact. Also at that time, the Oil Wars and Free Nations books had not been released.

Soon after playing in those two tournaments, one of the gamers at our local store put his partially painted Soviets up for sale and I scooped them up for a great price and had the basis for a decent starting Soviet Army. Fifty tournament games later I’m writing this article.

Ed and Tom hit the air-waves again for the second installment of No Dice No Glory’s  BattleVault podcast.

By Chris Jackson

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

Photo by Igor Torgeson – banner by LVO

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:

By Paolo Paglianti

After years of Mid-War tournaments, finally we have some change.  Thanks to the books Battlefront published this summer we can play Late War with full V4 rules and point system.  Since I like to play with Allied forces, Mid War tournaments have always been on the “stay low” profile: with too many Tigers and Ferdies around (in Italy we saw the infamous list with 5 Ferdinands and the Italian L6 ally), Mid War US and British forces constantly faced tanks they can’t beat head to head, almost invulnerable armour that can only be avoided.  In Late War, as we foresaw, things are going to change.

We are live from in Leesburg VA for a Flames of War D-Day tournament. We talk with Dane who runs the store and our favorite and yours, Pastor Peetz!

We are live at Captain Chuck’s Comics in Essex Maryland for a great Bolt Action event. We talk to the TO Matt Karpus, the event winner Steve Murga and the Carroll’s!

by Tom Burgess

It always amazed me how many comments I have heard over the last year or so about the “collapse” of the US tournament scene. For sure, Flames of War (FOW) tournament play has declined with Version 4, along with other factors. And though I’m sure FOW has completely dried up in some areas, overall I never felt that the situation was particularly as dire as many have portrayed.

So I did some research to get some actual numbers beyond my own or other’s personal perspectives. Fortunately, US tournament data for the last several years can be easily pulled off of the website, to include its predecessor’s Ranking HQ data. I will share here the data for what its worth. I’ll offer my opinions with it, but I encourage all to make up there own minds on what it all means for the current state and future of the game and our community.