Warlord Games

By Troy A Hill

One of the joys and pitfalls of moving into a new area, and joining a new gaming group is that many of the local players in the new area already have their army builds done. When I lived in Southern California, there were a mix of players and armies. In my regular gaming group, no one was playing British, so I picked it up to compliment my US and my German Armies.

But, when I returned to North East Indiana in the States, and looked up the local crew, the most popular nation to play in the new local gaming group is… yep, British of one flavour or another.

What was I to do? Americans are the vanilla “easy mode” according to the Juggernauts. In my 15mm WWII wargaming days, I began with Americans and soon tired of them. Germans are definitely challenging. And with my grandmothers coming from lineages of Kaiser and Sigsbee surnames on one side, and Bechtel on the other side of the family, the German army seems like a good fit for me. So far, though, my interest in all things German seems limited to the DAK.

Well, when I played Warhammer Fantasy, I loved the horde armies of the goblins. Guess I should look at… The Soviets?

By Chris Masucci

After a long hiatus this weekend the community at Mythicos Studios was finally able to get out and organize a game of This was a four-player game with 2000 pts total on each side, and the allies made up of a British and American coalition faced off against the Germans in an attempt to stop them from gaining further ground at the end of 1947 comes to a close.

The two forces sported a variety of units as the US infantry force with some walker and an AT gun half-track for support. The British force aimed for a more armored fist approach with power armored infantry and lots of heavy armor. In opposition, the German forces utilized a large horde of zombies backed up by walkers, artillery, and a single light tank.

by Troy Hill

In 2015 I sold off four fantasy armies from my time playing Warhammer Fantasy (up to ver 8). Fantasy just didn’t compete with the uber-meta mentality of the 40K crowd in my local area. And I was downsizing, drastically, in living space. Something had to go.

So, with my move to California, and the downsizing that accompanied it, reducing my miniature inventory to fit into a tiny Los Angeles apartment made sense. I wasn’t playing fantasy, and the latest GW fantasy just didn’t interest me. So I stuck with historical minis.

Then Rick Priestley screwed up my plans.

By Tom Gall

There are a good number of quality WWII rulesets in existence, let’s explore some of these rules, point out what their strong/weak points are and compare what might draw you to one over the other.

The rulesets considered in this article are : by Battlefront, by Too Fat Lardies, by Warlord, by Plastic Soldier Company.

Each of these rules is generally company level actions with support, for the most part, feature individual models, and focus on the WWII era. All are D6 based. All have extra material that offer campaign experiences, lists, and flavor to feel like you’re been given command with a battle to win. All are either point costed and/or have a list building system which makes it easier to put together a game.

This week, we’ll look at two of the four: FOW and Battlegroup. The other two systems will follow in a later article.

By Tom Burgess

When Warlord expanded their Bolt Action campaigns in the Pacific to include Campaign: Mariana & Palau Islands I was ecstatic to see that they included coverage of the US Army in this campaign.

Though US Army Divisions serving in the Pacific far outnumbered the US Marine Divisions, addressing the US Army is always a second thought in Pacific wargaming if it gets any attention at all.

Kudos to Warlord for not leaving the US Army out on this book. One unit that I have always wanted to model, 2nd Platoon, Able Company, 1^st Battalion, 322^nd Infantry Regiment in the Battle, fought its first battle on Angular Island.

By Kreighton Long

Last week Warlord Games made the new book available for pre-order. This latest addition to their inventory of Bolt Action supplemental materials provides just over 150 pages of new content for fans of the 28mm World War Two skirmish game.

Focused on two campaigns in the South Pacific, this book attempts to provide engaging scenarios and unique unit and theater options for players representing the Japanese and United States combatants of the war.

The battles for the Marianas and Palau Islands all occurred during the summer and autumn of 1944, half a world away from the violent crescendos of the Normandy landings and Operation Market Garden in western Europe and Operation Bagration in eastern Europe.

By Kreighton Long

This past weekend the hosted CYBËR WÅRS 2020 giving attendees a virtual convention experience that will hopefully help alleviate some of the pent up pressure to geek out after months of closed shops and social distancing.

Throughout the CYBËR WÅRS weekend over a dozen panels took place over Zoom with interviews of movers and shakers in the wargaming community. During one such panel representatives from came together for a 2-hour conversation including some sneak peeks at upcoming releases and works-in-progress over at Warlord HQ.

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 Troy A. Hill

The Covid-19 pandemic is having both deleterious and beneficial effects on the Table Top Miniatures hobby. From missed conventions and abrupt halts, then sputtering starts to in-person gaming at Friendly Local Gaming Stores (FLGSs), the pandemic has really rocked the table-top gaming industry back on its heels.

But, I’m seeing a trend on many of the social media platforms: either new gamers are entering the hobby, or existing gamers are picking up new armies, or new games to try. One area is in the Napoleonic gaming world. I’ve seen several “New to the hobby, where do I begin?” posts just in the forums and pages with Warlord Games.

I’m in that same boat, and I’m happy to share my trials and tribulations, so any gamers jumping into the great unknown of Napoleonics can learn from my mistakes.

In this piece, I’ll share what I learned about researching, and the models I’ve begun with. I’ll also include images of the Warlord British Line Infantry models, and the process I went through assembling and painting them. You might want to read the image captions separately from the text of the main piece.

By Ron Winkler

As the Covid 19 quarantine continues, I decided it was time for another solo game using the rules. Continuing with the War of 1812, I selected the Battle of Chippawa as a game scenario. Again, I used my 15mm figures and Osprey’s excellent Niagara 1814 book as a reference for forces and battlefield maps.

Based on information in the book I rated regular units on both sides equal in quality in terms of Special qualities having First Fire, Elite 4+, and Reliable ratings. However, two of the regular US units 25^th Infantry and a single Company of the 21^st Infantry as small and tiny respectively because of their size which of course affected their Stamina rating. The other regulars on both sides were standard in size.  US and British artillery had equal qualities as did the Light Dragoons on both sides.  Both cavalry units were tiny in size.