Battlefront Video: The Early Days

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Leviathans Battle Over Libya

 The French Navy Vessels Pontbriand and Pelletier are on patrol over Libya, when Her Majesty's Leviathan New Zealand and her escort HML Raven move to intercept.  Early on, some well placed shots from the New Zealand cripple the Pontbriand's engines, and kill the crew leaving the French cruiser crippled.

 The french vessel Montpellier is nearby, and quickly arrives to support the crippled French cruiser.  Meanwhile, the Pelletier deftly maneuvers around the HML New Zealand, continuously crossing the T, and leaving the bow of the New Zealand a smoking ruin.

 The New Zealand is swarmed by the two light and fast French ships Pelletier and Montpellier, but the HML Raven escorts her valiantly, firing salvo after salvo into the French.

 The New Zealand easily avoids the Pontbriands bristling 65mm guns, but cannot last long against the swarming dogs.

 But the HML Raven is never far behind.

 Despite her valiant efforts, the HML New Zealand finally succumbs after taking a withering beating.  In a salvo of flame and fury, the French vessel Montpellier also crashes to earth, her hulking frame intertwined in the ruin of the New Zealand.

 The Raven is left outnumbered, but has not a scratch on her.  Her Captain is known for his daring, but even the French give pause as he comes about, and moves to intercept the Pontbriand.

 The Raven pulls alongside the Pelletier and lets loose.

 She then maneuvers herself into the bow of the Pontbriand.

 And scores a critical hit on her Engine, sending her plummeting to the earth.  Low on ammunition, and damaged, the two remaining ships part ways.  Both sides lost several good ships.  The Captain of HML Raven receives a distinguished service medal, and later receives a knighthood.

The Raven is in relatively good shape, all things considered.

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Frontal Assault Tournament 16 Feb 13

After the months of planning it was over so quick...The Frontal Assault Flames of War Tournament co-sponsored by The Foundry Game Store in Huntsville Alabama and the WWPD Podcast was a complete success...and a great time was had by all.  I want to give a special thanks to all the players for making it easy on me as a TO...and an extra special shout out to the "out-of-towners" who came to fight.

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On the Road Episode 4- Norcal Crew!

Welcome to a guest episode of On The Road with Eric "Mathemagician" Riha, Crazy Rich "Tantexto" Barnes, Reno "Dr. Excedrin" Besseghini, and Dai "DeadDai" Eby from the NorCal Flames of War tournament circuit. Them Duke Boys are on their way home from the first event of the 2013 circuit; listen as they discuss their lists, their opponents, their performance at the event, how they can do better, and what other lists were kickin' butt. So buckle in, sit back, and let's get On The Road!

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Bolt Action - AAR: Black Death in Leningrad

Black Death Bolt Action Style; Leningrad, 29 Nov 1942

The Leningrad Front in late November 1942 has been quiet. Near one of the “Peoples Train Yards” only two AT guns stand guard against each other. On the morning of the 29^th, the 170^th Grenadier Div HQ sent down orders to occupy the Train Repair Bldg. A reinforced squad of “white” pioneers (Veterans, 10 tm’s: HQ tm w/CPT w/ NCO and Riflemen w/AT grenade; Medic team; 1ea Sqd of Pioneers w/ NCO, 4ea SMG & 4 Rifles, 2ea AT grenadiers, LMG; 1eaa Flamethrower team; 2ea MMG tm’s; 8cm Mortar tm; Mtr OBV tm; PaK 40 tm; 1ea SdKfz 2318-rad)  were ordered to attack.

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Review: More Battlefront M24 Chaffees from the Cavalry Army Group Box (USAB04)

I got the other half of the M24 Chaffee combat platoons when Steve-O split up the Cavalry Group Box set he received, and boy are these little guys sweet!

The other reviews of these guys seen here and here cover many of the same points I will, but I think they are worth covering.

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1200 pts Scourge vs UCM

Played some more DZC today. A quick semi-intro game against Joe T. with 1200 pts of Scourge vs UCM.

The UCM forces

The Scourge invasion

We always like to have a giant auto wreck on the board

Not-so-busy intersection

The board shot

The armored phalanx moves up

Rapier AA tanks take cover behind the massive automobile pileup

Praetorians doing what they do best - zooming up in the Black Hawk 'Chopper!

The Scourge Reapers move into position under the Condor carrying all of my boots.

And some other Reapers manage to take down the Praetorians dropship, but not before they rope dropped in to the building!

The first building crushed beneath the UCM warmachine!

The boots transport is smoked

Annihilator on the prowl

 Another building leveled creates a line of fire to the Annihilator

Whelp, I know bunching up these tanks would be a bad idea sooner or later...

And yet another building crushed! I enjoy blowing up buildings if you couldn't tell...

The Reapers pick up an objective dropped in the open....

...before it's grabbed by some Rapiers!

Sadly, the Scourge kill off a Legionairre in the open (because his building was about to blow up), which drops their objective, giving the Scourge a 2-1 win!

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Firestorm Battle in Mogilev- Forward Det. vs Grens

Turn 2, game 4 of our Firestorm Campaign has finally arrived! The Assault on Mogilev! I ran the Forward Detachment, and Sean ran Grenadiers. We decided the entire board was slow going, with the craters difficult. Sean elected to use the Festerplatz fortifications. Sean's Grenadiers were out of command, but rolled a 5 and were thus unaffected. Evidently, they were well stocked! The mission is Pincer.

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Bolt Action - Review: Armies of Great Britain

I've been waiting for Warlord Games and Osprey Publishing's latest army book, Arrmies of Great Britain for a long time.

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Achtung Cthulhu Kickstarter!

Hey guys!  I know this is a little outside of the scope of WWPD, but  I saw this and thought it looked really neat.  I'm sure there's plenty of other WWPDers who, like me, love the idea of the intersection of WWII and Cthulhu.  Ia Ia!  -Steven

Official Press Release:

Achtung! Cthulhu – The Investigator’s Guide to the Secret War & The Keeper’s Guide to the Secret War Kickstarted in 26 hours!

British publisher Modiphius, has taken to crowdsourcing platform Kickstarter.com to bring its dark vision of a secret World War Two to life. 

Inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos of HP Lovecraft, Modiphius Entertainment is launching the Keeper’s and the Investigator's Guides to the Secret War for use in the terrifying World War Two roleplaying game setting, Achtung! Cthulhu. After twelve months working on Achtung! Cthulhu for the popular Call of Cthulhu and Savage Worlds roleplaying games, Chris Birch, founder of Modiphius decided to launch the brand on Kickstarter. Why? "We have three Achtung! Cthulhu wartime campaigns in the works, with the amazing Zero Point by Sarah Newton already on release. There have been so many people asking when we'll release the main sourcebooks that we decided to bring them forward and hope that by launching them on Kickstarter it will allow us to create a much bigger and higher quality product for everyone." 

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Diesel N Dust Episode 1

WWPD is proud to announce a brand new Podcast on the network!  Diesel N Dust will chronicle Flames of War Action from Down Under!

The lads from Angriff road trip it to the nation's capital to participate in 'The Worlds'. David test drives the new Battlefront bulldozer, Lachlan talks Market garden lists, and we all fire a few more rounds with the six and seventeen pounders.

http://wwpd.libsyn.com/podcast

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Bolt Action - Review: Back Tree Design Soviet Infantry

With so many support options ready to serve the Motherland, my recruiters have been busy putting bodies in boots to fill the ranks of my riflemen.  These thirty soldiers from Black Tree Designs will be the core of my Bolt Action army.  Equipped with Mosin Nagants, PPSH 41 sub-machineguns and DP light machine guns, these troops are ready to repel the fascist invaders from Mother Russia.

Black Tree offers several options for fielding infantry squads.  They have 10, 20 and 30 figure packs.  I bought the 30 figure platoon pack which included a mix of SMGs, rifles and three light machinegun teams.  Figures are selected at random for these packs, but the range is large enough that I had very few repeat figures.  I read other blogs and accounts of people getting lots of repeats, but that was not that case for me.  Figures come in standing, kneeling and prone positions, but did not come with bases.  I bought these when Black Tree had their big Christmas sell and it cost me around $30 for the pack.

One thing I absolutely loved about these figures is the level of detail and over exaggerated features.  This made the figures easy to paint and the detail really shows through.  I also like that the figures come in both winter and summer coats, as well as helmets, fur hats and field caps.  When mixing the figures together they look like rag tag veterans, but when you group like figures together they look like fresh recruits.

One observation I had about these figures that was annoying was the level of hidden flash.  I say hidden flash because after giving them a thorough cleaning I found a ton of flash I missed.  Mostly long thin pieces bent over the ends of fingers, barrels, caps and other parts of the model.  I found myself constantly doing addition cleaning while applying paint.

I would give these figures 8 out of 10 Soviet Sniper Babes.  Excellent price, excellent sculpts and a ton of fun to paint.  I can't wait to get them on the table.  If you have bought infantry from Black Tree or own Soviet Infantry from other manufactures join the decision on the WWPD forum.

“Craig Baxter is the Director of the WWPD Northern Research center in Anchorage, AK. When he’s not contributing to WWPD.net he is busy blogging, painting, modeling and rolling dice. You can find more of his work and articles at frozengamerak.blogspot.com.”

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British Mortar Platoon (BR725)

As time has worn on, I am slowly going back and replacing some of the items in my British Flames of War army.  There are many reasons for this:  poor paint jobs, inconsistent look and feel across the army, new releases from manufacturers, etc.  In this particular case, I just needed some better looking models.

So, I picked up a British Mortar Platoon (BR725) to go with the rest of my British Late War Army.  I did not paint the three PIAT teams that also come in this set, as I have enough of those already.

3 sections - that is a LOT of mortars!

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