Unboxing the Volks Armee

Part of bringing you the Preview of a new book is writing about the toys that come with it. For the Volks-Armee book, Battlefront is releasing 6 new boxes and one blister of NVA goodies that I was fortunate to get my hands on. I also was able to get a copy of the new book and I picked up some of those very cool NVA tokens and decals as well. In my last article I detailed a fight between my Iron Maiden army and a T-72M list from VA. As I look to playing in my first real Team-Yankee tournament in February, I think the NVA will be the guys I pick to battle with.

The Book
I hate to start off with an excuse, however when we preview a book it is always a PDF draft and may differ from what comes out in the final version. This was true in VA where the final draft of the book does not have the Basic Stabilizer on the T-55AM2, so no +2 when you move and shoot, it’s just a +1 for being Slow Firing. I first saw the book at a tournament in December, and even now I am so impressed with the front cover and I think it may be the new wallpaper for my laptop. So you will just have to excuse me for giving you a false alarm about the T-55AM2.

The book comes with all of the “conversion cards” for previously released models that are used in VA. So you get cards for a T-72M force, and unit stat cards for the T-72M, BMP-1, BMP-1 Scout and OP, Shilka, Gopher, Carnation, Hind, Raktenwerer, and Hind. Let me tell you how much I like this and I think it opens up a lot of flexibility for Battlefront. Once the product lines are put in place for commonly used equipment, it makes adding other nations that much easier since they can come out with the book and the cards. So we may see Poles, Romanians, and Hungary one day in TY. Same can be done for a lot of the smaller NATO nations as well taking into account the lines put out for TY, Vietnam, and Fate of a Nation. I think this strategy grows the game’s appeal and of course will sell more models with those of us with OCD.

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Bolt Action - DIY MG Emplacement

By Dennis Berwick

Today I'll be taking you through a step-by-step guide on how to make this simple machine gun emplacement for use as terrain in your games of Bolt Action.

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Bolt Action - Dioramic Basing, part 2

By Special Guest Dennis Berwick

Today we will continue the article on Basing a Pak 40. For this article to make sense you may want to read Part 1, which is available here.

I've never been a big fan of using 'green stuff' to level out bases, spending hours of hobby time pressing putty onto the base around the model isn't that fun. Here is a simpler way that takes a few models to master but is very effective and much faster.

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Bolt Action - Dioramic Basing, part 1

By Special Guest Dennis Berwick

A quick foreword and a little about myself.

I’m Dennis, a handful of the Aussie guys have already met me. Others might know me as that guy that missed his connecting flight and drove from Melbourne for Cancon, the guy that took a Flak 88 or that bloke that provided a heap of terrain for the event.

But before I type anything else I’d like to give my father a huge thank you for his hard work and countless hours he has put into my hobbies over the years. Most of the terrain is his work. I know how its made and the steps taken to make it, but he's been the creative genius behind the majority of the work. We share ideas and he makes it happen. I then adapt the techniques into my modelling side of things. He's an inspiration for me and I'm just happy to be the middle guy that answers the questions! We are planing to do some basic terrain tutorials in future.

I had a lot of people ask about my 88's base at Cancon, so today I'm going to share some of the techniques I've learnt for dioramic bases using a Warlord Fallschirmjager Pak 40.

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Bolt Action - Snow Basing

Today we have an article by an old friend of the cast, John Brader. Please enjoy.

The recent influx of figures in winter gear inspired me to take a closer look at creating realistic winter bases that could be done with only a few products and relatively quickly.  Personally, I’ve applied these techniques to a winter Soviet army with good results.

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Bolt Action - Review: Leadbear's Tufts

By Anthony "Anfernee" Mason

  Hey guys, Anf here with a review of some great little tufts for basing your wargaming models and terrain, from a small Australian company called Leadbear's Tufts. A good base can really elevate a model from table-top standard to a work of art and so quality basing materials are a vital part to any good hobbyists kit. So without further ado, I will dive into my review of the trio of tuft sets I got from Leadbear's Tufts.

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It's All In The Details

By Matty

I've never claimed to be an excellent painter. I tend to take too many shortcuts and am not quite patient enough to win any painting awards. What I do enjoy, is basing. More specifically, the addition of colors, textures and 'props' to really make my units stand out. Let's have a look on how you can add some flair to your army.


There are a lot of options when it comes to basing material. Some people use sand, drywall (sheetrock) compound or more recently, modeled miniature bases. They come complete with texture and other details that you can then paint to make your Flames of War more detailed. Everything you are about to see is relatively cheap to buy and even easier to use and work with.

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What the Flock(box)?????

Hey y'all!

I have got to share something that I recently found and am L-O-V-I-N-G!

The Flockbox.

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Bolt Action - Review: AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!! (A Non-biased Review of a Nasty Bit of Basing Material)

(Old Man Morin warns you away from a product he had terrible luck with! The picture below is a hint! - Judson)



Welcome back true believers,

I recently received a truly beautifully painted DAK army from our old pal Patchimus Prime in the mail.  He painted it for me as commission work as part of the ongoing process of gathering painted armies for The Bolt Action World Series tournament coming up later this year (or early next year).  At my request he did not paint the bases as I wanted them to match my existing desert terrain.

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Bolt Action - Review: Sarissa Precision Weapon Bases - Bigger and Better Than Ever!

by Scott Simoneau

(After some conversation on the forum about gun basing, this seems like an appropriate article. Thanks Scott! - Judson)

So after doing the last review on Sarissa Precision's weapon team bases, I fell in love, and decided I needed something....bigger. (That's what she said hey-oo).

Today we have even bigger versions of the classic we love.

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Bolt Action - Review: Litko 25mm Horde Trays

When I entered to play in the Bolt Action tournament at Historicon this year, I made the decision to run an all infantry Soviet force.  The logistics of playing with a large infantry force can greatly reduce the speed of a game.  Slow game play can be fine when having some beers and playing with your buddies on a Friday night, but it is an entirely different thing when you are playing against the clock with a stranger in a tournament.  Not wanting to be "that guy" who slow-plays his opponent in a tournament, I stopped by the Litko booth in the dealer hall and bought two packs of Litko Horde Trays before the tournaments started.  For those of you who don't know, Litko makes tokens, stands, movement trays, and about a million other awesome game aids for you to use in battle.

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Bolt Action - Review: Sarissa Precision Weapons Teams Bases

After seeing Gazza's based weapons teams on the forums, I knew that's how I wanted to base my weapons teams - one large base, with the crew on removable bases to show causalities. I first attempted it with my Soviets in the style Gazza did, using my usual FoW basing stucco, and while functional, it looked pretty poor. Off in search of a better basing solution... 

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