Flames of War - Painting Japanese Army Infantry for the Pacific Theater

The Japanese used a variety of uniforms during World War II which varied in function and coloration (sometimes quite dramatically). In Rising Sun, Battlefront provided a painting guide for Japanese infantry and gunners based on the uniforms fielded in 1939. Unfortunately with the release of Banzai, the painting guide has not been updated to reflect the uniform colors common in the Pacific War. Of course, the figures themselves are the same as the ones released in support of Rising Sun, so there will be some variations between the miniatures and some of the fine details of the actual later war uniforms. However, updating the color palette will give your force a more Pacific War feel to it.


The Uniform

Any time I try to color-match paints to photographs or historical artifacts, I create a color swatch over the primer color I'm using for that batch of miniatures to ensure I match them as closely as possible. Below is the swatch I'm using for my Pacific Japanese - please bear in mind that for all images in this blog entry, the colors will vary somewhat from a true visual color because of the limitations of the scanning process.

At this point I'm still using all Vallejo colors as I have a large library of paints, and see no need to move over to the new Battlefront colors at this time. Battlefront recommended Khaki Grey (880) for Japanese Uniforms when Rising Sun was released. They now recommend the equivalent Comrade Khaki followed by Zhukov Shade with a highlight of Military Khaki. To my eye, these colors are too brown for the Pacific Theater. Japanese Pacific Uniforms tended to be greener than those paints would indicate.

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Bolt Action - German 'Stummel' Hetzer conversion

By Jakob Lotz

So a little while back I got my hands on a Rubicon Models Hetzer kit with the plan of doing a review. However since Bryan has already done a fantastic review on the kit (if you haven’t done so already I highly encourage you to have a look at it here) I felt like I wanted to do something different with this one. A wee search of the old internets later I had come across the seemingly extremely rare Aufklarungspanzer 38(t), Vollkettenaufklarer 38(t) or Jagdpanzer 38(t) mit 7,5 cm KwK-37 L/23.

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The Economics of Wargaming

On one level, game designers seem to have an ideal job; they get to spend every work day effectively doing what for the rest of us is a hobby. Of course, the operative word there is "seem." To be and remain successful in what has become a highly competitive business game companies need to have a steady revenue stream. This revenue stream pays the workers and designers, and if the latest product or version of an established game flops companies can quickly find themselves in very dire straights.

Buy a new car or buy a new army???

The key challenge that any company must overcome is that hobbies are expensive. There, I said it. It's the "uncomfortable truth." It's the elephant in the room. Hobbies require both disposable income and the time to actually pursue them, and therefore as long as there have been miniatures and games, people have been looking for more economical ways to procure and enjoy them. In wargaming various money-saving techniques include patronizing deep discount retailers, using alternate miniature sources, casting one's own miniatures, and even turning to new technologies like 3D printing. 

So how expensive are wargaming and miniatures hobbies in general? The answer is "it depends greatly." On a one for one basis, miniatures in the smaller scales (15mm, 12mm, 10mm and 6mm) are going to be progressively cheaper than larger ones (28mm, 54mm, etc). The number of models and miniatures required to play a typical game is also going to factor heavily into its overall cost with skirmish-style games generally requiring fewer miniatures than platoon or company level games. The media used to actually produce the miniatures is another variable. Miniature wargaming started out with "lead figures" - which has evolved into white metal (a pewter which may or may not be lead free), resin, and even injection molded plastic. Then there is the cost of the rule books themselves, though the miniature cost often outweighs the rules cost, sometimes by a fairly hefty multiplier.

So let's look at a few real world examples. For all of these I will use quoted retail prices in U.S. dollars. In cases where currency conversions must be made, they will be accurate as of the writing of this article (October 2016).

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Bolt Action - Review: Knights of Dice 28mm MDF Church

By Patch,
At a recent event I attended I was lucky enough to win the new Knights of Dice  (KoD) Church and I was greatly pleased after having picked up some of their desert buildings earlier this year. The church is part of a new range titled 'Letters Home' of unpainted pre cut MDF flat pack buildings. I will now take you through my impressions on assembly, painting and finally play-ability on the table for the Church.

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On the Road: Iron Maiden Roll-Out Tournament

With pictures from Kato Lee

After all the hype over Iron Maiden, I was looking forward to the release of the models and new book that will certainly be a hit for all of us who love Team-Yankee. The folks from Battlefront always like to make a big splash when it comes to a release, and the one on 8 October lived up to the excitement I had for the weeks prior. Battlefront used a series of world wide tournaments to introduce the public to the new line, and I was lucky to have an event near me, at my not so local gaming store Games and Stuff in Glenn Burnie Maryland.

Besides the release I had other reasons to be excited, as Battlefront was holding an 80-point TY tournament with the winner getting an 80 point British army and this event was going to be the test bed for our first "On the Road" podcast that Sean Sarah and I will be putting together for the WWPD community. So Sean and I headed up to Games and Stuff with Ben Gobel and Scott MacLemore in tow, both competing with loaner armies we were able to scrap together for them. Ben used my Soviet army, since I wanted to play with my West German force.  Scott and Sean followed suit and both also fielded 80-point German lists. The 3 West German forces we traveled with with were all based on having 5 Leopard-2 tanks and 4 Gepards.  I had Marders, Luchs, and Jaguars backing up this force while Sean had Leopard-1s from the new Panzertruppen list while Scott used a combo of Jaguar, Luchs and attack helicopters supporting his MBTs. Ben took and interesting force of 2 T-72 platoons of 4 and 5 tanks each, a medium sized BMP company, Shilkas, Carnations, and of-course Hinds to make up his force. Perhaps the best units he picked were the two scout platoons which cause me so much grief.

Around 14 players showed up for the tournament and it was a good mix of all three of the nations represented in the game so far. The event run by Battlefront's John-Paul Brisigotti and Brian Sayman started off with a "build a Chieftain" contest. The goal was to build a Chieftain from a sprue and the winner was to get an Iron Maiden book.  What made it difficult was the fact that we had no instructions, so I felt I had an edge from doing so many articles on the Chieftain last month.  I finished my tank in less than 5 minutes and was bested by Sean who was accidentally declared the winner on a tank that did not have any machine guns. I plan to give Throck a hard time about this as much as I can.

Right after this, the first games began and because of the large turn out, Scott and I had to play on a table set up with terrain from another game. It was cool to play on a real city table.

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Bolt Action - Anf's Japanese go to MOAB

MOAB. What a weekend. I recently attended my 4th MOAB in Sydney the other week for my final Bolt Action V1 event. I marked my 21st Bolt Action event since I started 4 years ago and in keeping with previous events, it was a lot of fun. I got a game in against the amazing Uber Gruber, aka. David Hunter of the Down Order podcast and got to run a new army that I'd only tested out once in the Japanese. My army for the 1250 point, 5 game event, was quite unique and very different to the norm that I've seen in my time playing Bolt Action, but this is how I enjoy playing wargames. I love to find something different and then go crazy with it. So I am about to dive into my list, how it performed and how I go about making my lists in Bolt Action.

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Behind Enemy Lines Episode 29

Download the episode here

We’re kinda back on a regular schedule now! Awesome news huh?! And despite having our numbers culled by 25%, we’re still into it!
Act I sees use going over a heap of N00bNews from all over the gaming world. The latest and greatest in new shinys for all gamers!
Act II looks at whats been happening in and around our gaming club and all the craziness we’ve been getting involved in.
And Act III talks a little about our processes and thinkings when we start getting ready for a tournament, regardless of the genre.

Want to join the conversation? Please sound off in the comments below, or let us know on our forum!

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Bolt Action - Michigan GT Bolt Action Wrap-up

By Michael Ovsenik



A few weekends back, on October 1-2, gamers got together at the Michigan GT in Lansing, MI to play a ton of Bolt Action. We held two events – the Bolt Action Back to the Front! singles tournament and the Bolt Action Best Job I Ever Had! Tank War tournament.

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Why We Fight Ep. 7: Tanks, Tracks, Bang, Yeah with Peter Simunovich

        Have an extra pair of socks handy for this episode because they might be knocked off! In Act I, the guys give just a quick update on what has been going on. The episode really starts in Act II. We have super special guest Peter Simunovich of Battlefront here to give us all of the upcoming spoilers! In an emotional hangover Act III, the guys try to comprehend all the great information that they got from Pete. Be sure to head over to the forum to submit your questions to Pete. Now get ready for one of the most information-filled podcast yet!

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Market Garden Final Game

Our club up here "Ordo-ineptus" - Rolling low, rolling proud! , just wrapped up a Firestorm Market Garden Campaign.  The Campaign itself, while fun, was such a lopsided drubbing in favor of the Germans that I resigned formally as commander in cheif of allied forces forever.

We elected to end with a total war game.

The mission was a double sided breakthrough.

We wound up making a few tweaks to it in terms of size and layout.  We placed one objective on each end of the bridge.  In order for a team to win, they would need to break through the defenders and reach the other side of the bridge.

Defending companies could attack each other, or contest the objectives, but never control an objective.

Both Defending companies had 1500 pts, and deloyed on the board in a 2 ft bubble.

There would be 3 attacking companies, each with 1500 points, but they would be operating with half their platoons in reserve.  The idea being that what starts out as a tough fight for the defender, eventually becomes a massacre.

Some shots of the board.

(Club members from left to right, Wes (red shirt) Shane Lindey, and Kevin Dietz - German Commander)

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