Month: March 2011
Flames of War — Tropic Lightning
Battlefront’s full entry into Vietnam has officially begun with their release of Wargames Illustrated Issue 282 and the included 40-page Tropic Lightning: Armoured and Airborne Combat in Vietnam 1965-1971 army book.
WI Issue 282 itself includes some nice material including a quick history of the Vietnam War with a look at the forces covered by the game, a battle report, a look at U.S. tracks and helicopters, and lastly a painting and markings guide.
But the main attraction of course is Tropic Lightning. TL includes the army lists for U.S. and PAVN forces as well as the rules changes/additions from WW2 FoW and four missions. The U.S. forces of course have all the really fun toys including M-48 tanks, UH-1 Cobra gunships and a whole lot more. The only glaring omission is the OH-6 Loach helicopter. Both armored and airmobile forces are covered for the U.S.. The included U.S. lists are,
- Tank Company -M-48 heavy
- Armoured Cavalry Troop -ACAV heavy
- Rifle Company (Mech) -Troop heavy in M-113s
- Blackhourse Cavalry Troop -M-113s and M-48s with M-109 support artillery
- Rifle Company (Airmobile) -Troops in helicopters
PAVN forces cover the Tiêu Doàn Bô Binh infantry battalion. This is the only force list on the PAVN side and variety comes from simply choosing among the various supporting forces. These include recoilless guns, mortars, anti-aircraft MGs, and sappers. Booby traps, bunkers and minefields also play a big role on the PAVN side.
The army specific rules for each side only take up a couple of pages each as well as a couple of pages for helicopter rules and booby traps. The only thing that seems to be missing is fast mover strikes (fixed-wing CAS) but one could argue those are out of scale for the game. Thus seasoned Flames of War players will be able to get going with a minimum of work.
There are only four missions included,
- Hot LZ -An assault landing into a contested landing zone
- Indian Country -Where cavalry units are ambushed en route to a pick-up
- Contact! Contact! -Where a U.S. patrol stumbles upon a PAVN force prepared to stand and fight
- Big Bang -A Vietnamese attack on a temporary U.S. Fire Support Base
Battlefront included the wave one model release schedule in WI282 (and they are now on the BF website). Basically the month of April 2011 will see all of the initial models released. It will be interesting to see if anything new gets produced later this year although, besides the OH-6, we are not sure what they might release besides the M-109 and the M114A1, which are the only units in the book not listed for release, and perhaps U.S. supply trucks. Historically, the U.S. did have an odd selection of vehicles supporting supply convoys.
The Radio Free Battlefront Episode 9 podcast has a great overview of Tropic Lightning by Evan, the game’s designer.
Also see Flames of War — M113 Series.
If you are interested in reading more on armor/cav and airmobile operations in Vietnam check out,
- A Hundred Miles of Bad Road
- Marine Corps Tank Battles in Vietnam
- Praying for Slack
- Tank Sergeant
- To the Limit: An Air Cav Huey Pilot in Vietnam
- We Were Soldiers Once…and Young: Ia Drang – the Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam
- The First Cav in Vietnam
- 1st Air Cavalry In Vietnam: The ‘First Team
- Low Level Hell
- Chickenhawk
Also see Flames of War Vietnam — Is Back?!
[Updated: 1APR11]
Crisis in the Ardennes — Now Available
Test of Battle Games just released Crisis in the Ardennes: The Battle of the Bulge 1944. It is a campaign book for their WW2 battalion-level miniatures rules Test of Battle. ToB has been one of our Top Picks from the beginning. We haven’t seen the new book yet but the others have all been excellent and should be of interest to anyone who games in WW2 even if not using ToB.
On December 16th, 1944 the German Army launched Operation Wacht am Rhein (Operation Watch on the Rhine). This operation, whose goal was to split the Allied armies and capture Antwerp, was the last major offensive launched by Germany in the West. Known as the “Battle of the Bulge” due to the shape of the German advance into Allied lines, it has secured its place in history as the largest battle fought by America in the war, and the nail in the coffin of the Wehrmacht.
If you would like to read more on the Battle of the Bulge check out the following titles,
New Firestorm Armada Ships — March 2011
Spartan Games announced a slew of new Firestorm Armada ships and released 3D rendered previews. These are the first we have seen since Neil’s announcement that Spartan will be releasing 40 new FA ships in 2011 along with a new book. The ships are from new ‘Alliance’ fleets. The new book will cover these new races. We are not certain but we believe these will be races that can be played as allies alongside any of the other major races in the game. But whether there are set alliances with particular races we do not know yet.
Many of the new designs are quite radical and certainly push the sci-fi ship miniature hobby a step forward in detail and complexity. It will be interesting to see how some of the designs do as actual production models. The Ba’Kash Varnak Class Heavy Cruiser is certainly one of the most complex models we have seen and the slightly smaller Sharnak Class Cruiser has both an ‘open’ and ‘closed’ version. The Xelocian ships feature an ‘orange power rod’. We imagine this may be similar to the clear colored plastic rods that come with Game Workshop’s Necron Warriors. Our favorites of the batch are the Rense System Navy (RSN) ships. The Banshee Class Dreadnought and smaller Phoenix Class DD and Siren Class Escort are a very nice trio of ships.
Spartan now has preview rules for the ships and races.
Also the previously announced Kurak ships should be hitting the stores soon.
[Updated: 22MAR11]
The Apple iPad and Gaming — A Look Back
With Apple’s announcement of the new iPad2 on March 2nd we thought it a good time to look back at our year with the original iPad. We wrote about a number of game related functions for the iPad when it first came out and for the most part all of those have remained solid to one degree or another. Read the rest of this entry »
5cm KwK Nest — Review
The new AT bunker from Battlefront is now available for your Flames of War and other 15mm WW2 battles. The 5cm KwK Nest is direct order only. It is a rather basic model. The gun is in three metal parts and the bunker itself is two large resin pieces. The casting is all typical Battlefront quality. The only minor issue is that the top and bottom halves of the bunker did not fit perfectly together and you will need to file them a tad. But the fit is very close so it just depends how picky you want to be.
Whether you want to glue the two bunker halves together or not is a question. There is enough room inside to place a few crew figures but not enough for a stand. The only reason to not glue them would seem to be if you were worried about the gun knocking loose. But otherwise it might look better to just glue it together and fill the seam.
Overall it is a nice looking piece. Battlefront has a nice article on detailing the bunker (with a part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5) if you want to take it to the next level. Battlefront also has a nice article on using bunkers and fortifications in Flames of War.
Also see New Flames of War Fortifications.
If you would like to read more on German fortifications in WW2 check out,
- Fortress Third Reich: German Fortifications and Defense Systems in World War II
- German Field Fortifications 1939-45 (Fortress)
Military Strategy History Books)
[Updated: 27MAR11]
The View from the Turret 
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