News and Updates
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]
Flames of War Vietnam — Is Back?!
Beasts of War dropped some major news today by releasing a shot of a whole slew of Battlefront Flames of War Vietnam boxes. This not only includes the Vietnam figures we saw released in 2010 but boxes of Cobra, M-48, M-551, M-113, ACAV, M-106, and more.
This is very exciting but we do wish they would release Pacific WW2 figures before going off on a new era in a big way. But I guess we won’t complain too much. Releases should start in the next few months.
Also see, Flames of War — Refighting the Battle of Ia Drang.
Wargames Illustrated #282 will feature Tropic Lightning, the return of Flames of War to Vietnam. It will include a free 48-page booklet dedicated to FoW Vietnam army lists and rules plus terrain and modeling tips. Available March 26, 2011. Battlefront announced they are printing more copies of #282 than normal to hopefully meet demand.
The Live from Cold Wars ’11 episode of the WWPD podcast had an interview with Battlefront. The representative confirmed the new line. Basically it sounds like it will be a smaller effort overall compared to the WW2 line and there are currently no plans for blisters. All releases will be boxed sets. Battlefront expects Tropic Lightning to be used more as an occasional diversion by FoW fans and not so much a following all its own. Considering the one-sided nature of the war this is probably a sound expectation.
The models will all release in April 2011.
[Updated: 25MAR11]
New Flames of War Fortifications
The new Wargames Illustrated Issue 280 (and now the BF website) has an announcement of a new German bunker for Flames of War, the 5cm KwK Nest. This is in addition to the previously announced pre-painted AT and unpainted MG bunkers. The 5cm KwK Nest will be direct order only and is unpainted.
In addition, Battlefront will be releasing their defensive terrain pieces in individual packs (barbed wire pack, dragon’s teeth pack, etc. but direct order only) and will also be releasing new artillery gun pits (sandbag, log and trench). Release date is 27MAR11 for those.
Last but not least are new pond and swamp terrain piece sets.
It’s a good time to be the defender!
[Updated: 2MAR11]
Firestorm Armada Stat Viewer
James Tubbs has released a nice little app for Android devices. The Firestorm Armada Stat Viewer presents the stat cards for all the ships currently available for Firestorm Armada. It is a simple straightforward app but very handy with a nice presentation. Best of all, it is free. If you play FA and have an Android device check it out.
Dystopian Wars — New Mini Previews
Spartan Games has posted some very nice previews of upcoming Dystopian Wars miniatures. There is the first robot we have seen for the game, the John Henry Class flying robot — sort of a giant Iron Man — for the FSA. Then we have the land and ocean going Metzger Class Robot for the Prussian Empire (also see a color render). The Kingdom of Britannia get the Vanguard Submarine. Lastly, the Empire of the Blazing Sun receive the Mechanical Ika squid submarine. All the minis have the great detail we have come to expect from Spartan Games and fit into their respective nations well.
[Updated: 28FEB11]
View from the Turret — Now on Twitter!
We finally got around to getting a Twitter account for the site. We intend to tweet posts and the occasional extra tidbits. We promise you won’t be hearing about our breakfast or the guy we’re standing behind in line at the grocery store! Follow us @fromtheturret
If you have an iPad we highly recommend Flipboard as a great way to read your favorite Twitter feeds. We do wish you could simply subscribe to straight RSS on Flipboard but that still is not really possible except by using a Google Reader account. Twitter’s own iPad app is also excellent. On the computer Twhirl is a nice, simple Twitter client and TweetDeck is for the power user.
On a related note, we have always had a RSS feed for the site. Our favorite RSS reader for the iPad is the Pulse News Reader. It is not as attractive as Flipboard but still quite nice. Reeder is a solid, if conventional, RSS reader that hooks to your Google Reader account.
Hornet Leader — Review
DVG Games recently released Hornet Leader: Carrier Air Operations. Hornet Leader is a remake of the original game that started the series more than a decade ago and includes the expansions that were released as VASSAL only games in the past. Last year DVG also released the excellent Phantom Leader in the same series.
The game ships in a beefy extra-deep box although it is largely filled with air. It has a mound of cards and excellent full-color components. We found an excellent review of Hornet Leader on Wargame Center. As always, BoardGame Geek has some excellent supporting files.
New Battlefront Podcast
Battlefront released what I believe is their first ever Flames of War podcast, Radio Free Battlefront. It is a one hour show with Mike and Wayne of Battlefront. They discuss the new D-Day books and give a nice battle report covering the La Fière Causeway mission along with a discussion of their forces. Overall a nice job and hopefully we will see more of these in the future.
Episode 2 covers Task Force A and the FFI (Free French) Company.
Don’t miss the Villers-Bocage and Monty’s Meatgrinder scenarios. And of course if you want more Flames of War podcast goodness check out the What Would Patton Do podcast.
[Updated: 10FEB11]
WWPD — Donations
Well as Steven himself would say, he’s ‘spilled the beans’ about our recent contribution to the WWPD: News from the Front podcast.
Good wargaming podcasts are hard to come by. Either the content is not very good or the sound quality makes you want to stick an ice pick through your brain. In either case, inevitably, they end up dying off after a few shows anyway. Steven and crew have already provided hours of entertainment and useful insight and with a little luck they will also be around awhile. They have solid content and even manage to provide excellent sound quality during group discussions — one of the more challenging areas for many podcasts. As someone who has a long commute, quality podcasts have become as good as gold and we were happy to do what little we could to help. If you would like to help out as well you can always buy a t-shirt and proceeds will go towards the show.
The D6 Generation — Lost Chapters
Russ from The D6 Generation podcast posted their first Lost Chapters episode. The one hour show covers their first Deathwatch game and is available for $1.00 via either Ambling Books or Payloadz. Unfortunately neither option provides a simple one-click purchase and download but we tried it via Payloadz and as long as you already have a PayPal account it is pretty straightforward. They also have a special Wives Attack segment and Battlestar Galactica Review available for purchase.
Note, if you decide to purchase via Ambling Books you are essentially getting a version that can only be played via that application/service. With Payloadz you get a straight .mp3 file that you can play on anything.
The whole Lost Chapters idea is a way for the D6 Generation to generate a little bit of income, provide more content and could perhaps lead them to do a few things they might not otherwise do. After all, they only have so much time and spending it on something they get nothing in return for beyond praise can only be sustained for so long. If you enjoy the D6 Generation be sure to grab a few Lost Chapters or throw them some support in another form. These guys really do a great job.
[Updated: 26JAN11]
The View from the Turret 
You must be logged in to post a comment.