Battlefront UK Open Day 2019 Live Blog

We’re here at the Battlefront UK Open Day here in Nottingham. We’re going to be looking at all of the big participations games here at the event and much more. There’s a lot for D-Day as you might imagine.

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One of the awesome tabletops that we’ve got to look at here at the Battlefront Open Day is the great Bastogne tabletop which takes us into the depth of winter.

The 15mm scale tabletops that you get for Flames Of War are evocative and packed full of detail. This has some amazing vignette-style moments where you’re peering through the trees at the tanks rolling forward and the soldiers dug into the blasted and cracked landscapes.

Another of the awesome tabletops from the Open Day is this stunning take on a D-Day invasion as the British move up onto the beach to assault dug in German positions.

Things are relatively quiet at the moment but things are sure to hot up as the day continues and the bevvy of Allied troops are unloaded onto the beach to begin the liberation of France.

Just as a quick hot fact…the machine guns mounted on the back of those landing craft come in SEVEN, yes SEVEN parts! That seems quite fiddly but I’m assured that it makes for very accurate weaponry.

So, we talked about a massive D-Day tabletop here at the Battlefront Open Day. So, Chris and Justin get stuck into a discussion on it and talk about the way it came together and how they hope to play out games of it here throughout the day.

Let us know which side you’d be wanting to play as, and what your tactics are for getting off the beach. Make sure to go and check out Breakthrough Assault as they do awesome blogs on everything Flames Of War and beyond.

Ben takes some time to chat with Chris about the rather awesome Battle Of The Bulge tabletop which has been designed to show off an evocative dive into what happened a few weeks after the D-Day landings.

This is a wonderful table which shows off what you can do in 15mm when it comes to terrain, creating wonderful vignettes and dioramas as well as diverse gaming tables.

The guys at Battlefront Miniatures have also set up a great store this weekend which allows you to dive into their new range, especially if you’re excited about pushing forward with the Late War.

There are plenty of folks diving in to grab some goodies and there are lots of options for Gale Force Nine and their range of board games too.

The ships have now unloaded their cargo of men and vehicles and they are moving up into combat with the Germans. We’re loving how evocative these tabletops are looking and they have been a great source of inspiration for us when it comes to thinking about beach landings.

This goes back to us thinking about asymmetrical gaming as a whole and how it is always a very tense game to play out when one side has a dominating position over the other…who will come out on top?

We talked with Mark from Breakthough Assault about his thoughts on what was revealed as part of the seminar today looking to the future of not just Late War Flames Of War but also Team Yankee!

There is a lot to look forward to as they explore the various factions for the game in more detail plus delve into something new for Team Yankee as it heads into the 90s AND becomes World War III.

We talked with the club behind this neat looking Team Yankee tabletop which has players getting stuck into a clash between Israelis and Syrians.

It’s fascinating seeing the change in technology as we look towards the 80s and these assisted tanks with all the bells and whistles! Are you enjoying some Team Yankee right now?

I took a moment to see how things are going with the BIG D-Day table which was set up for the event this weekend. We’re now seeing lots of planes coming into the mix as they start to bomb the entrenched German positions and help the Allies get up off the beach.

This is all well and good but from all accounts, the Allies aren’t having a lot of luck getting their boots out of the sand and onto something a little firmer!

Have you played out a beach assault-style game on the tabletop before?

Folks are getting into the spirit of things when it comes to Team Yankee now, delving into that game we looked at in a past video. Israeli forces and moving against the Syrians and things are hotting up.

It’s again great to see the kind of tabletops that people build for their Flames Of War/Team Yankee games, exploring fascinating landscapes which go from very rural through to urban.

The little things like burning cars, dead tanks and such are a nice touch to help build on the narrative.

One of the awesome tabletops that we saw here this weekend was this brilliant Juno Beach tabletop from Kevin. This is a full on labour of love and is a wonderful and (as close as) accurate representation of what they would have been facing during the invasion attempt.

It features lots of great infantry, tanks and those massive landing craft too which are a joy to behold.

We get a chance to chat with Rich and Chris about one of the smaller participation games here which features the assault on Brécourt Manor. This is an infantry heavy fight which is a little bit different to your standard engagements in Flames Of War.

It’s really good to see a game which brings to life the ‘spirit’ of building scenarios and because it has a score attached to it it means people are vying to keep their men alive rather than throwing them into the grinder! Do you reckon you could do better than -1 or -4?

We have now uploaded the FULL seminar from the Battlefront UK Open Day so you can get a handle on everything Flames Of War and Team Yankee which is coming your way.

Make sure to keep an eye out for some slides from the presentation which we’ll be adding into the post later on.

Come and join us for another of the seminars where we’re delving into the updates coming from Gale Force Nine. That means new board games for DUNE, Alien, and much more besides including an avalanche of stuff for Alien.

We are very excited to see where both of these games go and there’s a lot more to get stuck into with he team from Gale Force Nine over the coming weeks. We reckon you’d love to see us do something cool with Alien right?

Ben also sat down to have a chat about what’s coming soon from Gale Force Nine in more detail, thinking about what’s new and showed off at the Open Days, plus what’s coming for them in the future.

Alien is still going to be a big one, and it’s awesome to see that this has the feel of the movies…desperate and dangerous. As well as that, DUNE looks like it will be taking a brand new look at the classic, bringing it to life for veteran gamers who have been hoarding spice for many moons.

A community event means community prizes. So, Gareth gets stuck in to award some vouchers for those that did the best as part of their participation games AND those that painted awesome models too.

It’s been awesome hanging out with the Battlefront Miniatures fellows this weekend and we’re looking forward to getting a closer look at the painting competitions.

Well, that is a wrap for the Battlefront UK Open Day here in Nottingham. We have had a lot of fun delving into all of the creative endeavours that folks have got up to and it will be great to see what you thought now so many of you are delving into Late War adventures in Flames Of War.

Make sure to let us know in the comments what caught your eye from the day and you could win yourself that awesome D-Day American Starter Bundle.