Thoughts on Battlefront's Christmas Video

Battlefront release a Christmas video on their front page this week. It was a nice brief video where they wish their fans Merry Christmas, reflecting on the past and giving a preview of the upcoming year. It is their plans for next year that I mostly want to talk about. Though I do want to touch upon the Pacific release which was one of the first things mention in the video. I discuss in our podcast how excited I was about the Pacific release leading up to it. Sadly it came out around the time I was getting out of Flames of War. But now I'm getting back into it, I still don't have a interest in it. My excitment for the Pacific comes from me being highly interested in the Pacific naval battles such as Midway. I was hoping Flames of War would expand into naval combat but instead we got more ground combat. And since Battlefront has shot down adapting Team Yankee's aircraft friendly rules to use in mid war because they don't want air power to have a strong presence, my disappointment is complete. I guess Battlefront doesn't want me buy 12 Japanese Zeros. On second thought I don't want me buying 12 Zeroes either. Maybe this is a good thing.

In any case lets move into the new stuff. On the Team Yankee front the big news for me is the book Red Thunder and Stripes. This book expands on the Americans and Soviets, giving both sides new lists and toys to use. In my opinion this was sorely needed. When Team Yankee came out this time last year I thought the US and Soviet lists were a good first start but they both needed more options. I was hoping for new lists and toys within six months of its release. The Soviets did get a new list in that time though I felt the US needed it more. I understand why Soviets got a new list considering the next two nations for Team Yankee were both NATO. I really felt the lack of options in US when the West Germans came out. I know nothing about the British release so I can't say how it compares to the US and West Germans. I knew we were getting new stuff for Soviets. When I came back into the hobby I immediately notice new releases for Soviets in the store which meant a new list had to be on its way. Getting confirmation that the US was also getting new stuff was a relief.

Something I notice near the end of the Team Yankee section was that there going to be new choices for the Warsaw Pact and American forces. Now I'm sure he just misspoke and meant Soviets instead of Warsaw or he uses Soviets and Warsaw interchangeably. But giving that the East Germans will be out next month, upping the number of Warsaw nations in the game up to two, he could have meant that there is a Warsaw list that combines Soviets and East Germans in the new book. Battlefront has made mix nation list before. There are a few mid war lists that combines Germany with the Italians. On second thought, unless the Red Thunder book comes out closer to the end of the Summer, it would be a little too soon to release a mix nation list right after one of those nations got its own release. So I will chalk this up to being a mistake.

The last Team Yankee bit of news was that at the end of year Battlefront wants to release Team Yankee: Vietnam. It will be a stand alone game with all the list in the book. Besides updating the game with TY rule set, it seems they will be adding new stuff to it that wasn't in Flames of War: Vietnam. What I want to know is despite it being its own stand alone game, is it possible to play a game with a nation from Team Yankee:Vietnam against a Team Yankee nation. I know it probably wouldn't be a fair fight due to the difference in technology but if both games are compatible with each other then players would have more options to play with.

The conversation then moved to mid war and Flames of War 4th edition. I stuck my toe in mid war and I enjoyed the experience. Getting plastic Italians is a pleasure to hear. It is also nice personally that if Tracy ever comes back to wanting to play mid war, our forces will be the second release (Americans and Italians) which means it should be out in a more opportune time for us. The fact that mid war is getting is own book is new to me. But then again that would make sense since they are trying to kept Early and Late War as close to third edition as possible while Mid War will look a lot more like Team Yankee. The biggest piece of news for me was that I can get a physical 4th Early/Late War book by exchange my own 3rd edition mini book. This makes me extremely happy because I much prefer physical books and that my mini book started to fall apart as soon as I got it home. The last bit of Flames of War news was they are planning to do organize play. I'm really interested in seeing how that plays out. Great things to look forward to.

These were the highlights for me. I think I pick a good time to hop back into the hobby. Thanks for reading and have a Happy Holiday and Merry Christmas.