Warlord Announce Combined Arms Strategic Board Game
February 17, 2022 by brennon
Warlord Games has announced a new Strategic Board Game called Combined Arms! This allows you to play out a larger-scale conflict during World War II, taking to land, air and sea.
Combined Arms // Warlord Games
Players take control of infantry, naval, armoured and air units by alternatively issuing orders during your Orders phase. The easiest goal is going to be to control five objectives although you'll also need to get your hands on enough victory points in order to win. This could be through controlling Cultural Centres, Radar Stations and more. All of these net you points and campaign bonuses.
Combined Arms Components // Warlord Games
The game looks quick and easy to play and is given depth and replay value through the addition of the Resolution Deck. This card is flipped at the end of a turn and will guide the changing fates of your armies on the tabletop. You can also use Initiative Cards from your hand in order to control the flow of battle.
Combined Arms Initiative Cards // Warlord Games
Combined Arms can be played out over a variety of different theatres of war. You can head to Northwest Europe, The Eastern Front, North Africa and the Pacific. All of these maps come with new challenges for you to undertake with your armies.
The game comes with plastic miniatures representing each of the different unit types as well as strategic locations on the tabletop.
Combined Arms Blitz // Warlord Games
You also have those Blitz Markers (the arrows) to represent fast moving units on the tabletop. This looks like a tight way to play out a section of World War II without having to worry about painting up loads and loads of miniatures!
Combine This With Your Wargames!
As well as having the rules for playing out the game as a board game, you can also use this to represent a larger campaign played out in Bolt Action, Victory At Sea or Blood Red Skies. Or, all three!
Certain cards get replaced from the deck to allow this to be turned into a campaign game. So, rather than this playing out in an hour or so, the game expands for use amongst your gaming group. A pretty nifty idea for those who love larger scale tabletop gaming experiences.
A Special Blood Red Skies Miniature!
If you pre-order Combined Arms this weekend, you'll also get the chance to snag this exclusive miniature.
Kawanishi H8K // Blood Red Skies
This miniature is going to be available alongside the various bundled options from Warlord Games. You'll find bundles available for Bolt Action, Victory At Sea and Blood Red Skies. It would be neat to see people putting this to use!
Are you tempted by Combined Arms?
"This looks like a tight way to play out a section of World War II without having to worry about painting up loads and loads of miniatures!"
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I’m just going to say it – on first glance this looks incredibly bland and not sure who this is going to appeal too. As a campaign system the abstract nature of it hardly seems that engaging either. I thought the idea was to just down on games. Once again bundling in an ‘exclusive’ miniature is just off-putting across the board. A bit like the Catalina with Blood Red Skies. I’d pay good money to have this one, but it won’t entice me to by any bundles. So rather than selling something to me Warlord just puts me off buying… Read more »
I could have sworn Warlord announced this a few years ago (pre-pandemic?) and then it basically disappeared, but now appears to have re-appeared.
But yeah, gonna agree with “bland.”
Fair enough, perfectly okay for this to come out later then. The effects of the pandemic are going to be with us for a while. I had not come across this being mentioned before.
I think the concept of having a campaign system to link the various Bolt Action games is great and I really hope the board game pulls this off as players have been teased with it for what feels like years. That being said, what’s previewed doesn’t look great quality, the cardstock looks thin and flimsy (a common complaint of blood-red skies players). This might just be printed in-house rather than the final product but I’m not impressed if it is. I also think the board designs themselves look a little bland, the playing pieces look perfectly reasonable but I think… Read more »
The components look awful, I was being optimistic here and assuming these were just mockups.
Indeed, not for the £50 price!
The cheapest bundle that includes the ‘free’ sea plane is £106.
Warlord, stop this now before you ruin what was a good company.
Saw the price at the weekend too, yes well not much to be said about that….
Love the jap seaplane.
This would be excellent to combine all of the WW2 games Warlord games do.
Looks naff. Bundling a special BRS plane with the pre-order is just horrid. Warlord are taking on bad habits from GW. Such a shame. Will not spend my hobby money with them.
The sea plane is very nice indeed, hopefully it will eventually be available for purchase separately
I think the price point is way off, for the level of abstraction I’m seeing, I’m not seeing anything here that you couldn’t adapt with Axis & Allies 1941 and thats half the price.
I think they would have been better having a generic starter with the cards for £20 and then add on campaign packs, like Guadalcanal £20, Dunkirk £20, things like that.
It just feels like a nice idea but opportunity lost.
That sounds like a good idea.
Potentially a good idea but the operational level seems a bit too high for systems like Bolt Action or Blood Red Skies. Wouldn’t divisional level with maps based around the BA campaign books been a better bet?
Have to agree that the components look cheap.