Topic: Flames of War!

[GamesPoet]

Uh oh ... picked up the Flames of War "Open Fire" starter set this past weekend.  Couldn't pass it up when I found it on sale for 40% off because the store was going out of business.

I've been watching the number of FoW players increase at the local store, and have been delaying my initiation in this for awhile, despite my strong interest in historical games.  The starter set provides a small paperback version of the rules book, an introductory booklet to help learn the basic rules, 3 U.S. Sherman tanks, 2 German StuG G assault guns, and 3 U.S. dice with 2 German dice.

The 16 page booklet is actually quite helpful for getting up and running quickly.  It has an explanation of the vehicle characteristics, and has basic sections on movement, shooting, moving and shooting, and infantry platoons.  Each section has a mini scenario that can be used; rescue, shoot-out, flank attack, and breakout respectively, although the last one will need a U.S. rifle platoon and a German grenadier platoon to play, both available at a $20.  Haven't picked those up yet, but I suspect it won't be long.

When I made the purchase, they didn't have many blister packs remaining, but I did pick up a German 7.5cm PaK 97/38 pair of anti-tank guns.  One thing learned, although I got lucky, anti-tank guns are different, and which ones you can use is different depending on whether an infantry, mechanized infantry or tank army is being modeled.  I'll probably be modeling an infantry company, so my quick pick will be ok.

Additionally, there is something to be said for making sure units purchased can be used for early, mid, or late war rules supplements.  Currently, the recent and attainable supplements seem to be for the late war period.  And although only one supplements is needed for creating an army type, at least one will be needed beyond the rules themselves.

I picked up Fortress Europe yesterday.  This is a more expensive supplement than some of the others available, while it is late war, and it has plenty of army lists for Germans, British, U.S., and Soviets.

So I guess my newest adventure has begun, although sooner than I had planned.

[MrDWhitey]

Get Tiger Tanks.

People fear them. They are devices of pure hatred. 

I have five of them (average lists will have 1, but hey, I play a SS Heavy Panzer group). 

[GamesPoet]

Tigers expensive and Konigstigers are very expensive, when looking at point costs.  The list for a German grenadier company allows for the purchase of one 1 heavy tank option, but at the lower overall army point totals, I'm not sure how wise these would be.  However, I do plan to include these at some point further down the line.

In researching how to play the German infantry list, its seem to be better to have more infantry than less, and at the same time plenty of anti-tank options as well as miscellaneous other support units.

[MrDWhitey]

You're not a man till you've used a Tiger Tank. 

The Germans have some of the best infantry, and the Stormtrooper rule for their tanks is borderline broken. (Basically on a 3+, your tanks get JSJ from Crisis Suits).

[Nicholas Bies]

Play Mid-War. Late War is a pile of dung. I loved the game until they went overboard with the LW stuff and pretty much everyone at my Sydney LGS (about 8 of us) just all stopped.

Tigers are pretty easily defeated (or made useless for their points). Pretty much you drop smoke on them every turn so they must always move. At best they can kill 1 tank or stand a turn then.

You'll need infantry, you'll always need infantry to capture and take objectives.

Depending on which race you go you'll want MGs simply for the pure infantry destruction they cause.

AT rifles such as Pack 40s and 17pdrs are awesome.

The best balanced lists look something like this:
2-3 infantry paltoons
heavy weapon platoon (MG's and Mortars/depending on nation)
Anti-tank platoon
Tank platoon (3 tanks usually, 5 if you can get the points)
100mm Arty

That should take you to 1500 pts and provide fun in all aspects of the game except Air (which I never got into).

[GamesPoet]

I'd definitely play mid war if I could find players, but unfortunately most of the current FoW players available locally are into the late war.  Most of these guys come from a 40K background and most seem to be into having tank armies, so I'm looking forward to playing infantry against these guys and see what happens.

Also, the thing I like about the mid-war is that the supplemental rule provide for other armies outside the normal German, British, U.S., and Soviet armies.  I suspect at some point I might gravitate into these just because of some of the neat things that can be modeled and used in games.

Rumor has it that the FoW folks are planning to finish up with creating late war supplements, and then perhaps turn to early war in the near future, and I'm sensing that this would be a fun era to model and play as well.

By the way, bies21 ... what do you mean by the late war stuff being overboard?

[Mathi Alfblut]

What scale? Can one use the standard plastic 1/72 scale models for the game?

[Parka]

Get Tiger Tanks.

People fear them. They are devices of pure hatred. 

I have five of them (average lists will have 1, but hey, I play a SS Heavy Panzer group). 

Tigers suck, for some reason people tend to play 1500 games and if you try and put a heavy tank in you cant get to the magical number 6 with your platoons. 

[MrDWhitey]

What scale? Can one use the standard plastic 1/72 scale models for the game?

Flames of War is a 12mm (I think) scale game with 6 people on each base. Or something like that.

Tigers suck, for some reason people tend to play 1500 games and if you try and put a heavy tank in you cant get to the magical number 6 with your platoons. 

My last 1500 point army consisted of 5 tiger tanks. 

[Nicholas Bies]

I'd definitely play mid war if I could find players, but unfortunately most of the current FoW players available locally are into the late war.  Most of these guys come from a 40K background and most seem to be into having tank armies, so I'm looking forward to playing infantry against these guys and see what happens.

Also, the thing I like about the mid-war is that the supplemental rule provide for other armies outside the normal German, British, U.S., and Soviet armies.  I suspect at some point I might gravitate into these just because of some of the neat things that can be modeled and used in games.

Rumor has it that the FoW folks are planning to finish up with creating late war supplements, and then perhaps turn to early war in the near future, and I'm sensing that this would be a fun era to model and play as well.

By the way, bies21 ... what do you mean by the late war stuff being overboard?

In late war the game boils down to AT value and FA value. In Mid-War there are no amazing tanks (Tiger's are tough but not nearly as crazy as King Tigers) the AT guns and Tanks in General aren't as nasty either. I found it to be more enjoyable to play and a bit more tactical as well.

Mathi its 15mm

In 1st Ed Early was the best, everyone was disapointed when they cut it out in 2nd ed. I have personally 2500pts of Italians and 1500pts of Romanians. So can understand how you may like the minor nations. I have no interest in the top 4 personally.

[ZeroTwentythree]

15mm but you don't have to use that scale. I don't play, but I have friends that do and they went with the 10-12mm stuff, I think, because it's less expensive and there are apparently pre-painted toy or die-cast tanks & vehicles that are very cheap in that scale. Also, from what I understand the "official" FoW figures are expensive compared to other lines of 15mm.

[MrDWhitey]

Very expensive. 

[Oss]

You probably could just base 1:72 miniatures on the usual bases and use 15 mm tanks, if you don't mind the difference in scale. On the other hand, infantry is not really the most expensive component, and with guns in other scales it will get difficult.

Nevertheless I found the cost to get an army going to be cheaper than Warhammer.

I've been playing for about half a year now and am still in the learning stages, playing with a British Rifle Company based on the 43rd Wessex Division and a French tank Company (with American Equipment) form the 2eme Division Blindé.

[Dihenydd]

The DBA crowd here is also into FoW.  I've noticed DBA people to be generally cheap bastards so they all use 10-12mm scale that you can get for a song in most Military Mini's stores.  FoW are nice models, but if you are in it for the game then proxy with other mini's.  If you are into the model side of it, there's much nicer models at larger scales for a lot less as well.  If you want 'official' then you will pay pay pay.

My cousin plays British and says to stay in Mid and as far away from Late War as possible.

I love how instead of countries, most people use the term 'Race'.  Old habits....

[GamesPoet]

What scale? Can one use the standard plastic 1/72 scale models for the game?

1/72 is a bit too large, which I believe is somewhere around 20mm, but FoW is intended for 15mm.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Any game can be scaled up or down. You could easilly play WFB in 15mm if you wanted to. 

[GamesPoet]

In late war the game boils down to AT value and FA value. In Mid-War there are no amazing tanks (Tiger's are tough but not nearly as crazy as King Tigers) the AT guns and Tanks in General aren't as nasty either. I found it to be more enjoyable to play and a bit more tactical as well.

Well I suspected that there had to be a reason why the game was attracting local 40K players.  Anyway, I'll give it a shot.  I was going to try doing a mechanized infantry army, because it seemed more flexible, but I'll likley enjoy finding ways to win against the tank armies I figure I'll be seeing.

In 1st Ed Early was the best, everyone was disapointed when they cut it out in 2nd ed. I have personally 2500pts of Italians and 1500pts of Romanians. So can understand how you may like the minor nations. I have no interest in the top 4 personally.

I'm giving the Germans a try.  When I was younger, played a decent bit of Squad Leader, the original version, not ASL, and ended up playing the Germans quite a bit because my relatives didn't want to, and instead prefered playing the Americans and Russians, so my interest in the Germans is probably still left over from that.  However, in some ways this can be converted into some of the lesser powers, and I coudl see myself giving those and the Italians a try just for the challenge, and the fact that there are less folks doing these anyway.  Problem is my understanding says that the mid war lists aren't very compatible with the late war.

[GamesPoet]

15mm but you don't have to use that scale. I don't play, but I have friends that do and they went with the 10-12mm stuff, I think, because it's less expensive and there are apparently pre-painted toy or die-cast tanks & vehicles that are very cheap in that scale. Also, from what I understand the "official" FoW figures are expensive compared to other lines of 15mm.

Thats my understanding, except for tournaments, just like GW, they'd prefer you ahev their line of miniatures.

Any game can be scaled up or down. You could easilly play WFB in 15mm if you wanted to. 

Very true.

[GamesPoet]

I've been playing for about half a year now and am still in the learning stages, playing with a British Rifle Company based on the 43rd Wessex Division and a French tank Company (with American Equipment) form the 2eme Division Blindé.

Thanks for sharing what you are modeling.  I'll look these up and find out something about them.

One of my current challenges, before I start buying more stuff, is to find a historical German infantry unit that I like to base my initial collection on, and adapt the german army list to what I find out about the unit's composition and uniforms.

[GamesPoet]

My cousin plays British and says to stay in Mid and as far away from Late War as possible.

What si his reasoning on this?

I love how instead of countries, most people use the term 'Race'.  Old habits....

Yes, or perhaps even nationality, too.

[MrDWhitey]

Late War has some nasty stuff in it.

Some stupid stuff too.

Midwar seems accepted as the most "balanced" time.

[Dihenydd]

Yeah what he said.  Basically the Late War has too many supers that dominate the game and becomes FoW version of HeroHammer.

[Nicholas Bies]

Yeah what he said.  Basically the Late War has too many supers that dominate the game and becomes FoW version of HeroHammer.

cha... like I said at the beginning of this thread.

EW could be lots of fun as well, I know my original group really wanted to play EW.

[Oss]

Thats my understanding, except for tournaments, just like GW, they'd prefer you ahev their line of miniatures.

Actually, you don't have to, if I'm not misinformed. You may not advertise other manufacturers on their website, and they might insist on the proper scale. Can't be sure though, no such thing as an official tournament (or any) in my area.

I've been playing for about half a year now and am still in the learning stages, playing with a British Rifle Company based on the 43rd Wessex Division and a French tank Company (with American Equipment) form the 2eme Division Blindé.

Thanks for sharing what you are modeling.  I'll look these up and find out something about them.

One of my current challenges, before I start buying more stuff, is to find a historical German infantry unit that I like to base my initial collection on, and adapt the german army list to what I find out about the unit's composition and uniforms.

The Wessex guys are currently just a standard British Rifle Company from the Fortress Europe book, there is no divisional briefing (though they might get one soon-ish, having been involved in Market Garden). It's quite an interesting unit that saw action all across the North West Europe campaign.

The 2eme DB was part of De Gaulles Free French Forces, formed around a core of units that fought in Africa, and was reequipped to fight in France, where it took part in the Liberation of Paris and Strassburg. The list is available as a download from Battlefront, though it requires the Cobra Briefing for full usability.

[Mathi Alfblut]

Is there any gamesystem that is using the 20mm or 1/72 scale? I am sort of interested a bit of trying some stuff out, but if I am going to start a new gamesystem, when we have not been able to start The great war, yet, it better be as cheap as possible.