Flames of War General - Always Remember Recce Edition

Depending on how old they were you may have had the shitty early sculpts; their brits and two more recent germans are newer and are IMO comparable to BF.

Fun fact: Half of the 200 A30 Challengers produced had additional 1" thick plates of armor added to the turret and front hull at the factory. This increased the armor protection from 63mm to 89mm. There's also evidence (such as this photograph of an early-series A30) that up-armoring had been done in the field. Additionally, all but the first 40 produced had thick cast mantlets that were 40mm thicker (~100mm vs ~60mm).

12" move

+2 FA

???profit???

Oddly, the testing of the uparmored version showed it having slightly greater speed than the base Challenger, according to the references I found. Need to get my hands on "A30 Challenger Tank A Technical History" to make sure, though. Currently, I'd say just make it +1 armor (the plates only covered portions, there was no sloping worth notice, and the 75mm on the cromwell is front 6) and no movement change.

maybe extra weight helped it "dig in" for better traction?

Might have, might also be a product of comparing it to the early versions that had some bad drive components. Again, need to get my hands on that book to be sure.

What's the current book for midwar Africa? Like operation Torch and Desert Rats and whatnot.

Appropriately, North Africa. Which also covers Italy. Confusingly.

Thanks user

What's a good Axis army for someone new to the game?

I want to play something without a ton of Infantry but it doesn't have to be an armor company. Open to any era or non-Eastern front, but preferably mid or late War.

If you don't want tons of infantry, then armoured is probably the best way to go. Trying out one of the CV Panzerkompanie lists in Atlantik Wall might be a good place to start.

Just bought some painted ISU-152 (ISU-122s) from my FLGS. How horrible of a sin would it be to proxy these as SU-152s for midwar? I know it's a completely different chassis, but honestly they don't look horribly different for 15mm.

Anybody play Vichy French here?

Honestly dude, I play against paper card proxies if someone has something arriving in mail or wants to try something out. Its no big deal, people can deal. Unless of course they can't, in which case you are playing against arseholes. Just say at the start that you are proxying them and all should be fine.

My three ground rules for proxying are - in decreasing importance - transparency, consistency, and finally similarity.

Transparency: tell your opponents what is what. Labels may help in some cases, but shouldn't be necessary in this case.

Consistency: units of the same type represent the same thing. So you avoid "these Panzer IVs are StuGs, but these other Panzer IVs are Panthers". Conversely, I'd probably be okay with "I didn't have enough, so all Pz IVs and StuGs are StuGs today".

Finally, similarity: while it also helps from a point of view of remembering what's where, more importantly it's useful for game purposes to use a broadly similar-sized model. So your armoured car cannot be a Super Pershing, for example; but a Lee for a Priest would be a sensible swap.

...

Yeah, these three guidelines make a lot of sense when it comes to proxies.

Those seem like good guidelines. Seems like a close proxy in this case. I may buy a couple of SU-152s in the future, but money is a little tight and I'm saving some hobby money for the new team yankee releases.

I only have one addendum to add: NEVER, EVER use something as a proxy that you also have "true" in your army (such ans proxying some Panzer IVs as StuGs, and then also having Panzer IVs in your army). No, not even if they have a different paint scheme.

>No, not even if they have a different paint scheme.
If it's radically different enough (Africa vs NW Europe, painted vs unpainted, winterized vs normal), I think it's fine. If it's pretty close in color or style, no.

>Finally, similarity: while it also helps from a point of view of remembering what's where, more importantly it's useful for game purposes to use a broadly similar-sized model. So your armoured car cannot be a Super Pershing, for example; but a Lee for a Priest would be a sensible swap.

Most people don't know the exact stats of other people's models anyway, so I definitely agree with this.

...

A while ago someone listed all the soviet tanks that saw action in small numbers, but that weren't given stats. Would you mind listing those again?

Those must have seen extremely limited action.

Almost everything in common usage has stats.

Exactly.

The SU-100Y had a single prototype that probably fired shots in the direction of the enemy. There was the T-50, which was probably fed into the Leningrad Front Home For Bad Tank Designs. There was probably a few crappy 1930s experimental designs, and there might be one or two armoured car short runs amongst the throng that don't have rules yet.
Basically has the right of it. Anything we don't have rules for was almost literally irrelevant. Stuff for MWM or LWL than actual books.

i get it

Predictions for the Pacific War? Is it gonna become another obscure expansion era like Vietnam or will exclusive Pacific War games build a community?

If they keep adding in points values to blend it with LW, it'll do fine.

Waffentrager, dicker max, the billion subvarieties of armoured cars and improvised captured vehicles, Ho-Ro and Ho-Ni, 76mm jumbos, /super pershing/...

It looks a bit stillborn, honestly. PW points don't really work for marines very neatly, and neither japan nor marines really fit in LW except as gimmick lists.

There was something like 20 T-50s. Enough saw action for the Finnish to actually capture two of them and put them in a museum. And while they were little more than a BT-7 with thicker armor, it would (easily) qualify for "Light Tank", even if the devs marked it "Standard".

The SU-100Y prototype did see combat in (iirc) the Moscow fighting. Like any hull-mount Tank Destroyer, shooting in the direction of the enemy is exactly what it did. For what it's worth the thing survived, and is in the famous russian tank museum. In one piece, even. MW could use the BT-7, preferably either stupid cheap, or Light Tank. If for no other reason than to completely outshine the T-70, and allow you to have a not-LL light tank worth using.

The ISU-122s could be added, but that'd mostly be cosmetic.

BTs are, for some reason, not Light Tanks. Yes, this means that an M4A3 sherman is apparently faster.

So long as your opponent knows, and the gun is (mostly) the right size, it shouldn't matter. The SU-152 and ISU-152 are very similar in appearance, with the major difference being visible on the back engine deck. A lot of their similarity comes from the fact the IS chassis was based around the KV-1s chassis, and so in a sense the ISU-152 is just the SU-152 on a newer chassis.

Well aware of that. It's one of my biggest gripes with EW. BTs should have been Light. Hopefully v4 gives Fast Tank the +2" movement that Detroit's Finest has.

Whats the deal with shooting at bailed out/bogged down vehicles? It doesnt say anything about it in the rule book.

Same as shooting any vehicle. But hits to the platoon have to be allocated to not-bogged/not-bailed vehicles first, UNLESS the bogged/bailed vehicle is the lower armor value. If you move and fire a Bunker Buster, then hits cannot be allocated to not-bogged/not-bailed vehicles. So in a weird way, you can move and fire a Bunker Buster and snipe out a bailed/bogged tank.

PSC's 25pdrs have hit 6k, so at the very least it looks like 18/25pdrs are likely. Might throw in now, get one battery for EW and one for MW/LW.

Is there any point at all to normal 18pdrs in EW, beyond historical accuracy/model limitations? For 5 points you get an extra point of bombardment AT with the 18/25s, which seems like a total nobrainer.
Especially given the premium you pay for the full 25pdrs.

>For 5 points you get an extra point of bombardment AT
And an extra point of bombardment FP.

Realistically, if you're just taking 4 or 12 of either it is a total nobrainer in favour of the 18/25s, yeah.
The 18s are worth it if you're taking 8-gun batteries, though, because the 18s give you access to 4.5" howitzers, which are *excellent*, and Britain's sole source of BTG in EW. At which point you can then safely use your 18s as heavy ATGs and your howtizers for delicious 3+FP bombardments.

Doesn't quite work as efficiently with the 12 guns since you're at diminishing returns, unfortunately.

>Galileo x2

it needs:

Brits
Aussies
Kiwi
Chindits (like Brit Sperverband)
Chinese
French
Philipines (1 list is fine)
Indian forces for both sides

Yup, I feel like a robust book or two for the Burma or New Guinea campaigns might be a good way to give it some depth and some more interesting lists.

You have to wonder how the hell they'd balance a Kokoda list.

Australian Militia beating the shit out of Japanese veterans.

FC (maybe FT later in the campaign) Fortified list? Not sure what else they could do/if anything more is needed.

Hello /fowg/. Thanks to a friend's upcoming wedding, I have 4 weeks to finish up my British Armored Recce company (11th Armored, 15th/19th Hussars, B squadron). That means I have only 28 days to finish stowage, converting, basing, priming, and then painting all of these fuckers. And I've still got a few more (2 SP Bofors, another Challenger, 3 Wasps) that are either not in this picture or are on order. I have never been so intimidated by a pile of resin, plastic, and metal.

Help

Honestly, I'd be inclined to rate them FT at a minimum. Even Australian home militia, like at Kokoda, had excellent fieldcraft skills.

Then again, FC with Mission Tactics is a hilarious mental image.

And a number of free booby traps, to represent the wildlife.

You running the Nachtjager (means Night Hunter) list?

Maybe, but most of the memoirs/history books I've read about Kokoda (and I've read more than a couple) don't really make any bones about the fact the militia units weren't professional soldiers. Maybe they could get shot like Trained but test like Conscripts or vice versa?

Nah, the Wildlife in PNG is slightly less hilariously deadly than in mainland Australia.

Now, Native ambushes, on the other hand, *those* are killers.

Other way round, perhaps. Actual professional soldiering they were lacking, but practical skills like survival, teamwork, initiative and so on were in abundance. A *lot* of them came from farming or mining backgrounds, and austraila was hilariously rural at the time.
Test like trained, shot like conscripts.

I wonder if they could get away with fuzzy-wuzzy support as a special rule and what it would actually do.

Reroll to reserves, with the golliwogs leading them through jungle trails?

Some stretcher bearer-esque rule similar to that one soviet medic chick in the shtraf list?

I've got them set up so I can either run them using the Nachtjager (Translator's note: Nachtjager means Night Hunter) list, or the Market Garden list. That's why I've got both Cromwell (MG) and Sherman (NJ) ARVs, 4 Cromwell CS tanks (Luttrell's Platoon, MG), and have a platoon of Wasps (NJ) on order.

The trained MG list lets me shove more tanks in, and has the advantage of hiding the Challengers inside the Cromwell platoons. The veteran NJ list lets me get flamethrowers and lets my challengers fuck up a target before the cromwells smoke it (assuming it lives).

Don't forget the Reluctant Conscript US troops who turned up with only a couple months of training.

Nice, that's a good way of setting things up, I've been wrestling with which one to go for as my next list so I might nab your idea.

Not familiar with that second one, what's it do?

Yeah. That the infantry, AA, and artillery remain CV in both lists is great, since those benefit more from veteran than the tanks do. The one thing I don't like is that I can only get 2 platoons of 4 cromwells and only the normal 2 CS tanks in the NJ list, leaving me with 2 normals and CSs without a home. Then again, I guess my Wasps will be homeless when using the MG list, so that's not a huge problem.

That force is so easy to paint to a basic level.

Once per turn, Rita may attempt to save a team that is
in Pyl'cyns Shtraf Company. If an Infantry or Gun team
within 6"/1 5cm of Pyl'cyn fails a Save, roll a die:
-If the result ii 5+, Rita manages to save the team and it continues to fight on unharmed.
-Otherwise, the soldiers are too badly wounded to fight on the team is Destroyed as normal.

And I guess you can use them with the Overlord list, but then you don't get Challengers. Glorious RoF 3, cat-chewing Challengers. Do get Cautious Movement and Disengage, though, so it might be fun to try once or twice.

Oh, and if you don't mind the division symbols being off, it's easy enough to use them as the MG Guards Recce as well. Only big change between the 11th and Guards versions availability-wise is the Dingoes will have to be replaced with scout carriers.

Huh, that'd work pretty well for fuzzy-wuzzy rules, probably working off of the CiC base.

I'm pretty new to FoW, my friend plays a t34 swarm out of Red Bear. What would be a decent German army to play against his force. Or is FoW balanced enough that any army can reasonably handle an army of comparable points value? I sort of want to do a Panzerspah company from Grey Wolf of mostly Pumas, but I won't bother if it's going to just get BTFO by his army. Thanks for any advice!

FoW is well balanced. And realistically speaking, your force should be able to take a few different sorts of armies. Infantry and tank based.
>Panzerspah
...and you blew it.

If you like Pumas, take a platoon of them. But AC companies are something of a novelty. You can take plenty of them in most regular lists, though. But they're at their core, recon assets. GOOD recon assets, but they were never really meant to form the core of a force.

That's perhaps a little unfair. Mechanised companies - and armoured car companies in particular - can work, but require a lot of finesse, and aren't massively newb-friendly.

Safe options are a company based around Panzer IVs or StuGs, or an infantry list with lots of Pak40s. (Consider the Sturmkompanie out of Grey Wolf for max Pak40 shenanigans.)

What you will want are things that are survivable against mid-AT shots (dependent on your opponent's mix of 76s and 85s), and high AT shots that he can't easily save. AT11 is okay; AT12 is better. However, you hit diminishing returns on points quickly - I wouldn't recommend going all the way to a King Tiger or Elefant, as you just don't get enough shots to deal with a horde.

Pumas, for my money, aren't quite shooty enough or (anywhere near) tough enough to mix it up against a tank mob.

Pumas are better trained and can recce away to avoid a lot of the return fire from the T-34s. Their fire in return isn't going to gut as many T-34s though. You'd want some Tank Hunters or AT guns. Which you can probably afford.

Thanks for the advice, I'm also leaning towards a pzgren company. So I'll just add some Pumas to that.

69 T-50s were actually made. Some were used in 1941 on the Leningrad front and 27 tanks were used by 488 Separate Tank Battalion on the Transcaucasus front in 1942. The Finns captured 1 which was used as a command tank.

I don't, pls explain

youtube.com/watch?v=fJ9rUzIMcZQ

Can an infantry platoon mount on a tank platoon during deployment?

Battlefront have said before veterancy actually has nothing to do with experience and is a reflection of how much they died. So if tons of Kokoda died like chumps they're going to be conscript. If they punched well above their weight, they might even be vet.

And we're up to 18/25pdrs. I'm a bit nonplussed they put the Normandy figures way up at 11k; without those they'd be a completely useless buy for me and my club. The promise of sextons is tempting, though.

I now saw that they've rearranged the stretch goals. They now offer 17/25pdr Pheasants at 7k... suddenly this got much more interresting.

WAIT WHAT

THIS IS VERY NICE

THIS:

1: spray coat th ewhole thing.
2: ink coat, let dry for 24 hrs
3: pick out tracks and do any highlights with both a detail brush (for really small bits) or with a smaller tighter-in dry-brush (for tracks, fender mud, ect....) as opposed to a huge honking dry-brush.

I've never seen anyone do it, so I'd assume not. But I'm honestly not entirely sure.

I would assume it falls under the rules for Transport Platoons, namely "Platoons Deployed after the Transport Platoon may be deployed mounted in the transport Platoon's Vehicles if there is space for them". If not, there's not technically anything saying they can start mounted, but it makes sense for them to do so.

Not like it matters much, since the platoon can just jump onto the tanks and then the tanks can move normally.

Potentially a massive russian platoon would be physically incapable of all deploying close enough to the tanks to embark on turn 1, but you'd have to be a real dick not to let them start that way.

A real dick, and someone that doesn't want free hits and pinning on the infantry from shooting the tanks.

Tank riders and quality of quantity. I can see it being helpful to the enemy, but you need 10 hits with main guns (unless they're polite enough to be loaded up within 16") to pin the infantry and they keep a 3+ save.

Toss some artillery in their direction, then. Even a mortar has potential to cause a fair amount of chaos in such a situation.

Ah, didn't know the soviet tank riders got to stay on the tanks instead of being forced to dismount. That's actually pretty good.

Even better, he just chucked in the LW europe crew for everyone because his team won the football.

Right, 8 25pdrs ordered. And it seems that you're just a few wheels from being able to make 2 guns from each kit (25pdr on mk II carriage, and 18/25pdr on mk I carriage, or 25pdr on mk I carriage and 17/25pdr on mk II)... I wonder if it will be possible to scrounge some wheels from the trucks...

Well, fuck; let's go for it then.

Anyone ever played one of the late-war early-war-tank lists, like finns or romanians? How'd it go?

10 hits with any gun. Even spraying the tanks with MG fire will cause every stand on the tank to rake a hit for each MG shot that hits the tank. Depending upon how many stands are loaded up on each tank, this could be as low as 3 or 4 MG hits.

That's not the case. You need QoQ to bump up the hits and keep from being dismounted. But ultimately you're still vulnerable as fuck. I've used Tank Rider platoons, and the hardest lesson I learned was how much it sucks for the tanks to come under fire from jeeps and halftracks with machine guns.

Which is why they don't want to represent any note-worthy Soviet brigades. Representing the 46th Guards Tank Brigade would mean making them Veterans, and they fucking know it. So instead they give us "generic shit-tier Hero Lend Lease" and call it a day.

I stand corrected. They still saw plenty of combat, and should be added to the game.

"Unless they're polite enough to be loaded up within 16"", yes. That's suicide with almost every transport though. In the MG bubble you pretty much always want to be dismounted from anything you're riding, unless you're panzergrens.

Yeah, if you're not in an armored transport (be it half-tracks, kangaroos, or whatever), getting within 16" while mounted is pretty dumb. Ignoring situations where you will be out of LOS no matter what they do, obviously.

Well, played my first two games of the Tanks game after my FLGS got a pair of starters delivered.
Looks like the products are flying off the distributor shelves.

Both games we played had 2 Brit Sherman Vs vs 2 German StuG Gs since that's what we have painted at the store for demos.
In the second game, both of us were allowed to take up to 10 points of upgrades as well.

It was quite enjoyable and very fast-playing as well; each game took about a half-hour at a very relaxed pace.
There seems to be some real tactical depth, with standing still to aim and moving up to go for knife-fighting both having value.

I certainly plan to play it some more, probably as a nice "filler" game before/after games of FoW.