Flames of War General - V4 speculative bitching edition

Not to mention use of copyrighted music...

Phil just wouldn't understand our memes

That brings up a good question, how large do we think the audience is?

I assume a lot of the people in this thread are listeners, but even here I doubt it's 100%, and we have no accurate idea of unique posters other than the Namefags.

Judging by previous threads we average between 30-50 unique posters.

Some people (myself included) post from our computer and our phones so it might be a little artificially inflated

Good point. I honestly haven't thought of that. Maybe we should run a poll sometime soon at least to determine a factor to account for phone + computer users. What happens if you use wifi vs data? Or if you use work vs home wifi?

different IPs = different poster

Reposting info about V4 from previous thread:

>late March but it's on Battlefront Time
>every existing list will have a conversion for V4, rulebook is 110 pages roughly (graphics still in progress)
>example: Bridge by Bridge has half a page of rules edits and "two rules are no longer used"
>explicit admission that EW and LW cards are categorically impossible, MW will not be on Forces because muh cards
>national special rules: Germans lose kampgruppe plus mission tactics, burgers lose tank telephones column security mumble mumble something or other, Hens and Chicks "has changed", QoQ is built into the core rules so isn't Russian specific
>artillery less effective bombarding tanks (all AT values nerfed by 1), sounds like everyone gains Mike Target but just against infantry
>many books for MW (sounds like Italy gets its own?), MW planes are effectively like TY but you only get two in the entire list period
>morale similar to TY

So, it seems like Germans and Burgers, and technically Russians also, lose some good stuff. H&C is getting fucked with once again, hopefully not for the worst.

I imagine the arty is getting nerfed so it fits in with TY's stats better, or some similarly retarded premise.

Team yankee morale makes no sense. That would mean a reluctant conscript horse would fight until the 3 stands remain.

From the forum, someone better at listening than me:
>8:1 scoring
>Reserves need to be 40% of points
>Art nerf aginst armour + 1 to FP - 1 to AT
>All batteries dont need to range in again next turn and inf / guns will need to re roll saves
>recon "simplified" a lot - don't know what this means though
>air turns up on a 4+
>3 new missions

According to Podbean we have a grand total of 5,817 Downloads over 49 Episodes(that includes Eagles' Nest and the old Grognard's Corner).

That averages out to almost 120 downloads per episode.

Although I'd assume some of the big episodes, like the Team Yankee launch special, got higher numbers than episodes that didn't have reviews of new stuff.

Hopefully its stuff that just got transferred into the core rules.

For Example, how many non-German lists also have Mission Tactics as a special rule?

Yeah, there's a few, but not that many. It should stay as a separate thing that can be pointed to. It was kind of a special line of military thought at the time, unlike today.

Which is a total shame, because you guys are far more entertaining than just about anyone else.

Wish I had a better mic, would love to get in on an episode sometime.

I feel the same way, but I don't want to mess with the groove the original Funkmeisters have. I was thinking of doing a more topical podcast in the future to be posted under the same channel. I can handle editing. Email [email protected] if you might be interested. Maybe there are some topics the general podcast isn't able to cover that we could try to give a stab at.

seconded.

that, and we accidentally have some of the coolest peeps in there...with opposing viewpoints...and we don't kill each other.

m.youtube.com/watch?v=fXTFeG6ques

thought you lads might be interested. if there is enough interest and the producers don't do it themselves, i will subtitle it

at this point I'm surprised to see a special list that DOESN'T use mission tactics

it's got subtitles already

looks interesting

yes.

it's also a movie. let's hope we get an EW snowflake list out of it....

I forget if we have your email on our list or not.

Email us at [email protected] and maybe we can invite you to join in on an episode when you are able to.

We're always open to more. But yeah, 4-6 people per recording seems to be the sweet spot.

Again, you're more than welcome to join us if/when you're available.

And secondary show would be cool. The only reason I've kinda slacked off on Eagles' Nest is because editing Panzerfunk itself seems to be taking a lot more time lately than it used to.

Interesting.

>Special Soviet list

We all know how unlikely that is.

>inB4 50+ posts about how poorly represented the Soviets are in FoW.

E-mail sent, my good man.

Does anyone have both the PSC British paratroopers and the BF British paratroopers? Looking at grabbing some airlanding 17pdrs and I need to know if they'll look ok next to my PSC paras.

I am NOT getting a good feeling from these rules... I will most likely at least try it out (especially since I like the desert war), but still...

The typical rule of thumb is that as long as the minis from the two companies aren't being used in the same platoon, it shouldn't be noticeable that they're from different companies.

Agreed, it seems like they've decided the game was too infantry centric (or not Tank centric enough) and that arty should be the counter to a dug-in platoon. Not really very interesting from a gameplay or historical standpoint. If anything tank main guns or infantry assaults should get some sort of buff if they 'prepare' for multiple turns. It was consistently proven that weight of arty fire failed to attrit dug-in infantry effectively.

This makes me wonder, why is a straight up V4 release good enough in this day and age? It should be publicly tested for months before going to the printers. Big part of the reason why I don't buy Battlefront books.

Hello I was the guy who was going to try and pick up doing a Vassal module for the game last thread. I got some good opening ideas; however I decided that the best way to go about proceeding was to make unit sprites and material based on each set of themed books. So I'll be polling a list of the books I have in physical form or have easy access to.

strawpoll.me/11803196

Once I get some results, probably cutting it off by Saturday 7 PM EST I'll begin working on sprites for all the companies in the first set of books and working them into a working module for Alpha release hopefully within a month or two.

>Reserves need to be 40% of points
Goodbye heavy tank lists. This is literally one of the only upsides to them.

Yeah, not really sure where they are getting the infantry need to reroll saves with a repeat artillery barrage. If anything the second barrage would be less effective as the infantry would be more prepared to stay down. In my opinion they should just copy paste the TY artillery rules and leave it at that. If you want another way to dig out infantry you can give the Brutal rule to close support tank varients or other tanks with large caliber guns with an effective HE shell.

I was all for a V4 that streamlined some of the rules as I feel like many of us were. Some of the changes seem to be positive toward that. I hope they don't go too far, but I am having a bad feeling from what I am hearing here. I am especially nervous that they are messing with Hen and Chicks again, but not telling us. I guess we'll see as they spoil more.

Anybody have any experience getting people into this game in the middle of nowhere? The closest place that stocks this game let alone plays it is about 2 hours away. I want to try and get people together but it seems like a daunting task to indoctrinate people into the autistic world of Panzer Pushing.

The key is to find at least one other person to join you.

And then to play games at the store where other people can see you playing it and possibly get interested.

It's not a guaranteed thing, but it's a start.

Which 1500 French early war list is better?

...

List 2

Last part I promise

How about using print view instead of text view? It's much more compact and easy to read.

You might start with TANKS since you're unlikely to spend more than $50 on it, it only requires a 3'x3' board (90cm x 90cm), and the rules are quick. Good gateway game.

How much is too much artillery?

Is buying a full tank batallion (44 tanks) a good investment?

No but go for it

That's... a bit excessive. (German companies top out at 22, americans at 17/18, british at 20. Soviets at 31).

I'm pretty sure a company is 13 or so tanks and a tank platoon is 3.

Depends on which nation, and which tank.

My LW Germans have 4 PzIV Hs per platoon, and I think they could have taken 5 per platoon I'd I had wants them to.

Meanwhile Brit Shermans are maybe 3 or 4 tanks per platoon, and US Shermans can be anything from 3 to 5 per platoon if I'm remembering correctly.

And here is why it's important to differentiate between TY and FoW. 13 sounds about right for TY. The numbers above are for real FoW

TY?

Team Yankee. WW3 as imagined by Harold Coyle and the further interpreted by Battlefront.

It's a mid-1980s Cold War turns Hot war game based on the Harold Coyle's novel Team Yankee from the mid-1980s.

The novel itself is based on "The Third World War: August 1985" a fictional history book by British general Sir John Hackett.

I thought that sounded familiar

I really should pick up a copy of that at some point.

Tense as fuck game tonight; had the guy on the objective the turn I killed his CO and brought him under 1/2 strength. My major observation was that bunker busters are really shite.

Tell us more.

What nationalities did you play as and at what points levels?

What was the mission?

Why do you feel that way about Bunker Busters?

etc.

No such thing.

Bridge By Bridge
Support Company: Motorised SS-Artillery Battery.

FV Headquarters: 2x Rifle Teams

Motorised SS-Artillery Battery.
Two Gun sections with 6x 10.5cm leFH18
SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Hans-Georg Sonnestuhl
405 points

Motorised SS-Artillery Battery.
Two Gun sections with 6x 10.5cm leFH18
330 points

Motorised SS-Artillery Battery.
Two Gun sections with 6x 10.5cm leFH18
330 points

Assault Gun Platoon
3x CV StuG Gs.
285

Airsupport
Sporadic Air Support
FW-190F
100 points

Total: 1490

Thanks to Sonnestuhl, that's a Eighteen Gun bombardment, so you're using the Pizza box of doom template and rerolling missed hits, and if you hit first time. Time on Target. With a 12 by 12 inch template.

When you go to a tournament and they play one of the gay table quarter missions and you're attacking, but your army physically does not fit in the deployment zone.

team-yankee.com/Default.aspx?tabid=867&art_id=5397
>Team Yankee Special Order Or Something
>Link to buy Team Yankee book maybe
>everything is Graf Spee
Why does BF keep posting WIP articles and why are they so funny?

1420, LW Soviet (non hero) tankovy vs a LLW Panzer kampfgruppe. Mission was counterattack.

He set some ISU-152s towards the infantry dug in on the objective and a 10-tank platoon behind, another ten tank platoon heading to the other objective. I was concerned about bunker busters before we checked and realised they literally can't shoot tanks unless they're half dead already, which meant they got easily demolished before the T-34s arrived behind them and weren't in any danger of volley-firing the infantry into a position they could be assaulted.

AAAHHH

haha oh wow

>I was concerned about bunker busters before we checked and realised they literally can't shoot tanks unless they're half dead already

That's only true if the bunker buster has moved. If its stationary a bunker buster can shoot at any team in range of it's gun.

i'm so glad i own a copy...

wow. oh so nice.
i forgot Stonnestuhl allows Gun-gettai...not bad.

also: why support companies are in teh LULbox.

shall we put it up against Panzer IE's???

This is the new meta.

If you phone post using data it would give a separate IP from your home and work no?

>Support Company

Literally only used in massive multiplayer Total War games.

yep

>Support company
Come on man, try a bit harder than that.

...

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So I hope version 4 doesn't totally nerf arty. I love big cannons in games like this, just like how in 28mm scale games I always want to have a sniper if possible.

There's something so satisfying about raining down a hail of cannon fire from a distance.

Now if only I could cram more into my MW Italians.

I think they're trying to make it less effective against tanks, not less effective overall.

Well that's good. I suppose my other big guns will do fine for killing tanks, although direct fire arty is nothing to sneeze at.

To be fair. Artillery has been in Flames of War a premier Anti-Tank Asset. Generally when I tell how to kill tanks, I tell them "Get a very large artillery battery.". I'd be interested to learn how many tanks were actually destroyed by artillery fire during the war. I'm pretty sure most of them would have been destroyed usually during preliminary bombardments not tactical fire missions.

>accurate Soviet Gear
>Accurate German tanks
>pov of the grunts on the front line
>it's made by slavs so you know shit's gonna get real
>guaranteed authentic URRAAAAAAAAAA

My body is ready

The tanks are CGI, that's Gaijin's doing. They're basically the same models from Warthunder just with a mild spruce up.

Also:
> An investigation by Soviet authorities in 1948, since declassified, revealed that the description of the events was not accurate. Not all the twenty eight were killed — six of the soldiers were still alive. One of them was arrested in 1947 on charges of high treason and confessed to having “voluntarily” surrendered to German troops and later joined a German police force.[1][2][3] The findings were kept secret, and the Twenty-Eight Guardsmen were considered national heroes until the collapse of the USSR.

>the tanks are CGI by Gaijin

Are you sure? Pretty sure those are real vehicles. The way the shadows come off the vehicles at 1:19, as well as all the smoke and steam, really looks legit. If they're CGI, then Gaijin did a hell of a good job and that's some of the most believable CGI I've ever seen.

Then again I'm watching this embedded on Veeky Forums so it could just be video quality tricking me.

It will be more effective against dug in infantry less effective against tanks

I'm looking forward to fp1+ 160mm mortars

CGI's come a long bloody way since the Late 90s. Hell even Mad Max which was touted with "Muh Practical effects!" used a lot of computer touch up for Colour Correction and stuff.
Or when you see a car chase in basically any modern movie now, those other cars on the road are usually CGI CGI's fucking Fantastic for doing Materials like cloth, wood, metal, and if you do it right, fire and smoke can be handled pretty well too.
It all falls apart on Humans though because of the Uncanny Valley effect where the closer they get to looking human, the more we begin to notice the subtle differences, the way the mouth takes a second later to form the letter S, the way the eyebrow isn't moving correctly etc. Some tanks though? Gaijin have that down pat, WT's models are gloriously detailed already, just roll out the 4k ones they use for their own trailers and boom.

>I'm looking forward to fp1+ 160mm mortars

Oh man... 8 tubes of FT hero mortars cost 220 points. Plus you can bring 6 more tubes of 120mm hero mortars for 160 points. Their only downside is shorter range than other arty, but you could easily throw in some Zis-3s (which won't be so horroble in v4 with +1 FP) or Katys to pin/kill enemy artillery.

I could see air becoming more of a factor to threaten enemy artillery. Especially if you are running an infantry that isn't quite as mobile.

> I'm looking forward to fp1+ 160mm mortar

Yeah..."New broken things in V4 that BF did not consider (# 32948)".

While the list of V4 changes is incomplete/unknown, I have to wonder...will anyone even play infantry anymore? Sounds like they will have the snot pounded out of them ASAP bu all template weapons, and since tanks have less to fear from bunching-up...I'm calling it: V4 will be a tank-fest.

all this speculative bitching is getting me down. Not looking forward to having my nerfed as its the key strength of my defence and my troops are literally just there to put a wall between the enemy and the guns i use to cook tommy.

but i think simunovic made a good point. V4 will be free so lets just try it before we turn our noses up at it. i will kill pete if he takes away my warrior though

They plan on completely redo all the unit costs and lists to match TY format so i would expect a point increase for mortars and rockets

No, EW and LW points are supposed to remain the same, since their books will all be "backwards compatible". It's only Mid War that will have entirely new lists and stats.

Wait and see.

Which basically means that against highly lethal tanks, or Germans in general, the Bunker Busters will never get a chance to fire first unless the opponent lets them.

Yeah, Bunker Busters got nerfed hard in v3. The fault of that, was the absurdly cheap Brumbar. By the end of v2, every German list would have the damned things. They were frustratingly good when combined with Stormtroop, and their insanely low cost for Confident Veterans. BF opted to "fix" the issue by making Bunker Busters a less usable against tanks. The problem is they effectively neutered all Bunker Buster including the much more expensive Trained ISU-152, which was already less popular than the ISU-122.

Right, but Brumbars needed the nerf.

And how likely was it that some massive slow to load and slow to fire bunker buster could hit a moving target like a tank? Especially when they were moving also.

>V4 will be a tank fest
As if V3 wasn't? I feel like 98% of the lists I see at my LGS are armored companies. People look at me like I'm insane when I pull out infantry stands, doubly so when I pull out 32 of the bastards for two platoons.

I hope infantry won't become useless in V4. Combined arms is one of the things I like about FoW. Yeah an armored list is fun here or there, but not all the time. If the game goes that direction then my Italians may never see the light of day again.

You know "beast killer" comes from the SU-152 specifically because it was used to knock out panthers and tigers, right?

What vehicle do the Soviets use for mechanized infantry?

Generally, they don't (they're one of the few, if not the only, nation with no armored transports). No, T-34s don't count.

Correction, they have Rota Razvedki, which can use M3 Scout Cars, Universal Carriers and I think german halftracks (and possibly some other stuff as well).

Lend-lease American half tracks