Flames of War: The Happening edition

Well the rumor is that Italy will be getting plastic tanks. Just bugged that they don't even get a mention in the article.

Sup Veeky Forums, does anyone have any ideas to help a friend of mine out? We play early war alot and hes getting frustrated with his french army. It just doesn't stand up to the german lists in Barbarossa very well. He plays the activated french infantry company from blitzkrieg, but side by side with the german infantry kompanie I can just bring more of just about everything. Does anyone have any tips for him? I can root through my bag in the morning when its not hoth outside and probably find his list if it will help.

Game Centre down in Hamilton man. Or go bang on Battlefront's door personally.

Anyone know of the scaled-down Open Fire rulebook would count for this? I mean it's the same book, just smaller, right?

I don't think there's a single shop in Glasgow in which I could do this.

this. so much this. i feel like my im constantly being punished for not playing one of the big 4. I love italian and finnish armies so much but they're always just an afterthought.

those fucking souma(?) tanks and CharB. Does he have enough arty?

the way i have been thumped by frogs has been with a mix of strong but slow tanks, hordes of dug in infantry supported by AT and HMGs (that can fire over dug in infantry btw), and arty.
French are generally weaker on the attack but it shouldn't ever be a white wash.

oh also those cannons on the back of trucks. fuck those little guys. they can wreck up the place if played right.

Very simple. You don't take your list from the massive fuck-up that is Barbarossa. Borrow his Blitzkrieg and make your list from that instead.

Once the major issue is solved, what does he, and you, have?

So why can't Battlefront release the Early and Late war changes online as a PDF and not force me to hunt down non-existent stores for a promotion that sounds dubious as fuck.

To be fair they don't have enough equipment to do every MW nation qt the same time. Italy and Murica will probably be out soon after the first releases.

__________

I am much more excited for v4 for MW than I am for the EW and LW retcons. Seems like a lot of good changes from TY are making their way in. My mid war tankovy is going to go FAST, I imagine thr T-34 will have pretty zippy dash speed.

Artillery changes are still a little mind boggling. I still worry that arty and infantry will play out like some twisted WW1 reinactment.

Is it just me or does spiltting the game into two seperate rules/points system seem weird? Not sure if this will work well but maybe I'm just being anxious over the incoming changes.

That's most likely because they can't redo all the points at the same time. You watch, EW and LW will soon get redone with the new stupid points

Hes got both tanks, as for arty, he had a battery of....75s? I think. We rolled a fair fight and got hold the line, and he ended up attacking, which I
think hurt him....alot more than it should have.

I've got more german stuff than I could shake a stick at. It's been awhile sine I was on tg, but I was the user who ordered PSC stuff super late after a night of drinking, and miscounted and bought 5 of the early war german infantry boxes from PSC, and its associated support weapons, and armor, and planes.......and tube arty etc. Debit cards and good whiskey don't mix.

His collection has light and heavy arty, the somuas, 3 chars, 4 platoons of infantry, some HMGs, a couple at guns, and 2 or 3 mortar platoons. I can get an exact list of his collection in the morning.

I got 3 of these second hand but none of them has side skirting.

What could i use to fix this?

Plasticard, a sharp knife, and blood for the blood god.

>theyre changing the points type

Ah, so they're essentially forcing us to drop all our old books, got it.

Really not liking the sound of this. The new point scale just does not strike me as a good idea. There's so many tiny little upgrades that are available in the WWII books that will be tricky to balance correctly in this new scale.

Maybe I'll be proved wrong, and I really hope I am, but I've got a bad feeling about this

Run them as Desperate Measures tigers.

thats how most would be late in the war as battle damage and lack of replacement parts took their toll. Leave em as is.

It's because it's impossible to sell because the lists are so bytazine. My store's moved on to TY and order-in only because it's impossible to sell boxes of anything because of all the jump-in points.

It's double-stupid because the points scale already goes in increments of 5; just divide everything by 5 and have 300 points.

Pete said in the interview that they will be willing to directly send the book to you if there is not a store around.

It is weird, especially since they are changing artillery so much, but they didn't want to trash all the backlog of books they came out with. We will have to see about balance.

>Ah, so they're essentially forcing us to drop all our old books, got it.

If by all our books you mean Eastern Front and North Africa, ok.

B-but maths are too hard. Also why we are seeing no reform for scoring of lost platoons in tournaments. It's not like every smartphone has a calculator or anything.

>tiny little upgrades
Literally shit nobody ever uses or that get used everytime so they will include them in the new point cost by putting them already in the unit

Finns have tempted me for some time.

but seriously, they stole all their shit. what do you make n plastic that you don't jst take from russia? BT-42? the 3 you'll ever get?

plastic infantry is as far as that will go....

Italy has real issues their, though. they were unique players with unique gear.

>tiny little upgrades
Mittlere Panzer company. You could:
>upgrade to Panzer III J (Late) for 15 pts
>upgrade to Panzer III N for 20 pts
>both of them have different armor and gun stats
You're BF, how do you do this in a 100 point scale?

>It's Happening, People!
>V4 is announced on the website....

Well, I don't see any fire and brimstone raining down from the heavens.

No earthquakes or volcanoes.

No rivers and seas boiling, or dead rising from the grave.

No human sacrifices, and only a few dogs and cats living together.

I'd say it's fairly safe to assume we're not heading for a disaster of Biblical proportions just quite yet.

I'm willing to save the mass hysteria until I actually see how good or bad it is.

Remove one of the options and drink your tears.

Make them both a 1 point upgrade.

It's like the Stillbrew being a 1 point per tank upgrade for the Brits in TY.

Perhaps a bit of a stupid observation, but has anyone else noticed that it was "Version 3" and now it's "4th Edition"?

It seems like an odd wording change. *shrug*

Looking forward to seeing it.

I assume plastic 8th Army and Afrika Korps infantry at some point if MW is going to be the flagship game? The metals are kinda meh.

RIP panzer III J

>There's so many tiny little upgrades
That you now spend 1 point on to give to the entire platoon, or that are incorporated into the points cost. When's the last time a German core infantry platoon didn't take the Panzerfaust/Knacker command team?

Vickers 6 Tonnes. The Landsverk SPAAGs. FT-17 bunkers. StuGs and Panzer 4s. They're not plastic, but they're there.
The Italians are hardly an afterthought. There's a reason they turn up at tournaments so often.

Then maybe do 1 point for the 1 and 2 points for the other.

no you retard, with a 1:15 point ratio by the time you're spending two points you'd just get a Panzer III L or M

What?

Look, at 100 points, what used to be a 15 point upgrade would just be a 1 point upgrade.

20 points would probably be rounded down to 15, and also be 1 point.

Or the could make it two, but that would be aiming a bit high.

Either way, is. 15 vs 20 really that big of a difference that making them both 1 point in this new scale is absolutely god awful?

5 points is meaningless. That's an AAMG in the current points scale.

you really won't get this until you've used some of the more oddball platoon choices like late war American Shermans or the MW Panzer platoons.

These units traditionally had a large variety of equipment that points wise really on differ by 5-10 pts in most instances. These differences are too small to properly divide at the "100pts" scale. So you end up with tanks that are either going to be too cheap or too expensive because they have to round up/down. It's either that, or theyre going to remove options, which isn't fun either.

I think the more annoying issue is that switching to unit cards is going to be hell to keep track of. For Grey Wolf alone you'd probably need 200 unit cards. I just want books dammit, I don't need index cards.

Final/most insignificant thing that most people won't care about, but the 100pts scale might not be as easy to scale up and down, like how we can do now for tourneys. I really liked how the meta for FoW went up and down in points to keep lists fresh and mix things up. I'm worried that 100pts won't scale as well. That was part of the point of having things like 5pt optional AAMG's and whatnot, it gave you that extra wiggle room where if you really needed to lose 10pts to make a list work you could. In the new scale thats 2/3 of a point, which isn't possible anymore. And with so many armies and books built around the old system, I just don't think itll be pretty. This isn't team yankee where you can count all your units on your hands, this is WWII where it's not uncommon to see 10-15 different tanks alone in a book, and that's before you even touch infantry or support options.

I just think they've made it too small. Had they done 300 or something I might've been less hesitant.

And again, I will be the first to be excited if I'm proved wrong, I've just got a bad gut feeling about it, and my gut is very rarely wrong.

One quick thing to point out, EW and LW aren't going with the card format.

BF have admitted that it would be almost impossible to do it for those time periods. Especially for LW.

Those are staying at the current scale and in books.

For now, anyway.

>One quick thing to point out, EW and LW aren't going with the card format.
>Those are staying at the current scale and in books.
For now, that is.
>BF have admitted that it would be almost impossible to do it for those time periods. Especially for LW.
But somehow, MW, when one of the iconic platoons is the jalopy panzer, and the british commonwealth rifle platoon, it will work..

I'm mostly worried. if BF do this badly, MW will continue to barely exist, and I want to have tank battles in the desert...

French (EW) is all about arty and move-or-shoot tanks. It can be frustrating on his end because of that either-or limitation to vehicles, but for MW the French tanks are fairly solid. Keep in mind however that Blitzkrieg vs Barbarossa is NOT a well balanced matchup. And if you're packing a looted T-34 or later Panzers, then that is going to severely handicap him. Bottom line, Chars and Somuas have issues against T-34s.

Doesn't the article say 100 points will be a mid sized game?

Yes? That's my issue. Instead of 1500 it will be 100. I'm not entirely sure what your point is?

For your consideration: This Being a Further Study into the Trials and Tribulations of playing a Hero IS-2 Battalion

Because 200 would be a normal game if 100 is a mid sized game.

At least that's what I got from it.

3000 points is not a "normal game" for Flames though, that's fucking huge. 1750 is a lot and 2000 is a large game.

Mid-sized = average, m8

You have some interesting points about how the points system will struggle to scale up and down for tournaments and the like.

In general its pretty late to make a hiss and fuss over changes we have an issue with. When announcements like these are made the rules have been written and production is probably near completion. All that's left for BF to do is get all the books and products distributed around the world.

Mid would mean not normal sized. Mod sized game would be a medium sized game compare to the norm.

Then they need to pick their wording better. Mid sized sounds like "not a full sized game, but a good middle ground" not "the standard."

>4th Edition
I am sure this will bode will.

The new plastic kit has extra side skirts. Should be easy to get once other people get those new Tigers.

He really needs to learn how to infantry.

Or not IS-2.

His list would actually be better if he just ran a regular strelk or tank battalion, and fielded those 5 IS-2s as just an assault platoon.

I strongly suspect 100 points in Mid will be equivalent to 2000 points from the current lists, with additional points changes aimed at getting more medium tanks on the table.

I don't really mind the points system and more medium tanks is a good thing, but from my experience with Team Yankee 100 points just isn't a good tourney format. With multiple formations certain players eyes light up and they go straight for 18-20 platoon forces. You're left standing there for 1/2 an hour while they deploy. It makes for interesting 3-4 hour games, but the potential variation isn't great for balanced or tourney play.

As with Team Yankee, BF is pushing it because they want to increase sales and model count. They've taken the time saved with the rules getting leaner and used it to pad the game size. That's 2nd to 3rd edition 40k right there...

If the cost for a competitive list goes up by $200 or so, the game will die, they'll be no new blood. The main thing it has going for it now is you can have awesome fun with Open Fire, a box of Panthers, some arty and recce.

Or just fielded strelk and SU-122s/KV-1s, depending on what he uses the IS-2s for.

Try playing with 80 points. Really makes list building more interesting as you have some hard decisions to make cutting down from your 100 point list. Still enough points to have a lot on the board and get the synergy between units.

See, from Phil's wording I would think 200 would be the standard for WW2. Which would give them more wiggle room with points for various tanks and such.

You are literally the only one reading it that way, man. TY has 100 as the standard game with about the same amount of stuff as a 1500 FOW force on the table, and most people use mid sized as average compared to a large or small game.

TY has a huge waft of X-wing influence.

100 pts is standard, bloke.

>With 100 points being the new medium-sized force
Phil's exact words.

If 100 will be standard they need to say standard. Makes me worry if they can't into English.

Makes perfect sense to me, medium-sized would also be a good way to descrive 1500 "old" points.

Then again, I'm not an english major with a stick up my arse.

I'm not trying to pick fights here, but the wording is kinda stupid.

If someone asks you what a medium sized game of TY is would you say 100 points?

I guess we'll wait and see, but I still maintain that's some shitty English there on Phil's part.

No, because from what I've seen, most people play it at lower points. HOWEVER, it was designed to have 100 points be the middle, just as FoW was designed with 1500 points as the middle.

Which just seems weird. I think "middle" as not being a full game. I would think 1500 is a normal game, and medium sized would be half that.

I mean we'll see what they do; I just think Phil chose an odd word.

Regardless of points I'm still stoked for plastic tanks for my Italians. I guess I can still buy infantry and big guns and such with no fears of those being replaced.

Wonder if Hungarians will get plastic tanks, too. Will probably grab PSC plastic T26's for my Finns.

>medium sized game is 750 points

What the actual fuck are you on. Do you even play this game?

>Anyone know of the scaled-down Open Fire rulebook would count for this? I mean it's the same book, just smaller, right?
Anybody?

"Middle" is not "half" a game but a normal sized game wich is 1500-1750 points at the moment

>upgrade to Panzer III J (Late) for 15 pts
>upgrade to Panzer III N for 20 pts
Make them both 1 point upgrades, if you want schurzen you pay 1 point for the whole unit, if you want .50 cals on your british shermans you pay 1 point for the whole unit.
It's not that difficult, also those 5 point upgrades nobody was ever using anyway will get shoved in the base cost of the tank or removed completely.

I don think that is possible anywhere in my country.

The J or N is a clearer issue because the J's got better RoF, but for most things that're more points they're clearly better; why would you ever take the worse one?

And what about the Panzer IV E, which is 10 pts, and 1 less front armor than the Panzer III N (and the same gun)?

Played my first couple of games in a few months last night.

1250 points, CT DM Tankovy vs trained US armour.

My list:
HQ T-34/85
6 T-34/85
7 T-34/76
Full Spetsnaz + faust
4 120mm mortars + obs
Limited Sturmoviks

His:
CC Jumbo 75mm, 2iC M4A3 76
3 M4A3 late, 1 M4A3 76
3 M4A3 late, 1 M4A3 76
2 M4A3 105
Full armoured rifles

Kind of limited lists, especially with the platoon counts, which would have some consequences for the games we played.

We first rolled up Encounter, with both of us deploying our main tank units and putting the rest into reserves.
The T-34/85s clashed with one of his units (including the CC) that advanced rapidly on my right flank, hidden from the rest of the battlefield by some woods.
On the left flank, he hid his other tank unit in some woods in a good firing position. That allowed me to double my T-34/76 unit close to the objective on my right on turn 2, parking on it on turn 3.
With one unit too far forward and with serious losses from the T-34/85s and the other slowed down by the woods, his only hope was a lucky turn 4 reserves roll that did not materialize.
Game over in Soviet turn 4, 6-1.

After that, I let him pick another mission for our next game: he picked Fighting Withdrawal, ending up the defender.
This game seemed a fair bit more balanced, though with some weird dice rolls, but quickly tilted in my favour a bit in.
Some effective air strikes at grouped-up Shermans in crop fields in the center combined with a strong push from my T-34/85s against the most lightly defended (only the 105s) objective on my right flank allowed me to take it at the start of turn 5.
At that point, the central unit of Shermans had been destroyed, while his heavier pressure on my left with the other Shermans held back my T-34/76es but also kept that unit from defending the objective in time.
I did lose my Spetsnaz on a low-odds gamble assaulting the objective on my left flank, which was in a wood and defended by the armoured rifles.
5-2 for the Motherland.

We mostly play Team Yankee around 65 points, it gives a solid core force with enough support to enable combined arms, and cuts down on the utter weirdness of multiple formations and 18 platoon forces. The problem is that all the local TO's and cashed up gamers have gone straight for 100, because it's official and it lets them fulfill their weird NATOboo battlegroup fantasies. I like the idea of a cold-war game being set 'three days later', when you're piecing together a combat team from the survivors of a battalion.

I think we'll find that when Phil says 'mid sized game' he means the equivalent 2000 points, it's just that the base game is that much bigger than 1500 point mid war. Medium tanks are getting much cheaper and the battlefield will be very lethal for the first three turns. Games bigger than that are intended to be doubles or team based, probably on a 8x6 table (which works very well imo)

I saw a post on the FoW forum talking about how multiple formations will let him take a Crusader regiment. Sadly, that's the guy who V4 is designed for, someone who'll drop $400 on new plastic tank boxes to get his 'ideal' pristine force, that he can match against other 'ideal' forces at 100 point events. Meanwhile a newer player with $300 to spend will go with something like Bolt Action or 30k, because it's more effective for both time and money, and the top end of play isn't such a fucking shitfight.

We will likely just have to wait and see. We at least have comfort that EW and LW will be sticking with the standard point system this year. Personally I still believe 100 points will be equal to roughly 1500 current points. If it were truely 2000 the language would be weird. Though I can't pretend to know what it will be.

The sad choice of any system that becomes more flexible like the formations system is that it opens up the door to cheese builds. I still think v4 with new plastic starter sets (that aren't Monty's Houds/ Stalin's Bears shit tier) will help get more people in the game, which would be much welcomed at my FLGS.

My guess at 2000 is based on the way Team Yankee games tend to work, plus some rumours that they'll be a major points break to medium tanks in V4, with an eye towards at least 3 tank platoons in your average list. To me that results in maybe 200 extra points over 1500 mid, plus a break of 100 points per tank platoon. Hence 2000.

Overall it's a positive, if anything decent armour was way overcosted in mid, and it didn't really produce the swirling battles of movement that make that period interesting.

The downside is that multiple formations results in some weird shit, 1:100 points makes some units very efficient (LUUUUUUUUCHS), and that can result in some tiresome match-ups as you hack your way through 9 infantry platoons or 6 platoons worth of Spearhead deployment. Fun for a 4 hour game, unplayable in a tourney setting.

X-Wing isn't really a good comparison, it's essentially a Skirmish game, the real problem is Armada now that it's got a good range of ships and Rogue One has been released. It has very similar gameplay, costs about $300 if you pick the right units, and it's mostly pre-painted. Oh, and each game takes about 2 hours.

Looks like the discord link in the post has expired. Can someone post a new one?

I assume that was one of my old links. Thanks for merging it into the OP, whoever did that. Here is a fresh link.

discord.gg/drZbxvm

Red Banner Soviet Brainstorming Batalon

We are currently (though we've been silent lately) brainstorming ideas and researching more specific/unique/"snowflake" lists for the Soviets in Flames of War. Current direction moving forward seems to be focused on Soviet Airborne and a list to represent the desperate defense of Moscow before the counteroffensive. All insight would be welcome. I will hopefully have some time over the Christmas break to do some research.

Yeah, I've been a bit busy lately. Should hopefully have some references for the A-20 though.

Just posted on their FB.

>plastic UTs
yes

It's a shame the brits are so mid-tier because they're dirt cheap to start up now with everything PSC's got going.

Also goddamnit, I want confirmations on the T-55s/Leos.

Based on correspondence with Will at PSC, we're getting plastic valentines next year. I think they will likely be rolling out the North Africa models before TY. Besides,

Yeah, the T-55s thing is also "correspondence" though.

Also I think you got cut off.

I think I was going for "Besides which seems more probably given the past few releases?"

Hm, how many do you guys think will be in one box? That pic seems to just be showing the various versions.

I would bet 5, as with most of their other kits. 3 boxes will be about right anyway...

What on earth do you need 15 UCs for?

3 wasp, 6 or so each for NW Europe and the desert. Possibly a fourth box for OP vehicles and MMG carriers.

Maybe the formation system will let you build a force primarily consisting of Universal Carriers.

Ideally they'd make them the same points and make the Ausf. N noticeably more useful against infantry. They're not better or worse than each other; they have different roles.

The tricky thing is when something's a straight upgrade, like Ausf. J vs. L. A one point difference might be excessive. Can we handle 0.5 point increments?

>BREN CARRIERS
huh, my dad wasn't lying, those things are real.
my grandfather test drove those.
he's full of shit when he says my grandfather was a red devil though.

Stuck at work bmp