Flames of War: Making the Best of Things in the Volksarmee

All it does is sound pretty shit
i mean frogs(presumably), lime, burg and western mix kraut all have their their own strange kits and distinct vehicle choices and the soviets boil down to more of the same.
historically accurate but boring.

"But I don't like Spam!"

Seriously though, the Volksarmee stuff has been a bit of a bummer. The BTR lists are the only real interesting thing they bring to TY. I can't imagine too many people are excited to see 10 tank clusters of T-55AMs junking up their boards. Debating on just focusing on soviets since the East Germans will need their own infantry anyway.

No one was expecting the T-55AM to be God tier, but there is nothing particularly good or exciting about it. Just point front toward enemy and advance in open terrain. Compare this to the Leo1, which really feels as if it has a unique and interesting role to play on the table.

/salt

It was supposed to be playing a more seasoned, disciplined version of the USSR, but I guess it's just spamming artificially crap T-55s in a cheese list now.

it could be worse
It could be hero IS-2

Part of me wants to do mass tank spam with low points cost tanks.

The other part of me knows that I don't need to buy into yet another army.

Especially if it is almost entirely resin and metal.

Perhaps if/when PSC releases their rumored T-55s and Leopard 1s in plastic I might consider it.

But not before then.

They should have been Warsaw Pact Finns basically, well trained troops in crap equipment with mitigating factors. The East Germans were graded the same as many Soviet Guards units for combat readiness because they knew there was going to be mass desertions, so they trained them harder. The Soviets allowed the East Germans a lot more military gear than the Czechs and the Poles too. New Migs and the T-72.

>Warsaw Pact Finns
Fucking this. Well trained troops making the best of shit equipment and a few scraps of ok stuff are really fun to play. Making them the hordier horde is boring, especially since the soviets STILL lack vet equivalent troops. If the afgansty were vets, this would be much less problematic.

That I don't understand as well. The Afgansty are the actual Veterans of the period, they fought a crazy intense war against cunts with Stingers and no mercy. They should be better trained than the West Germans.

so much this.
was there a given justification for non veteran afghanski?
it just boggles the mind that the only TY formation to even see combat is not veteran. Even if they hadn't seen combat their training routine is notoriously hardcore.

afghansty. fucking autocorrect.

>amongst shitstorm
"i will do it. i will go!"

...so, i too await plastic T-55's....i've thought about it, but i don't think i will do VolksArmee for the Germans

i -do- see a perfect book for playing the Iraqi Republican Guard Tank Brigades

prove me wrong.

You know; at first I thought it was just internet bitching at its finest when people whined about BF and Soviets.

Now I totally get the complaints. Is the entire Warpac going to be boring, shitty horde armies?

Phil made a pretty detailed post about the to hit numbers on the forum, in 'the accounts' he's read Soviets never restored to actual fieldcraft after their experiences in Afghanistan, the doctrine just changed to choosing better routes for the advance before continuing to ram whole companies down the opfor's throats.

The Afghantsy are representative of a unit with some combat experienced officers, NCO's and troops, but still mostly 2 year conscripts. It seems in Phil's mind the doctrine, conscripts and lack of a professional NCO corps will always result in a 3+ to hit. I'm pretty sure Soviet divisions with 100% manning would have enough professional officers to stand in for NCO's, but hey..

I'll be honest, I kinda thought Battlefront had grown better than this by now. Star Wars: Armada can get away with asymmetric game design but something about the 'to hit' ratings still feels off. I can't see any reason for a lack of a trained Egyptian infantry company in FotN aside from very lazy research and something very close to racism.

In almost every fictional war scenario it's fun to imagine a unit commander who can get his men to that magical 'veteran' to hit rating, both for your own force or opfor. Are Hans Gruber's merc's hit on a 3+ or is Mclane always gone to ground?

It's worse than inaccurate, it's fucking boring. But it does help Battlefront sell more mini's to get people to that magic 100 points.

It's beginning to feel like Battlefront want the Soviets to be the NPC faction. Their releases just seem to constantly empathise this. All I want is a fucking choice in the matter, would I like to crush my enemies under wave upon wave of tanks or would I like to be a bit more cunning and strategic like the Third Shock Army?

>One of the key problems I see withe the Afghansy "veterans" representation, is they do not come across as veterans of any war at all. They come across as helpcopter(sic)-riding cannon-fodder that can assault with some level of competency.

They are veterans of rapid assaults against insurgents. That's what they do, and that's what they do well. Get in close and finish the job. They are some of the best assault troops in the game and won't give up easily.

Reading many autobiographies of Soviet soldiers, it's clear that the veterans learned tricks to survive, but they mostly came down to taking a covered approach to the target, then rushing it quickly. They didn't evolve Western tactics, they just got better at their own tactics. Just as veteran Western troops in WWII got better at taking cover and calling in fire support, rather than evolving the shock tactics of the Red Army. Both are veterans, but they fight very differently.

Cheers

From the forum.

So why aren't the Afgansty good at assaults Phil? Why are they 4+ assault rating rather than 3+? Why the fuck aren't they skill 3+ to make getting off of their fucking helicopters possible? The East Germans were frequently rated to the same combat readiness as the Soviet Guards Units, they are not just some EW T-26 swarm. I think we need to start taking this up with Battlefront as a whole and letting them know we as a community are getting goddamn sick of the "Ignorant Soviet Hordes" stereotype we're getting cockslapped with. Where is our fucking Flare Bombardments, where's the fucking Third Shock Army? Where's our T-64s, T-80s, Bastion Missiles, and plastic T-55s Battlefront?

A big part of the 100 point format seems to be about letting NATOboos buy complete battlegroups, for example Team Yankee fits pretty neatly as a force. I'm sure it's the same for the forward part of a British infantry battalion or a German panzer kampfgruppe, multiple formations allow 'whales' to get their ideal nostalgic Soviet-killing force on the table. There isn't really a similar group of customers for the Soviets, in the end too much about how they would have fought and how well is completely up in the air.

I like giving them the benefit of the doubt, and playing them like the ACR fought them at NTC, rapid moving, sneaky, and capable of transitioning quickly from movement to a very careful defence in depth.

I think a lot of it is as people have already aluded to. Outside of the world wars, BF have a particular narritive in their head about certain conflicts, and there is alway an unspoken "hero" side and "villain" side. Or rather than villian, you could say (as virus said) NPCs, that act as target practice for the heros.

For Tour of duty is USA vs NPCs
For FoaN its Israel vs NPCs
For TY is NATO vs NPCs

This makes for a very boring match up sometimes. And its obviously the result of good research for the Hero, and a shallow glance at a bbc documentary for the Opfor.

>The East Germans were frequently rated to the same combat readiness as the Soviet Guards Units, they are not just some EW T-26 swarm.

I can accept the gimped T-72M, it's historical. I could even accept their rubbish interpretation of the T-55AM2 if they threw us a bit more of a bone than the 4+ skill.

The option of reliable roll numbers (representing crew skill) and sub-par unit statistics (representing the equipment) would have added a genuinely diverse second faction to the Warsaw Pact. As opposed to the Spam and Spammier options we were given.

Favorable roll numbers would also work to keep the unit costs high to stop gamey players from driving a $1000 tide of resin across the board

> Volksarmee

Looking at the cost alone of East Germans forces they should have realised they need to do something differently. But hey, it's BF: apparently they never learn.

I fear this is where BF begins slowly killing TY as a game thanks to their own ineptness, much like their L-LW WW2 releases. With each sub-standard Soviet or Pact release they hurt the health of game...it just makes me sad, it could be so much better.

From PSC FB:

****
New plastic 15mm T55 variants announced

We're very excited to announce, that PSC will be producing a boxset of the ubiquitous T55AM2B Main Battle Tank in service with the DDR's NVA the boxset will contain 5 hard plastic MBT's with options to build 2 variants the T55AMB2, and the T55A that saw service with many WARPAC nations during the cold war, such as Czechoslovakia and Poland to name the more popular ones. The image pictured is the fantastic box artwork that has been done for us by a new artist to PSC Eugene Duranin, we're rather pleased with it.

The 15mm pack contains 5 models and will retail at around £21.50

We are hoping that these will be available towards the end of the first quarter in 2017, so around late March or early April.

We will be putting these up for pre-orders both through our webstore and from retailers too. We are so excited about these, that Will has volunteered our Trade Sales Manager Tim Harris, to paint up a box of these to give away to one lucky pre-ordering customer, as well as a 10% discount too! At Christmas Will's generosity knows no bounds. Tim's not a bad painter really, having won several prestigious awards in the time that he has been painting, including the Tamiya Magazine Trophy and more recently holds 4 Best Painted trophies from the Flames of War European Team Championships, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. We're told by his team mates that he's rather slow though! Below are some examples of his models.

So keep an eye on our Facebook page as well as some of the forums, for more information and images of, what we hope will be the first in a series of Cold War projects from PSC.

***

Whew lads...

Dang, forgot pic...

PSC confirmed on their FB page that T-55 is in the making. also this:

"So keep an eye on our Facebook page as well as some of the forums, for more information and images of, what we hope will be the first in a series of Cold War projects from PSC."

Sounds like they are going all in...

Am I reading right from last thread there's a SU-25 in Volksarmee? Didn't they have SU-22s?

Am I reading right that best germany gets SU-25s, too? They only had SU-22s at the fall of the wall...

I think you are on to something. Just need the Bradley and some stats for the M1A1 and you could run the Battle of 73 Easting

Maybe, maybe not. We'll see about the next soviet release.

Just try voicing any of these valid complaints about gameplay on the forum or facebook group. You'll be hit by massive blowback. Those people are 100% about the toys. I think that is who battlefront is tailoring the game to. And why not? I know of 3 people at my local shop that have bought every single army when it's released.

It will be fine as the new releases continue to come in, but eventually the well will run dry and they will have to fix the game. I mean do you guys see TY playing anywhere near the same level as V3 for tourney play? With the mook horde of soviet Mechanized spam, the stout British Mechanized units, and the morale rules being what they are several games are going to go down to time.

Based PSC are saints, but after they release their kit just wait for people to start building the T-55 horde with a few missile AA units to shoot down tornadoes/harriers. Like Eagles said I am tempted to build the spam list too, but I probably won't due to time constraints and money.

>Reading many autobiographies of Soviet soldiers, it's clear that the veterans learned tricks to survive, but they mostly came down to taking a covered approach to the target, then rushing it quickly. They didn't evolve Western tactics, they just got better at their own tactics.
Wait wait wait, Phil thinks that getting better at your own doctrine means you don't improve unless you work out western doctrine? What the fuck?

Yeah, it's alright (well, it isn't, but you know what I mean) when it happens to the soviets in WW2. They're just one of four main players. In TY the soviets are The Other Guys, and just like 'nam and AIW there's going to be problems if there's no market for an unlimited amount of guys to play the spammy NPC faction.

Spooky.

So the T-55AM is 16 points for all 10 and there's three battallions? So you can totally have 62 T-55s in a 100 point game? Fuck me, this is worse than BMP spam.

You have access to 3 tank formations as part of the panzer division force. A HQ and 3x3 tank platoons only costs 24 points for T72's and 7 for T55's.

You also get 3 BMP formations and 3 BTR, and each of those can take a tank company, so I expect there's some real bullshit to be had here once people work out the optimal arrangement.

Optimal arrangement fuck. On an open field with no losses, two full abrams platoons get 64 hits in six turns. Assuming some of those platoons are out of LOS or overkill or are in cover there's literally not enough shots to stop them.

T-55 lists seem like hard-counters to brit milanspam. Lots of cheap tanks you don't care about exploding that hit on 3+ in assault and lots of spare points for artillery and AA.

I think the optimal arrangement if you want to cheese is T-55s with just enough missile AA to support them against a tornado attack. Just dash forward until you get into knife fighting range. Bring a few mine clearing devices in case the NATO player tries to drop minefields.

Yeah, after thinking on it this is my conclusion too. 54 T-55s saves you twelve points, and that gives you some potentially decent support.

Wait a second are they 3+ in assault or 5+? The T-72M is 5+ . This is the the WGI unit card, which may not be accurate.

If the T-55AM is 3+ in assault it just got quite a bit better.

Looking at that image from last thread, even though it looks a bit fuzzy, it still looks like a 5. Which means the T-55 will still be shit in assault. Even if it had a 3+ it's 4+ cross would make it near impossible to go into the woods to clear out concealed infantry.

The T-55 is unclear but the T-72 is definitely 5, so I'll admit on balance it's probably 5+.

What's with the entire warsaw pact having really shit assault ratings? I thought the myth of the soviets was them charging into machineguns and overrunning the line, not them running up to the battlements and choking on their own bootlaces.

I guess you could write it off by saying "muh numbers" , but even then with the T-55 you are only going to get half of them into the terrain to even initiate the assault. Then a couple get pasted from defensive fire... and then you do shit in assault.

I think it's safe to write off assaults altogether in Team Yankee. Which leaves you with no choice but to roll up the guns and shoot while stationary. If you are shooting concealed gtg nato infantry on the move with the T-55AM, you will be hitting on 7s.

But hey, Brit bong tanks get 3+ assault. And are 4+ to hit and better armor and RoF 2 while stationary. The chieftain doesn't cost too terribly much more than the T-72. Their main downfall is the platoon size and how it interacts with the morale rules.

Anyone else feel uncomfortable with the morale rules?

>Anyone else feel uncomfortable with the morale rules?

Yes, that and 6" command are the two things I absolutely hate. It was just simplified, backwards-design from BF: pretty stupid choices IMO.

>Anyone else feel uncomfortable with the morale rules?

i don't know i havn't played nearly enough games of team yankee but i'm pretty sure leopard 2s shouldn't be running away too easily

So I was looking at TY for a small homebrew and took a look at the Mi-24 ATGMs and why are the Hind's ATGMs fucked up?

I mean the bloody things have more range than the fucking TOW in RL but in TY it has less than half of the TOW's range.

Is it balance or just bullshit?

Justification for that is that the range represents the position of the Hind as the missile reaches its targets, since Hinds would be moving around instead of trying to snipe like NATO hunter-killers.

They're that way because the hind did strafing runs rather than static shots, so to reflect the fact the hind might enter AA range during flight, it has a shorter range.

This is almost certainly one of those things that would've changed quite rapidly in actual war. Strafing was used for precision in afghanistan, and shortly after Stingers showed up in numbers they switched to NOE pop-up attack.

We'll that's horse shit they'd probably stop doing that pretty quick

They did. See above.

Shame bf latched on to another way to make the soviets a "horde rush no tactics lol" army

How about allowing afghansty to upgrade to longer range (representing the change in tactics) for a point or two per flight?

How about not just making them the vets NATO deserves in the first place?

How about giving it to all the helicopters and also making afghansty and east Germans vets and unfucking the t-55 a bit

Volksarmee BTR-60s

Sadly, the afghansty wouldn't be any different in 85; stingers only showed up in 86, and that lead to the shift in engagement tactics.

Volksarmee BRDM-2 scouts.

Volksarmee Gaskin. Veeky Forums is flipping my pictures for some reason.

Volksarmee Hinds (spoiler: Red Banner Hinds with 4+ skill)

>range 48"
>FP 5+

Ouch.

Actually reading the profiles this really feels like a rush job.

Thanks for the pics, any pic of the whole division?

If you look closely it says Red Banner, the NVA did not operate Su25s. Just buy some 1:144 Su22s or MiG23BNs.

>are those su22 models done?
>nah just have them get the exact same airplanes flown my Russians
>well at least we can use this as an opportunity to introduce hips
>eh we already have hinds in plastic just give them the exact same helicopter

Sadly, the us getting to spam m1 tanks over m60s wouldn't be any more realistic

>soviets and war pact don't have unit variety
>just a smokescreen statement for not wanting to make any effort

...

>spam
>8 points per tank

At 80pts for 2 HQ tanks and 2 platoons of 4, that's hardly spam.

Abrams weren't that common a thing, man

My bad, forget t the tfw part

But seriously, I keep hearing this soviets have no unit variety to model meme, and it's just being used as a smokescreen for lack f research and general laziness by the company,

>3,273 M1 Abrams were produced 1979-85 and first entered US Army service in 1980.

They weren't exactly uncommon either.

The real question is how many were in front line duty in Germany in 1985.

I know I'm talking out of my ass but
I was thinking the unit variety had more to do with communism and soviet control over the iron current standardizing everything.
where as nato members are all distinct nations with their own engineering groups with a greater tendency towards growing inventive minds because of economic operational models.
Could also be due to tanks and IFVs being refined that the soviets also don't have a lot of variety. WW2 h ad so many different tanks because people were still trying to figure out how to build them and war is a great motivator.
But i don't fucking know.
I was hopping for some chinese because you fucking know the chinese aren't going to sit by and not capitalize on the confusion to gain ground
PKK and turkish also sound right interesting.
South American sounds legit
and i would like to see where india goes post raj when it has to fight the red tide,

>where as nato members are all distinct nations with their own engineering groups with a greater tendency towards growing inventive minds because of economic operational models.
Eh, there's plenty of good designers on both sides, but NATO is basically all independent countries.

I mean, compare the Abrams, Leo 2 and Chally. They're all virtually the same tank. Or compare the M113 and FV432, or marder/warrior/bradley, etc etc. Having competition for designs is useful but it would have been far more helpful to subsequently all use the same model of vehicle to improve production efficiency and logistics.

The Soviets ran an absolute shitload of stuff. If BF are serious about exploring the depth of the USSR's inventory NATO are going to be looking like the samey ones.

Of course judging by Volksarmee it's just gonna be the same spam with different minis.

The original plan for what became the Abrams and Leopard 2, was to develop a joint American/German standardized main battle tank.

Although that fell apart due to differing design requirements from the US and German militaries.

T-80 when
Hip when

>standardizing
>Soviets
This is the nation that ran 3 almost completely identical but incompatible MBTs because their engineers acted like preteen girls.

I did say i was talking out of my ass

Yeah, just making the T-72 and making it the testbed for all the nice shit would've been the better decision.

BMPs and BTRs being in use across the entire warsaw pact is a better example.

Average post from the facebook group.

I like this stupid bullshit

Must be the German or TY facebook groups, since I've never seen that on the FoW unofficial or British ones.

is he going to make them occult alien artifact hunters too?

So I received a BMP box for Christmas and when I get home to start making my BMPs, I discover that not only do I have the wrong unit cards (for T-72s), there are also no BMP sprues at all. It's basically just the contents of the T-72 company set in a BMP box, sealed in plastic shrink wrap and everything.

I'm not even angry, I'm impressed.

Still gonna see if I can get BF to send me a replacement box because I want BMPs, but hey.

Well another valuable member is speaking of zombies now.

Thanks for this, my fears about the Team Yankee points system have been confirmed.

2 Fearless Vet Luchs with Thermals, decent armour and a range 20" autocannon cost the same as 2 Confident Trained BRDM's with a HMG and IR.

I'm out Battlefront, your move.

>You see yuri, we will tell capitalist pig-dog that tank is BMP
>Then he will no expect tank to show up
>is brilliant

Luchs is CV, BRDM is CT

Luchs is 2/2/0, BRDM is 1/0/0
luchs has range 20" rof 3/2, BRDM has 20" RoF 3/2
Luchs has AT 7 FP 5+, BRDM is AT 5 FP 5+

Luchs is faster on all terrain except for a Road Dash

Of course, the main thing you're buying them for is the Spearhead, which they both do.

Not as egregious as your post makes it out to be but the Luchs is still definitely better and this is certainly a huge failure of the points system

also the BRDM has a coax MG that can fire alongside the 14.5mm while the Luchs has an AA MG (that can't fire alongside the cannon?)

oh AND the Luchs is a Scout while the BRDM is not, so the Luchs can move and stay Gone to Ground

Because according to battlefront soviet potato scouts are too ducking stupid to use cover while they advance.

I'm not as upset about he points difference as I am about the BRDM-2 missing important traits for a recon unit.

i mean they are in the same place as the scorp for england.
and honestly i can wait to get my hand on them, they seem like annoying little vet buggers.

Red Thunder....

mfw

nice point there....

good catch. ....glad i have 8 of the shits

Luchs are love. Luchs are life. I always run 8 with my list. Last game, they shot down 2 hinds and killed the infantry the Hinds had deployed on an objective.

really?

they don't have anti-helicopter....that's the Marder. it was the turn they landed, i surmise?

i'd never trust that firepower.

but Gepards,
they have all the uses...