Flames of War General: Soviets: Pretty good this Edition

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Which army do you play the most?
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docs.google.com/document/d/1JWmbvVANUraO9ILWJZduRgiI9w4ZC3ytNUQE8rK7Xrw/edit?usp=sharing an "i want to get a starter set" for late war.

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Soviet Brainstorming Batalon Discord
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So expectations for Americans and Italians when they get dropped?

I imagine 8MB won't change much if any, but I'm curious how they'll work it in with the stat cards.

I also wonder if they'll make platoon sizes smaller for infantry. Right now I can run 16 stand platoons without trouble. I also wonder if they'll up the platoon sizes for M14/41s or if they'll stay a max size of 5 tanks.

...

tfw no SG-43 machine guns.

I´m at least expecting most US armour to be rated Aggressive for their is-hit-on scores.
Should also provide a nice contrast with Brits using the same gear since they'll probably be Careful.

Pls no fucking stabilizers on the Lee...

Planning on writing an article detailing the changes to Tankovy and Hero Tankovy in V4. Looking for some community feedback as this is a little more complex than running statistics.

Do you think hero or standard tankovy benefit more from the V4 changes? Is there a Tankovy list you are excited to put on the table for V4 that you wouldn't have used in V3? Are hero IS-2s a valid list now?

Both guns stabilized, MGs stabilized

Cheers.

B-b-bastards...

I'm curious to see what the initial thoughts on this turn out to be.

My gut reaction is that it is still too early to tell, but perhaps there is some early data to examine already that might point to a trend.

>Are hero IS-2s a valid list now?
Nah, their fundamental problem (not enough offensive presence) is unresolved, and they still are just durable enough to pay a lot of points for it without being durable enough to ignore enemy fire.

What does high-speed jet mean in v4?

In v4, there are no countries with interception except for the Japanese army.


Looks like do not need to use a jet.

Jets were pretty pointless in V3, but now they're even more pointless. There's a bit of interception with the Pacific lists and EW Brits, but only the pacific lists can even be fielded in the same points system as the jets so...

Why the fuck did they not put all the stuff in the V4 books?

Are they seriously going to release another book to give us Sherman's and Churchill when the models are already available?

They must really need to make those Grant kits pay for themselves.

I'd imagine splitting it by battle / campaign is the main reason.

The Sherman tank was a late comer to both US and British forces in North Africa.

Well this would make sense to me but then they put the 17 pounder and Tiger in.

>I'd imagine splitting it by battle / campaign is the main reason.
>Tigers/Pheasants before PaK 40s and Nebs/Shermans and Churchills
lolno
It's about how much sweet plastic crack they can sell you without PSC taking their business.

Yeah expect the tank coverage in books to correlate with new kits. I don't think battlefront is any hurry to support the Valentine or Matilda in MW.

Why the flying fudge are there two Flames threads?

Begun, the version wars have.

>I am guessing someone derped and forgot to check before making one.

Is imagine two people both went and started new threads when the old one was about to 404.

Either way, this seems to be the active one.

>It's about how much sweet plastic crack they can sell you without PSC taking their business.

That's a rather cynical outlook.

Ok, yes. They're a business and they need to make money, but I assume there is some additional reason as well.

>I don't think battlefront is any hurry to support the Valentine or Matilda in MW.

Not being a MW player, can someone explain to me why people are so hungry for the Valentines and Matildas?

Valentines/Matildas are bricks of fuck your shit, you can't hurt me, with an itty bitty gun.

Also, they're infantry tanks, whereas what we have now are not. Makes more sense historically to have those and infantry instead of cruisers and infantry.

The Valentine is my favorite tank and I really wish there was a viable way to take an army of them. Just valentining all over someone.

>Not being a MW player, can someone explain to me why people are so hungry for the Valentines and Matildas?

PSC has elevated the Valentine from "In the Pipeline" to "Forthcoming Releases". I would be excited to use the valentine or matilda to help protect the infantry component of my force from enemy tanks.

If Valentines aren't supported in MW North Africa by the time PSC releases the kit, I'll probably just paint them as soviet Lend Lease tanks for EW and LW.

Valentines are the Tank of Love user: you don't hate love, do you?

Matildas are great because they're like the King Tiger of EW and are super cheap at £3/tank from Zvezda. Like £15 to make an EW list?

>fluff stories in V4 books
>Soviets basically fail everytime

They don't even try to hide their hate anymore.

Tripfaggotry is why.

Did they ever?

Not a single tripfag in this thread.

> Flames of War 'fluff'

It's just solid Wehrabooism and a meme tier understanding of WW2.

Remember kids - the only thing the Soviets did in the war was throw people (only half of whom who were armed) at the Germans with their amazing technology which is, of course, the basis of all modern technology.

THE MAN WITH THE GUN SHOOTS, THE MAN WITH THE BULLETS FOLLOWS

Checked my new patton eagle box. Other than a few broken machine guns it looks fine.

I feel like the last time I opened it a month or so ago it had a armylist included but I cant for the life of me find it.

Does anyone have a screenshot of the army list slip that goes in the box?

Shouldn't it have come with a copy Bridge at Remagen? anyway you can find that in the Scans database

Yea it came with the book but I remember it also having a "Sample army list" slipped in with it. Unless I am mistaken.

They also didn't invent and perfect the concept of the Operational tier of strategic planning.

They also didn't cleverly and creatively find ways to take a nation that was largely made of poorly-educated rural folk - who mostly had never seen motor vehicles or electricity - and train them all to function in a modern army.

They also definitely didn't come up with any equipment that was a match for what the Germans had.

Psst, Hans! Hide the 12cm sGrW42, you're undermining the point I'm trying to make!

As I was reading through the scans, I noticed that there a points set up for fielding Japanese in a LW setting

Wouldn't this be suicide against somebody who has any semblance of armor or am I missing something

It sort of is. You're encouraged to only use LW Japanese against an appropriate LW US Pacific list, not against a LW European list.

Unless you're a grade A masochist

Have they said when they'll be dropping?

They said Americans were coming in september in the most recent Q&A interview. GF9 listings have spoiled the M4A1 for the british in July.

mfw going through V4 rulebook
mfw all the infantry teams are clearly going to be downsized and combined with mg and mortar teams
mfw no more command team and six infantry team units

Brits have separate MG and Mortar Teams. So not all of them.

>Wouldn't this be suicide against somebody who has any semblance of armor or am I missing something
You can take up to 4 (IIRC) tank hunter teams per infantry squad when you deploy so if you're facing a lot of armour, deploy those, night attack, charging them with the human bullet teams (remember they always continue the assault even if everyone else is driven back) and hope like 16 dice of improvised TA 4 kills whatever you pointed them at. It's very feast or famine.

And it also makes the sherman pointless in PW points because it's insanely easy to deal with.

Hey, up in Ohio for family stuff, does anyone know if there's a hobby shop that has Flames stuff near Toledo?

What are some good sourcebooks for someone who is looking to run some JagdPanthers in their list?

Desperate Measures is the best one because you get CT Jagdpanthers (JPs are expensive enough you probably want to avoid going Veteran) and a ton of flexibility in other options.

Bridge at Remagan might have JPs in it, I can't remember. If it did they were overshadowed by the Jagdtigers.

Atlantik Wall had a list and a few other books include them but I remember them all being rather mediocre Briefings in V3

All the books should be in the OP so just download the LW ones and root around. V4 rulebook includes a list of the up to date LW books.

>Atlantik Wall had a list and a few other books include them but I remember them all being rather mediocre Briefings in V3
Even trained are, I feel.

I wonder what they'll do to my Paras and Fallschirmjägers.

And my fucking Udarny.

Except all of that is wrong, and you're just spreading panic for no reason.

Except it's clearly not and all evidence shows that FoW is going the route of Team Yankee infantry composition

>mfw all the infantry teams are clearly going to be downsized and combined with mg and mortar teams
Only the German motorized infantry who did get their support weapons mixed in historically have been like that so far.
Brit Motor platoons were always tiny, just as they are in LW.

>mfw no more command team and six infantry team units
I don't expect proper British rifle platoons to change at all, desu.

What, based on actual historical composition?

Matilda's are one sexy looking tank.

I should specify Matilda II.

Cool, time to reenact Sittang Bend.

i had a weird hard on just now....

i wanna see a MW V4 book that has Falschirmjagers in it....

and...i wanna see if they are crazy enough to add the Gliders....

...then rub it up against my V1 Diving Eagles book.

Our beloved Italians are also ALWAYS on the end of a thrashing. Every diagram with Italians has them retreating

not entirely unrealistic for Italians but it'd be nice is the Soviets and Italians got the same hero treatment as phils favorites

B-but user, you don't think I'm kawaii.

didn't they say V4 would have formation cards that allowed you to play alternate formations?

what if the vehicle boxes each come with that?

what if the new tiger box....

???

There are supposed to be card packs released for each individual nation.

So a German pack, an American pack, a British pack, a Soviet pack, so on and so forth.

I sure can't wait for the invincible Schwerpanzer Tiger company. It's not like 6pdrs ever hurt them or anything.

Yes I am disappointed in V4, why do you ask?

I'm not surprised; I just hope they don't get either totally fucked or practically ignored.

Also; we all know that WW2 was just the USA vs. bad guys with the occasional British side character.

A whole, wait for it. Three Tanks. Just like it was in Mid War previously. Lose two tanks and start taking Formation Last Stand Checks.

Have to lose those tanks first. When aside from a platoon of AT guns the enemy can't hurt you.

You also have only 13 points left over in a hundred point game. So good luck defending both objectives.

Bring planes? Swarm them with infantry(it's how my Italians killed a Tiger)? Use good positioning to hit their weaker side armor?

Just because they're strong doesn't mean they auto win. Focus on one tank, take it out and the game does the rest. Also; don't think the only stuff getting released is what we currently see.

Hey guys new to the whole flames of war thing in general and really want to try the game out. Main question is does FoW or TY have anything like dedicated volunteers that run demo games? Or is it pretty much find a forum and hope you find a gamer I'm your area willing to run you through it.

Basically the latter. They used to have people who'd do that for you, but then the plan got kicked in the head because Battlefront didn't support it properly.

NB that lists which felt mediocre in V3 might not be so bad now that eg Recce isn't mandatory.

I have to say, I was interested in getting Italians for mid-war but looking at their armour of WWII didn't fill me with confidence.

By far the line I read the most was 'it was already considered obsolete by the time of its introduction'.

What is the appeal of the Italians in mid-war? I want to be convinced since I'm sick of the same old boring Panzers.

I'm trying to understand. Is the Forces army builder connected to BF's mobile app with books? It didn't work with my login, so I had to create a new acc with the same email.

Does the android app have any kind of army builder? Does it work with new North Afrika books? I've only seen the option to purchase them, but no force builder is present. I just want to build a 50pts DAK list, but can't find a way to do it in Forces or in the app.

It sounds like forces consisting principally or entirely of tanks are common in this game. Does this make units with rifles and machine guns a generally poor investment of points, where they can be avoided in favor of bigger guns?

Avanti and spaghetti movies.

Infantry can generally zerg-rush tanks, if they've got the numbers / aren't just thrown straight at them like bullets. Gun units are handy. But really, you'll want dedicated AT weapons.

>politically correct air signal flag

They look pretty plain. I'd put like, an Iron Cross on there in the centre. Or just do the Swastika and let Political correctness hang. Unless you're in Germany. Or next to it and likely to play Tournaments there.

Given that he called it out himself, odds are he just hasn't finished them yet.

If you're going to do ahistorical and have flags draped over tanks, might as well go all the way and make them dumb iron cross flags or something.

There's still time to make them Nazbol tanks

You don't choose italy for its tactacool weapons and tanks. You take them for their flare and the fact that they're a challenge to play.
I like the fact that i might get poor infantry or elites fof cheap. also you can horde infantry

Swarming with infantry seems quite hard to actually kill it? Like, I'm not sure how you end up surrounding it with enough infantry before an assault that it'll not be able to safely break off. Using a second platoon to prevent breaking off would require setup that presumably could be countered, and just using the one platoon requires multiple counterattacks to get enough men in position. I'm not sure that one stand on each side would be enough to prevent break off?

Infantry swarms literally can't hurt tanks anymore, so that's not going to work.

Unless you propose his infantry clamber all over the Tiger and snark it to death with complaints about the rule changes, I don't think that'll be much help in V4.

They could force him to break off and then destroy him when he was unable to safely break off? Very hard to do, needing a bunch of infantry but seems possible in the rules from the EW/LW book

Tell that to two of the three StuGs that tried assaulting a LW Streklkovy blob of mine several times last night.

Okay, I lost more than half the unit knocking em out, but that was because I was stupid enough to have no integrated AT or AT guns nearby.

That's true, but if you've managed to do that you've gotten insanely lucky or your opponent is hopelessly inept.

Actual V4 lists, not the hack-jobs on the EW/LW stuff. Tank assault is gone, so heavy tanks are immune to damage from infantry.

>Bring planes?
AT7 vs side 8 or AT 3 vs Top 2, good luck with that.
>Swarm them with infantry(it's how my Italians killed a Tiger)?
Assault distance got massively reduced so surrounding them is extremely hard now, and TA ratings are gone in favour of hitting side armor (AT 5 vs 8).

>Use good positioning to hit their weaker side armor?
Max AT is 9 outside of Pheasants, so that will take quite some time to do anything.
Even then, only things that can do that are Grants, Crusader IIIs (which have +1 to hit now), and 6/25 pdrs (which he'd have to wander into and present his side to)

First off,
>No true Scotsman argument

Heavy tanks are immune to infantry without proper AT weapons, yeah.

However, if they get surrounded and then lose their nerve, they will still be unable to break off and be destroyed.
So, aggressively pushing a single Tiger towards some infantry will probably lead to those infantry moving to surround and then assault on the next turn.
Then, if the Tiger fails to counterassault (only a 50% chance) they'll be cut off and destroyed.

You can also use cheap vehicles (like recce) to cut off escape paths.

Charging distance is reduced, but infantry have willingness to charge can move up to 12 inches before charging (tac 8" + follow me 4"), so I'd say it become easier to surround slow tank with infantry.

We're talking about the potential tiger list in Version 4, come on, man. Nothing has "proper AT weapons" in V4, at least not in assaults. It's all AT guns or nothing.

And yeah, it's possible to work around it if you're lucky or your opponent's awful but it's a really glaring oversight to not give infantry any weapons capable of dealing with close tanks when historically that was among the worst places for a tank to be.

You can't assault if you've moved more than 10", unless that's also different in MW.

An unsupported Tiger has a roughly 50% chance of being surrounded and killed by not being able to break off when facing off against a Motor Rifle platoon plus some fast vehicles to cut off the escape, like some Universal Carriers.

So yeah, being in close with infantry unsupported is a huge risk for your massive points-sink Tiger.
As is historically appropriate.

The 10 inches restriction is against tactical move and follow me is not tactical move. So infantry moved 12 inches in the movement step can charge into contact.
Somewhere in forum there is Phil mentioned about it.

John Frost and any unit with their unit leader within 6" pass motivation tests on a 2+. Does that mean that any British Bulldog units will automatically pass the test to counterattack?

No, they point out that units passing on a 1+ still fail on a 1, it just provides insurance against negative mods

If it gets to that point which is a hell of an if. You've got to be initiating an assault, for one, having not taken losses getting there, and having had a light vehicle move behind in such a way that it's impossible to break off anywhere from the first assault, which realistically he's going to do if it looks like he might get cut off. Don't forget also that stuff that can't contact no longer plays any part in the assault, so your odds of getting more than 2-3 stands into combat are very low, and that's with one who'll be doubled up behind someone, so you have two stands to try and surround, realistically.

It's not impossible but if you've done it you've gotten really lucky (either on dice or by having a board full of stuff tigers can't drive through) or your opponent's deployed really bad.

I'm getting really fed up of battlefront's half-assed bullshit. They're selling these things for actual money, they could at least check they didn't accidentally leave out part of their rules before they ship.

With a 20cm move (30 if you Follow Me) it's quite possible to get one infantry team to each side of a Tiger, dude, at least if it's getting close enough to threaten your infantry position.

And if he's not getting close enough to threaten your infantry position, you just ignore him.
After all, the amount of fire that one Tiger puts out is pretty minimal.
And if he's not pushing for you he probably won't be able to win.

I'm not saying it's trivial to remove a single Tiger with infantry; it shouldn't be considering the amount of points you spend to get it onto the battlefield.
But it is a realistic possibility.

>With a 20cm move (30 if you Follow Me)
I was wondering where the fuck you were getting distances like that, then I realized you were using "everything but wargaming" units.

Technically they're also "everywhere but the United States" units.

Atlantik Wall, Bridge By Bridge, Ardennes Offensive, Nachtjager, Desperate Measures, Grey Wolf (maybe?). Almost exclusively used on the Western front. Never in Italy, some on the Eastern front, mainly towards the end.

Why are most wargames stuck with imperial anyway?

Murica and/or Britain.