Flames of War General /fowg/: East Germany is Best Germany

uhm, Mandatory Unit purchase to play X unit is a GREAT way for a company to make money.

see GW, 2 troops and an HQ...now we have fill-the-checklist formations

all you have in the CRP/FSE thing is a mandatory formation.

/NVA/

Sure, but with BMP spam you can sell even more shit. And maybe even tempt someone to buy units they won't ever use or need.

If someone can get me a good source on this, I'll have a stab at doing up a formation for Team Tankies.

>it's a horde faction lamo

I want to see the DDR user, if he can say something about their training and tactics.

When you make that thing always paste this youtube.com/watch?v=rGazG1sDG2g

Been away for about a year, and I hate to ask the lazy question but... 4th edition. Anything major changed?

>Anything major changed
Nah it's pretty much the same they tweaked a few tank numbers flipped the artillery target numbers.

Cheers.

It's Team Yankee. I could break down each point as to why it's Team Yankee, but there's not much point. Also, has anyone else found V4 games to take about 30% longer than V3? Like matchups that shouldn't last more than 90 minutes easily stretching for 2 hours.

Oh boy did it. Running down the huge ones:
>Orders (see pic) are a thing now
>all units are 6" from unit commander for coherency, 8" if they have 8+ teams in the platoon.
>Hits from shooting are allocated by the attacker now, with the defender having a 3+ "mistaken target" roll to reallocate as they chose
>Artillery now ranges in on the user's skill, and hits teams under the template based on their skill.
>All artillery units (as well as rockets and bombs) got a firepower/AT change, all FP values are at least 4+, and all AT values got reduced by at least one, and are capped at AT 3.
>Planes are entirely revamped. They're always hit on a 5+ (6+ if they have concealment), have a 3+ save, and then need a firepower test to kill. However, they move about like normalish teams now, with the level of support determining how many planes you get and with dead planes staying dead.
>Assaults are now only conducted with teams within 4" of the enemy, and only teams in contact (or in contact with those in contact) get to swing.
>Defender no longer wins defensive battles if the game ends before normal victory conditions
>Morale is now a single check at the start of the turn after going down to a certain number of active teams ("in bad spirits"), not more destroyed than active.
>Formation (company) morale only cares about Combat, Weapons, and brigade/regiment supprt units. Dropping to just one unit that's in good spirits routs the company, no morale check allowed.

Let me preface this by saying: I enjoy V4. I enjoy TY. I like how mobile everything is. I like the thinned down rulebook in spite of its faults, but I think 3 things are causing games to last longer.

1) Asinine morale rules. Every formation is filled with radicals who fight nearly to the last man. This results in tedious clean up operations.

2) Lethality nerf for breakthrough guns and flamethrowers. You are hitting dug in vets on 5+ (more likely 6+) and simply rerolling saves is a far cry from complexly bypassing the save. Artillery is more lethal but it still takes multiple turns.

3) Assault changes make it harder for successful assaults to be pulled off and carried through.

I think there may be some minor things at play like not being as familiar with the rules or new movement allowing vehicles to get in better positions. As a whole there is more dice rolling with movement orders, brutal, and repeat bombardments. Still I am seeing time being an issue with TY and V4 in the games I am playing whereas morale made it less so in V3.

thank you based anons

Hoo buddy... Did you just throw a hand grenade into a crowded room...

The best way to phrase it is to echo what said.

It borrows a lot from the Team Yankee rules. It's not a 100% port over, but I'd say it's at least 80% Team Yankee.

It removes a lot of the complication, but retains a lot of the tactical depth.

V4 plays pretty fast with armor vs armor. As soon as you get infantry or guns involved it starts to drag out. Even with artillery killing better, you're still looking at a ~1/8 chance of normal artillery killing an infantry team for each one under the template.

Two completely different German Marders.

Both are excellent kits, the Battlefront West German Marder IFV, and the Plastic Soldier Company Panzer 38(t) and Marder.

You are vastly overstating the degree to which Soviet doctrine was regimented at Regiment level (hue). While the Soviets loved their doctrine a Regiment commander would have had equal tactical training and flexibility in most circumstances as his NATO equivalent. Sticking to doctrine would not protect a Regiment commander from blame if an assault failed.

BMP spam can easily be explained as a NATO tank company intercepting the motor rifles as they go in against a built up target, with the Soviet tanks fighting another company on the next board over.

Particularly once the "front" devolved into pockets of forces you can not expect encounters to proceed nicely according to doctrine for a relatively small unit like a Regiment.

...

Pic related.

The mud looks too random. It looks like it has had mud splashed on it rather than having gone through mud.

What kind of an animal is the Marder anyway?

It kinda looks like a ferret of some sort.

>Marder
German for Marten, which belongs to the subfamily Mustelinae like Weasels and Ferrets.

hmm look slike i've missed a spot.

Ratte in Flames of War when?

>Ratte

You're asking about a tank(more like a Land Battleship) that was never even built.

So, probably never.

I mean it's a 15mm miniatures wargame, it doesn't exactly have to conform to reality, and a 15mm Ratte wouldn't even be that big compared to most wargaming models.
I'm kinda surprised if there isn't a "secret weapons of WW2" expansion for alternate history enthusiasts.
But then I'm a newfag and I'm just now reading the 4th edition rulebook

There was a secret weapons expansion for 2nd ed.

With the exception of Mid War Monsters (which was recieved with a very... "mixed" reaction), Battlefront has never done a tank that never saw combat. They even leave out tanks that were produced but never made it to the lines. A Ratte is pretty unlikely. If the rumors about the Berlin compilation are true, though, we might see a 15mm scale Maus, which you'll be allowed one of in a game.

Am I doing Warpac correctly? Do i need more BMP's?

No Hinds -1945/10

All I could fit into 50 points, minus some T72's because I don't like the BF models waiting for PSC.

BMP-1 spam or what do you want to do?
If not then:
>no glorious MBT
Back to Officers school

BMP spam, drown them in corpses, T72 coming when PSC does export versions.

So if I wanted to play a Late War Finnish army, do T-26s and T-28s do anything anymore against soviets or germans? I'm just starting Flames of War but it looks my local scene is going to be either Germans or Soviets.

Hah, I'm waiting for that exact same MiG-21 kit from a flgs for my future Romanian army. Please post pics when you build it.

Have you pre-ordered PSC T-55s yet?

Sure man will do, looks like a really nice little kit.

Not going to do T-55's they seem quite suboptimal. Since we have to basically choose between 55's and 72's i figured i'll go for the 72's

I've got a list lined up with 10 T-72s, 20 T-55, a company of infantry in BTR-60s, 8 Gaskins, a couple of airplanes and 6 Carnations.

Hopefully that BTR-60 from the sneak peek will end up being plastic, or I'll have to get Zvezda kits and pretend they're BTR-60s...

Does anyone here play Team Yankee at 6mm? How do you handle range conversions? Should I just halve everything?

Honestly you could just keep it as it is, it's probably more accurate, the only thing you probably have to change is the artillery template.

That's an ass load of stuff, no choice if we wanna play the badguys though.

I am assuming it's plastic too, I wanna do a soviet guards with BTR's and T64s

How's this for a first list? It's exactly 1,500 points. I made a point to try and only take all plastic sets.
Alternatively I guess I could just buy the Rommel's Wolves army set.

>Team Yankee
>For when your Soviets have as many vehicles as bases of infantry

Ok cool, thanks. The arty template is 1' squared right? I'll just make a 6" squared template or maybe use the FoW one.

Looks quite decent, and everything is plastic (which is good). I would personally swap a StuG for a Panzer IV, to get more than 3 tanks in that platoon, but I don't tend to confine myself to what is easy to buy.

More, actually. MUCH more. 24 bases of infantry, 16 APCs (including the observer), 14 SPG & AA, 30 tanks. That's 2.5 vehicles per base of infantry.

Yeah, but at least in the case of Romania, the shit-grade skill is decently accurate. During the 1989 revolution Romanian tankers actually shot at each other (from different regiments) because they didn't know the Romanian army had T-72s (for some reason this was a sort of a {badly kept} state secret).

Personally I love Stugs, Jagdpanthers, Tigers and Panthers over Panzer IVs but that would mean I'd have to goad my club into starting with 4 000 point armies to get all my toys on the table.

>red thunder drops
>russians become over powered
>what do?

Get your skis/snowboard and enjoy the slopes of hell.
,cheers!

Cyka blyat

Also if I read the 4th edition rulebook right, I don't need to deploy command teams for my artillery anymore so I don't need to worry about buying Schwimmwagens and such?

You still get one observer, which usually comes with a car of some kind, but aside from that, correct.

Now imagine 2.5x fearless trained strelk levels of vehicles

Why wouldn't you buy beschtwagen?

I guess I'm mentally damaged.

Hahahahahaa!
No.
I do not own a barn or stadium.

>Maus
Explain more

Halving the ranges defeats the main purpose of playing in 6mm, I keep it as is. I used halved base sizes though, and I've experimented with full size and half size templates and don't have a definitive preference. Starting with everything the same but with smaller models is what I'd advise though, and modify from there.

You'd make Phil and co very happy though, think of the possibilities!

Destroy my wallet because i would be able to play as Warpact

There might or might not have been a functioning super heavy tank at some super secret Nazi research base. It was probably never used but the Soviets captured the prototypes.

>short infantry platoon
Nah, you wanna cut something to get that. Howitzers swapped for nebs, or minus a recce patrol or something.

If he's playing V4 he can just combat attach the 2iC to have a 4 tank platoon anyway.

I know about the wunderpanzer, i was asking about the rumor for FoW. I want to use that thing.

Okay, so what about this?

Okay last one. At least now I know what to buy.

Reminder that in V4 MW hull MGs have 360° firing arcs since tanks just have MG dice

No I wouldn't. I'd get everything from PSC & Zvezda.
I'd downgrade the Pumas to 234/1 or 250 haltracks, replace the panzerwerfers with 15cm nebelwerfers (cheaper, can dig in and in V4 panzerwerfers can no longer remove smoke trails).

With the points you get you should be able to squeeze in another panzer IV or a couple of mobelwagens.

Thanks for the tips, but I think I'll go with this list based on personal bias. I just prefer how Pumas and Panzerwerfers look.

I think I like this one the best out of the three you've posted. Eight tanks is a little low so maybe the second? Two recce platoons is useful with the new Spearhead rules for the deployment flexibility? In something like Dust Up you could send one platoon into each empty quarter, or stick one at either flank on one of the long edge vs long edge ones. On the other hand, nothing above AT11 means you'll really struggle against that one guy with 4 RT King Tigers.

Also if you're buying Panzerwerfers you should perhaps consider extra crews but I don't think that's better than anything you could cut for it.

Speaking of King Tigers, I'd seriously recommend the twenty quid or so to grab some Zvezda KTs. The garbage rating lists are cheap as hell to buy and pretty fun. Really any of the Zvezda heavies are worth picking up for the points:price ratio.

Ok, fair. Just try to resist the temptation of throwing the Pumas into combat too quickly. That gun seems impressive on paper but, unless you're desperate, you should really, REALLY avoid trying to take on tank side armour or any gun teams that can shoot back with them.

I don't think King Tigers are a problem to start with. We've got one guy making a mechanized infantry platoon for Germans and I doubt he's gonna start with KTs. The other guy is going to start Soviets with the Red Bear book.
Also yeah I'll definitely see if I can find some Zvezda tanks next month, there's a shop a bit of a ways out from where I live that stocks a lot of them for 5 euros per box.
I figured they're made of wet tissue. I'll try to be careful.

Can confirm RT KT Best KTs.

Largely unconfirmed rumours are circulating that Battlefront might try to stick the Maus that may or more than likely may not have seen action into the next upcoming LW release which is Fall of the Reich.

RT?

>Maus

Why? Zvezda is releasing a plastic Maus this year and as far as I know Battlefront doesn't make a Maus. I highly doubt they'd do that unless they felt that they could sell minis.

Reluctant Trained.
So you only Motivate on a 5+
Skill checks on 4+
Hit on 3+

However your crap Motivation and To-Hit numbers are compensated by how little you'll ever need them. With FA:15, nothing breaches your front armour. So don't get hit in the side, and you're golden.

Because people like big tanks, Battlefront themselves like big monster tanks. So they'll probably do one in resin and metal. Can't compete with price so they'll compete with Quality instead. Also presumably because Battlefront's plans got laid out since before we knew about Zvezda's

Reluctant Trained- Germans replacement troops by the end of the war who had shit morale and were probably looking forward to being captured by the Americans.

Sorry, I am not on-board with the lingo yet.

RC RT RV
CC CT CV
FC FT FV
These are the stats in Flames of War (v3). First is morale (Reluctant, Confident and Fearless) second is skill (Conscript, Trained, Veteran). The level of the stats determines the dice needed to pass skill checks, morale checks and how easy they are to hit.

Yeah, I know that much, I just quickly read through the V4 rulebook for early and late war. I just have trouble with abbreviations.

It's fine. We really need to make an "alignment" chart.

Maybe they should just worry about packaging all their Digital lists into the book because Berlin and Nachtjäger (Nachtjäger means Night Hunter) were pretty meh on their own. Yeah Berlin had lots of variety for the Germans, but there was nothing in the main book covering Seelow and besides Hero Strelkovy all the good Soviet stuff was DLC. Imagine how bad Hero Heavy Assault guns would be in V4.

Plus Walther Wenck isn't a hero character, when he really should be. I figure it's going to be Berlin, Desperate Measures, Bridge at Remagen, and Nachtjäger all rolled into one with probably a Soviet, Axis, and Allied Book each.

I can just Imagine it, side armor 12/14 and front armor 18. Short 75mm coax and 17 AT. And only move 5cm.

It could be cool if they release something like the Panther F or the Kubelblitz, since they are at the same lvl of the waffentragers.

Try AT 16, the 12.8cm is already on the Jagdtigers.

>Kugelblitz

Basically the Gepard, but in FoW. I can get behind that as a go to breakthrough gun replacement.

Mixed the numbers, for a 1 min i thought the long 88 was AT 16 and since the 128mm is just 1 more, i went full retarded.

Wait i min... I was right

For a moment i thought It was mandela effect

>alignment chart
Like with examples of each?
RC is Volksturm
RT makes me think of the garbage KTs and stuff so probably that? Or Luftwaffe troops I think
RV has to be Desert Rats / 51HD
CC I can't think of anything off hand, maybe EW Soviets
CT has too many examples to have an iconic one, same with CV
FC also EW Soviets?
FT is Soviet Guards
FV is paratroopers or SS

>implying Soviets aren't RC

Maybe RC should be TY Soviets then, yeah.

>be early adopter of FOW 1st ed
>write articles on painting and modelling for BF
>Phil brings out regarded rules for snipers, allowing one rifleman to pin entire platoons with a single shot
>engage in debate both privately with Phil via email and also on forums
>stupid fucking unrealistic rule stays in place
>sell most of my models and never support BF again

They're a shit company if you like historical and tactical accuracy.

Luftwaffe troops are RT throughout the entire war (except Herman Goring division) and are in almost every German list.
SS falls in both FT & FV, so may as well leave paras for FV. For CV it should mostly be the Wehrmacht, while US/Brits can take the CT slot.
EW soviets are indeed CC, except Guards who are FC.
>Soviets RC
Ahem, surely you mean Fearless Potato, komrade?

>single shot
That single shot can also kill five dudes, maybe the one roll to hit means more than just one bullet.

You're not wrong about Phil though