Flames of War: Dark Resurrection edition

the BMP's in Yuri Wolves are Grey

so, new stuff gets colored until the old is out of stock
reprints will be colored.

Yes, the T-72s are colored green now.

...

Nicely painted!

So now that V4 has settled out a bit what are your guys thoughts on it?

Debating on what priority my 15mm historicals are going to go in the painting que. 8th edition has brought 40k back in a big way in my area and I even found a small group of Bolt Action players hiding out, so I'm kind of wondering if I'm even going to get around to painting 15mm again before 2018...

>So now that V4 has settled out a bit what are your guys thoughts on it?

My local group is getting used to playing Battlegroup instead, and the few who bought into TY are eagerly waiting for Battlegroup NORTHAG.

So V4 has basically killed FoW for us.

I have played a few games of V4. A couple have been really good. Some have suffered from various rule peculiarities and borked list pricing. For LW I am planning on trying to stick to V4 for now, but there are only a couple of people at the shop playing. I want to get some more games in, because when you play without anything completely broken the new rules are pretty streamlined. The biggest casualty of V4 is list variety.

There hasn't really been a flood of peopleor actually anyone getting into the MW sandbox. I imagine that is because there is little to bring existing players into MW, and new people aren't ever seeing Flames played, so yeah the boxes are just sitting on the shelves.

It also doesn't help that the new 40K release is taking off like a wildfire and everyone in the shop aside from a couple of grogs is playing that right now. We have a guy that's really done a lot for the Bolt Action scene here, so when I get back home I am primarily going to be working on Bolt Action stuff.

There's a world of difference to how Battlefront and Geedubs approached the launch of their new edition. Geedubs stripped and ripped their ruleset right down, some could argue BF did the same to V4.

However Battlefront fucked up where Geedubs didn't, Geedubs made it a point of almost pride that almost every model would be supported under the new ruleset. And they did. Battlefront made almost every single Mid War army obsolete overnight with no plans to restore them before quarter 2 2018.

Not to mention all the equipment in LW that just got turned to shelf tier. My ISUs and 203mm howitzers won't be seeing the table anytime soon.

And the stuff that is way too good now, you'd feel bad bringing it. Priority IL-2 Type 3Ms cost less that 100 points a plane and are nearly guaranteed to never die while shredding heavy armor.

I haven't had the chance to play too many games of 4th Ed, but I've been enjoying it, and looking forward to playing more.

As for my local community, it's always been small.

We haven't lost anyone over the switch to the new edition, but we haven't gained anyone either.

Yeah, they could have balanced the transition better. Rough guidelines on repointing stuff would help a good bit, not nerfing stuff into the ground/buffing it to god tier would also have worked. Anyone calling for a comprehensive unit by unit errata needs to pay attention to how many books there are, though.

Players in my area effectively split between Battlegroup and V4, TY players are waiting for BG Northag as well.

Generally speaking, the way BF handled the transition effectively killed V4 in the area. Concerning MW, a lot of people wanted to play MW Russians, and they have to wait a year to be able to do it? no thanks.

Also, what someone said, Wh40k 8th edition started really strong so I do not think we'll see new players anytime soon...

Dumped it in favour of Battlegroup. V4 wasn't very good and me nor my friend weren't fond of the direction the game was going in.

The group i play with Do play Team yankee but not flames of war but they do play battlegroup but have being playing that for years.

And people hav been thinking of getting in to FoW from playing team yankee.

V4 was IMO a year too early: it needed more play testing and polishing. A year later would (fortunately) also have avoided being overshadowed by 8th Ed 40K, which quite frankly is mudering everything else in sight right now.

>overshadowed by 8th Ed 40K, which quite frankly is mudering everything else in sight right now.

Yeah, that kinda is an issue. Very poor timing on Battlefront's part.

No idea if 40K 8th is actually a good game, but a lot of people I know, even those that swore off Games Workshop "forever", are considering getting back into it.

Addicts gotta taste the crack again eventually.

Well, I've played like 20 games of it since it dropped. To be fair, GW could have released literally anything and it would've been better than 7th edition, but GW did a lot of improvements and little things people have been asking for for a long time. They absolutely streamlined the hell out of it, new players often have the rules down entirely within 2-3 games, and honestly vets struggle the most just because they need to unlearn old editions. Game time has been cut in half as many of the argument inducing shenanigans have been removed. GW has also been super on top of FAQs and erratas for competitive play, I think I've seen 3 different ones drop since the release that have targeted subpar units and OP stuff alike to bring everything into balance. GW feels like it actually is trying to do better. It's nowhere near perfect and they still do dumb things, but at least it's more like 3 steps forward 1 step back as opposed to just straight up running backwards like they used to.

The game absolutely has flaws, but on the casual level where most people play, it's vastly improved and most armies in my area actually play how they're supposed to in the lore again. Best way I can put it is imagine going from having to spam a variety of lend lease Soviet tanks in late war to just have a chance that would have historically never fought with each other in one edition. Then in the next edition getting more bonuses the more closely you actually followed a Soviet tank battalion's TOE. That's kind of what it feels like.

Pretty much everyone I know that has played it has enjoyed, even salty ex players like myself that had been burned many times by previous editions. As long as GW doesn't fuck up the codexes it's only going to gain more momentum.

>getting more bonuses the more closely you actually followed a TOE

Huh, ok. That's an interesting twist.

I'd actually be interested in seeing something like that in more games.

If they released it a year later they'd have an extra year's worth of lists to actually fucking play with as well.

yeah if you take more troops you usually get more command points, which can be used on strategem like rerolling a single dice whenever you want in a phase, autopassing a morale check, interrupting priority in close combat, orbital bombardments, getting an extra round in CQC, etc. They can swing a game but usually the most you see are 12 pts and many strategem cost 2-3 pts.

It means a guard player taking a few platoons usually has more strategic assets than a space marine player spamming assault Marines.

I really like it, it let's you counter some of the randomness these types of games have. I'll stop talking about 40k now.

To be fair, that's something that Battlefront approaches with the new morale rules. By only making "core" units count, it incentivises things like three core platoons, and the mortar platoon, which under v3 you'd often trade out for more support.

>and the mortar platoon
The new bombardment rules (and their absurd 4+ FP rating) took care of incentivizing that by itself.

>61 mm mortar
>Has FP of the 25 pounder
cheers

I was the person who did the groundwork for our group of 5-6 players, I got the initial terrain, struggled through hobby for years to get painted Brit and German LW armies ready for demos. Since about a month after the release of V4 there hasn't been any games.

I was quite looking forward to mid as I hadn't had a lot of games in the period and I liked most of the changes in TY, probably would have picked up one each of the new army boxes.

Then the playtest lists were leaked:
- No Brit Rifle Company
- No Shermans

So, my 3000+ points of LW Brits now can't put 100 points of MW on the table, Germans get Tigers, but Brits don't get Shermans. Like Phil said I could just proxy my Shermans as Grants... OR they could have just been included in the initial book.

Unfortunately for BF these days I'm pretty attuned to companies trying to shift product using a 'seasonal meta'. Overnight Battlefront went from a company I'd advocate for to one I'd like to see destroyed. If they can't treat an average mid-term player with a bit of respect (I started late V2-V4) why would I recommend or even want to be seen playing the product in-store?

Combined with the some of the sillier rules changes (arty FP) I don't really see the point of FoW anymore. It's an underdeveloped, poorly supported, overpriced and ahistorical game of toy soldiers. It doesn't do company or platoon level combat well, and at battalion level it's both too detailed and too simplistic.

What I want is an open system, probably built around Chain of Command, that scales from section to company level, has a basic points framework and encourages multi-player games.

When I first looked into Flames I was quite impressed with BF's attitude and online support. Unfortunately they've chosen to be closed rather than open. So rather than a free year-long public "V4 Beta", we got premium packaging, a premium release schedule and premium pricing.

I've personally always argued for taking as many of your core unit as possible.

Boys before toys.

Any chance of getting a nicer screenshot version of Red Thunder?

No interest in playing Team Yankee in 15mm but I do want to do 6mm. Does BF sell the cards separately from their models at all? I'd prefer having the cards instead of having to flip through the army book while playing.

the scan is out, dude

No separate cards.

Just print them out?

Didn't the American experiment with gun/launchers in the 60s & 70s demonstrate that the concept was more trouble than it was worth?

They just bunged it up. Just like they bunged up several other ideas that others figured out with less budget and stress.

See the Bradley and the BMP.

The space pen and the pencil.

Actually that one is entirely false. Pencils are a super bad idea in space because Graphite is conductive and they tend to break easily.

>space pen and pencil

that one is actually a bit misunderstood. There's a reason you want a pen over a pencil in space. Think about all the graphite dust and shavings pencils produce. Would you really want to be in a zero gravity enviornment the size of an RV with that floating around? Plus it can get into electronics or clog filters.

It sounds dumb but the space pen was a legitimate thing that was needed. Maybe not a million dollar idea, but the idea was a needed one.

Love the turret pitting - how'd you do it?

TEAM YANKEE POLL ON RED THUNDER

strawpoll.me/13591695

>strawpoll.me/13591695
Good to see how much faith we have in Battlefront... (not that they deserve all that much, but still)

Looks like you added textures on turret and replaced grab handles. Noce job there.

Speaking of Polls and things vaguely related to them.

We need questions for the next episode of Panzerfunk.

docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeOBxEJbNzS_Ec7I76zQmCU9P7o0C5bAgcXriKQ4bOWBp4QkA/viewform
And I forgot the link go me. I'll just be over here, quietly killing myself now.

>Good to see how much faith we have in Battlefront...

It's encouraging to see that perhaps there are portions of the player base that aren't completely and totally salty about FoW and TY right now.

>not that they deserve all that much, but still

...and there's the salt...

It was also independently developed by Paul Fisher of the Fisher Pen Company and then sold to NASA and, later, the USSR. They paid $6 per pen. history.nasa.gov/spacepen.html

>completely and totally salty about FoW and TY right now
Admittedly, there's some very good reasons to be salty right now.

Perhaps, but we're hardly going to grow the community if all people see and hear is people being upset about the game and the company that makes it.

People keep saying FoW is a DED GAEM.

I disagree.

But constant negativity about the game isn't exactly doing much to prevent that.

It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy before too long if the only thing potential new players see is existing players bitching about the game.

You want the game to live, then there needs to be an attitude of positivity, or at least willingness to trust that BF has some clue what they're doing.

If every post in this thread is something along the lines of "They changed it, now it sucks! Fuck this shit I'm switching to Battlegroup or 40K!" then it will be a DED GAEM before too long. Because nobody will want to interact with such a negative player base.

>You want the game to live, then there needs to be an attitude of positivity, or at least willingness to trust that BF has some clue what they're doing.
They've really burned that up over the last year with the consistent screwups. Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending everything is fine isn't going to make things actually good. Lying to people to get them to play the game when the game is not honestly that good anymore helps nobody. I'm sorry, but V4 and it's rollout have been a mess with way to many changes in ways and places that don't make any sense from a gameplay, streamlining, or historical perspective. Battlefront's response to criticism and errors has been to stick their head in the sand and not communicate with the fans, which is exactly the opposite of what they should be doing. If they looked like the cared even after screwing up, I might extend them some credit. But all we've seen is them going farther and farther down the GW route of "everything we do is fine and great, we're only going to support what we make, and playtesting has been thrown out for massive nonsensical changes". I've seen this shit before.

We always trumpet how "well, if you find out you don't like it, your minis are still useful elsewhere because you can always find a WWII historical ruleset." It's time to do that, since BF is becoming GW 2.0 and is no longer worth supporting.

>So has V4 destroyed FoW?
Yes. This is inarguably true and anyone who says otherwise is a shill. Everyone who's already played the game hates it, and it's not rigorous enough for grogs in other historicals and too weird and dad-gamey for 40k babies. It's going to kill BF.

>anyone who says otherwise is a shill

Shill reporting.

Now where the fuck are my Shillings?

Oh, that's right, I promote this game that I honestly enjoy, FOR FREE.

Could we NOT do the typical neckbeard thing of "My taste is the one true taste, all others are heretics/shills and should be burned"?

I don't particularly like V4 myself, and won't buy anything BF until I think they're back on a track I like again (which may or may not be when they launch V5), but you can still try to act like a grown-up

Ritterkrieg did it, actually. As for the pitting, a thin layer of plastic glue to soften the material, and a small tool to rough a texture into it.

I still enjoy Flames. Keep buying Battlefront's models, too. (Yet to see any shillbux though.)

Is v4 perfect? Absolutely not. But for EW and LW it's playable, even if the balance is shot in some areas. I haven't dabbled in MW yet, although I've got to say I'm not impressed with how they've handled the releases. But do you know what? I just don't play the bits that don't work for me. I'm going to house-rule the hell out of the D-Day event day I run. And I'm going to look into playing "historical" scenarios with fixed, rather than free, OoBs. But FoW v4 still is a good enough game, and still - for me - beats all of the competitiors I've tried.

>People keep saying FoW is a DED GAEM.
It is though. BF screwed the pooch; they're never going to realise they've fucked up unless they see it in their pocket.

I remember when everyone said 40kek was ded. (Every single time too)

>BF ded game
>BF not going to change unless they see it in their pocket

If they don't see it in their pocket is it really a ded game?

They have always run out of their pre order stock, so I guess they are probably thinking v4 is successful.
Satified people tend to praise less than dissatisfied people grumble, and how many people playing game is not impressive than how many copies sold.
When they heard bad news from the front, they will probably ignore it for its sake.

For them success is only measured by sales right? I mean look at the MW roll out. It's being done solely to sell new kits. I guess the question is will FoW continue to sell well in the long term?

No. It's not like they can pull a GW and render your army obsolete so you have to buy new minis. WW2 15mm is nice because it always works - you can use it for Crossfire, Battlegroup, Flames, etc. Aside from new players, or players starting new armies, they're more limited in what they can sell. This is why they branch out into different conflicts - to sell more minis. If BF survives long enough, hell maybe they'll make 15mm in Napoleonics or Romans.

>strawpoll.me/13591695

yay, i voted...

why am i always stuck with the biggest faction?
>wait a bit
i am going to have to do this anyway. i can afford to start V4 in earnest or i can get uber-Sov's for Red Thunder. i cannot do both....

>Because nobody will want to interact with such a negative player base.

eagles, don't curse us!

The Wargame series by Eugen Systems is a pretty good example of how a community will run the games into the ground. Towards the end all they were capable of was bitching about the games and posting East Germany/Soviet memes. Might sound familiar to some people here...

Please don't remind me of that.

I've watched that general die twice already.

This general isn't nearly as bad as /wgg/ was in its death throes, which were characterized by pointless elitism and some bitter autistic shitposting that just drove the last of the community off.

>pointless elitism
>bitter autistic shitposting
Already here, just a matter of frequency.

It's a consistent problem across a lot of fanbases - and the tiny echo-chamber we have here will only make it more difficult to not get caught up in the negativity. As previously stated, the bitching can easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. And it doesn't take much.

Say a prospective player decides to look at the general to see how people like the game, sees XX% of people bitching and decides he's better off just buying in to another game that feels like a safer investment. It's why I never got into 40K, I only really paid attention to it during 6th and 7th Ed. when people were pretty upset with the direction it had taken and I was convinced I'd be spending money on a game that no one was enjoying. So I never bothered.

There's stuff I don't like about V4. The new mechanic for Recon options feels like it's really hurt the cost-effectiveness of those units. Could I sit here and bitch about it with greentext and reaction images every time it gets mentioned? Sure. Will it do anything? Not much other than encourage other people to join the bitch-fest.

This is a problem that plagues the military (at least the Navy) a lot as well. If one or two people in your shop get a stick up their ass about something and keep bitching about it, it'll spread to everyone else. Doesn't take long before you all get a reputation with the rest of the command as being the shitbags that have no motivation. And it's true - it kills morale.

If V4 is truly bad, like a legitimately bad game (which I don't think it is, even though I don't like some of the changes), then FoW players as a whole will only make things worse if they can't be bothered to engage in some self-awareness and focus on propping themselves up instead of whinging at every opportunity.

V4 is legit bad, it's a late 2000's update of a 1990's style game. It has none of the careful design and production values of an FFG product, it has none of the open communication or community feedback of a well supported early access title, and believe it or not, it doesn't even have the value or list support of the latest 40k release. How the fuck did that happen?

For me Flames of War was always a bit of a deal with the devil, you traded away realism and interesting tactics for an almost operational view of the battlefield. That was kinda interesting, and most importantly it got people playing WWII in a useful scale and talking about history.

I really can't overstate just how fundamentally the V4 arty changes break that tactical/operational dynamic though. What they've done is stretch out the sliding scale (terrain and time) so that you're arty is functioning at maybe 3x the speed of the rest of your force. Every turn you fire a repeat bombardment, that isn't one stonk but probably up to an hour of preparation.

What this does is stretches the sliding scale to it's extreme, because the real weapons that actually reduced infantry positions during WWII were direct fire and assault, artillery was simply not reliable. This distorts the core of the game, infantry do nothing but die, tanks are never called on to perform infantry support.

Flames of World of Tanks.

>Right: German collars, Russian hats, PPSh SMGs.
>Left: German collars, WWI-era hats, Mauser pistols.

Which border is this?

Well if you don't like it, why don't you just piss off then?

The game doesn't have to be one to one realistic, and Flames of War has always had issues with it's sliding timescale. Infantry assaults might only take a few minutes to resolve, but digging a company's worth of entrenchments for an artillery battery gets done in the same span of time.

Yes Battlefront have problems with communicating, but it's not like they're the first to have that problem. I mean PUBG's having a major issue where they almost made Streamers Judge, Jury and Executioners to protect their cash cows. Games Workshop three editions back to present. Payday 2's last Crimefest basically destroyed the game's fanbase in a way that would make Version Four's release look like the release of Star Wars Rogue One.

You know, if this stuff bothers you so, why are you still trying to play it? In my personal experience of myself and the twenty other people at my local club who play FoW constantly I've only known one of them who has an issue with it. That may have been because the guy who organised the Club Champs this year made it V4 and V4 had just been released, giving people not a lot of time to prepare.

I've had the dubious pleasure of being able to play V3 and V4 side by side, and I felt that V4 played in a much more superior fashion each time. The Orders are great, artillery nerfs made tanks worth taking more frequently, everything flows together more easily and pesky niggles from the old ruleset are mostly resolved.

I admit there's a few problems with V4, Aircraft are too powerful, a lot of units are overpriced/underpriced because of the conversion, but it such an improvement over V3 that I am pleased to see Battlefront continue with it.

Berlin Wall

I'm betting the east/west German border. One of the not-russian side ones also has an AK.

Because when I piss off the majority of the 15mm terrain leaves the gaming store and comes home with me, and the remaining stock is sold off at cut price and no longer supported. The store has already been solidly fucked over by both Battlefront and their distributor multiple times now.

Given the choice between abandoning 15mm WWII and shilling for a company that's more concerned about the short term than the long, I'll post on an image board.

If someone is upset enough with Battlefront, they're just as likely to stay and try to detract others as they are to piss off.

I've never really looked at the FoW forums - is anyone there providing feedback? Not complaining, but actually posting their inputs. And if so, how is it being received, if at all?

The FoW Forums, like all Official Forums are garbage. There are people who believe that the British in TY need a power boost after RT came out.

They removed the General Discussion subforum a few years back, it had the effect of shunting any negative feedback into a few other subforums where it was less obvious and less likely to reach critical mass.

Negative discussion about anything real, product, balance, support, communication, is shut down pretty quickly. Phil has to do something in-between his Cheers.

>eagles, don't curse us!

I'm just speaking the truth as I see it.

Like I said, I don't want this to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

But I'm afraid that it will.

battlefront forums are a bunch of grognards acting like anime girl characters. with none of the kawaii
that too. no one smart ever kills their General Discussion.
GD creates hang outs.

I'm afraid too. not because it's true, but because i don't put in near the hours the trolls do.

>My Official Stance on V4
...haven't played it yet.
SAD!!, i know, i'm so damn late i have a belly bulge and a growing wierd food budget.
- - i am looking at this, though
---my primary opponent will be 30 crusaders
---my list has 16 vehicles, 2 of which are recon and 10 which are various PzIII
---No tigers, no supermemes. fuck, no mk4-specials.
and, those Crudasers are not just gonna roll over and die at the sight of my Pz'swarm'
i don't have the stabilizers i do in TY
i don't have superior armor, unless 5 vs 3 is great when we both have AT 9 guns (remember, 30 to 16 odds) and i have a few AT 5's and 7's in my list. 4+ to hit is not so much when fuck-all desert terrain will be placed.

i have also looked at ...GULP.... getting my PUMAS ready for V4. Guess who is going all out on Gun Teams?
my most viable LW list is, of all things, my Hero Tankovy

V4 may not be satan's big black cock, but looking at this girl, she's one odd duck, and that pussy smells funny now that i'm taking her undees off...

I'd caution against telling people they can't post negative thoughts about V4 or else they should "fuck off". Most post give reasons of concern that at least give new players areas to research to see if the game is for them.

Besides, I don't think some bitching on a Mongolian finger painting board kills V4. What kills V4 is current players being driven into disinterest when there armies are made invalid, replaced with uninspired options. When shop owners are actually legitimately surprised to see anyone playing Flames because all the new stock is staying on the shelves.

Eh, I mean I am pretty much with Panzer Lehr. I want to get some V4 going at the shop.
I have even considered starting a MW tank aces league. Battlefront just really aren't giving us any help on getting a community going.

How many German noobtubes should I get?

3 ought to be about right, though 6 gives you nice rerolls (extremely useful if you're going Trained).

4 does have the advantage of being more resilient to counter-battery fire. Generally 3 for cheapness or 6 for effect are the best options, though.

3 also have the added bonus of being one blister, if you want 4, you'll need to buy a second blister, or alternatively find more people who want more than 3 but less than 6.

I want to be inside of a BMP

>I'm afraid too. not because it's true, but because i don't put in near the hours the trolls do.

And it's not even that they're wrong. Some of the complaints are completely legitimate.

The issue is that trying to discuss the legitimate issues with the game gets drowned out by complaints about absolutely everything. Whether or not it's a major issue, a minor issue, or even a complete non-issue.

Actual useful productive discussion devolves into inflammatory name calling.

I'll admit to falling into that kind of behavior myself.

I get frustrated coming here sometimes when people are in full-on complain mode.

Because it kills my enthusiasm for interacting with this community.

It kills my enthusiasm for wanting to even bother recording episodes of Panzerfunk.

It kills my enthusiasm for wanting to put in the hours of work in my spare time to edit the episodes.

And yet, I still do it. Because I still enjoy playing this game and talking about it with whoever is actually still enjoying it.

>is anyone there providing feedback?
Yes, it gets ignored for not being positive enough. Look how often people with actual rules questions who're enjoying the game tag their posts with something like "Not trying to spread hate, just want to raise the question!" or something.

>all the new stock is staying on the shelves
Literally my store. I'm sure BF's sold out from it's warehouse but I'm pretty sceptical about if they're going to see follow-up orders; I think they were assuming this'd be another Team Yankee.

>people who believe that the British in TY need a power boost

A power boost? They're one of the most powerful nations in the game, with West Germans and East Germans coming in in a rather close second and third.

British in Team Yankee do not need a power boost.

>British in Team Yankee do not need a power boost.
yeah but tell the forums that, not us.

That'sthejoke

>That'sthejoke

I understand. I knew it was.

My point was more one of incredulity than actually arguing that Brits in TY are OP.

>yeah but tell the forums that, not us.

I avoid the official forums like the plague.

Partially because people are as clueless as to suggest TY Brits need a power boost, partially because they're going full retard on the spam lists, and partially because of the massive ego trips from the big names there.

Not to mention the CheersPosting from Phil...

East Germans are powerful?

I thought they were just the same old USSR unskilled mooks with even worse equipment.

Yeah, but they're cheap in points. Real cheap.

So they just spam so hard that you can't kill them all?

>TY US not mentioned
Do I live in a paralel universe?
I'm getting destroyed game after game by warthogs and cobras backed up by ITVs, M109s and gorillions of men.

I'm fielding rolands, gepards AND redeyes gott verdammt!
>A10s just flies through it unscathed and lights up my shit

US OP plz nerf