Late-War Dynamic Points for Flames of War

By Richard Steer

Just in time for Christmas, Battlefront’s gift to Flames of War players was the finalization of the first round of Dynamic Points for Late-War.

What Is Dynamic Points?

Dynamic Points is a free update that adjusts the cost of units in existing force books for Flames of War 4th Edition. If you are playing a game using Dynamic Points, you treat any units in the update as costing what they are listed there, while any units not in the update continue to use the points given in the published books.

For each round of Dynamic Points, usually published annually, Battlefront focuses on a small number of specific areas where they see problems with the balance of a game. For the Late-War era of Flames of War in 2026, this focus is increasing the price of light armor and reducing the price of medium armor. Other areas that players have been asking to be addressed, such as the cost of Save 4+ Soviet infantry, have not been touched.

Battlefront initially published a draft set of changes in November, seeking feedback from the community. They have now considered that feedback, and the changes have been locked in for 2026, including being added to the Forces of War list building tool.

Let’s take a look through some of the things that have changed, and how they might impact the game over the coming year.

Winners: German Armor

The cost of some German armor absolutely needed to reduce. Confident Veteran Panthers in particular have always been in a difficult spot in V4, being only slightly cheaper than a Tiger while also being significantly more vulnerable. Dynamic Points has attempted to correct this, with reductions in cost of between 1-2 points per vehicle for Panthers, Jagdpanthers, and Panzer IV/70s.

Panzer IVs, StuGs, and Hetzers also benefit. It will be interesting to see how players respond to these reductions. Panzer IVs definitely needed to be cheaper, and I hope that we will see more of them on the tabletop, but they have ended up being more expensive than StuGs. There is definitely a trade-off there, between Front armor and Assault stats, but perhaps not as much as the new points would suggest. Importantly, the under-costing of Clausewitz StuHs has been fixed, and these are now more expensive than Wespes, as they should be.

I also have a concern about the potential emergence of Hetzer spam. A full Volks Hetzer company of 13 Hetzers is now 26 points. Yes, they have bad soft stats and terrible mobility, but it is still a large number of Front 7 Anti-tank 11 vehicles for not very many points, and are a very strong counter to the medium tanks that Dynamic Points was trying to encourage.

Some of the German units that weren’t adjusted are also at risk of being squeezed out of play. Jagdpanthers at 10-points each feels about right, but it leaves Hornisse in a tough spot at 8-points each.

Winners: Soviet Armor

The Soviets have seen larger reductions than average across a wide range of tank units. IS-2s, SUs, and ISUs all benefit by about 1-point per vehicle.

An example of this is a 90-point Tank Killer Regiment that I ran at a tournament in 2025. The changes across T-34s and SUs add up to a huge 21-point reduction in the total cost of the list. It probably still won’t be a tournament-winner, but those extra points will significantly increase the capabilities of the list. At the very least, SU-100s are suddenly an interesting option for adding top-end AT to any Soviet force.

The biggest winner, though, is the T-34. This has struggled in comparison to the Sherman, but a reduction of nearly 1-point per tank, versus the Sherman reduction of 1-point per unit, quickly adds up. A full battalion of 21 T-34/85s has reduced in cost from 91-points to 74-points, which is enough to suggest to me that the tank could now be the core of a competitive build. There is now a clear separation in points between T-34s and Shermans, and Soviet players now have a very interesting choice to make between the two.

Losers: Halftrack and Recce Spam

I’m of the view that a pricing error of a point per unit here or there doesn’t make a significant difference to the balance of the game, until you look at formations that can stack together multiple small, underpriced units. In Late-War, we have seen this with most commonly with British Reconnaissance Squadrons and German 7.5cm and Triple FlaK halftracks, all of which have been hit with price increases by Dynamic Points.

Those increases will quickly start to stack up in lists that run multiple light units, however, for many lists, those increases won’t make any meaningful difference as they are likely to be offset by reductions that you are getting elsewhere. An example is this 100-point Reconnaissance Kampfgruppe from Bulge: German, where the increase in cost of the armored cars and halftracks is balanced out by the reduction in Panzer IV/70s, leaving the total cost of the list unchanged at 100-points.

While it still balances to 100-points, I would now be looking at how I could free up an extra 2-points in order to turn the small unit of SdKfz 234 (7.5cm) armored cars into an extra Panzer IV/70.  This is the slight bias that I expect Dynamic Points to create in Late-War list building: light armor can still quite happily do the same job as before, but its benefits over medium armor no longer looks as clear cut.

For other lists that have leaned heavily into underpriced units and haven’t seen offsetting reductions elsewhere, players will either have to reduce the size of their core formation, or sacrifice some of the support options that are so critical for making light armor builds so competitive. I don’t think it’ll completely take light armor lists out of the game, but I think they’re slightly less attractive, and that may be just enough to take the edge off.

Winner: Berlin Germans

For now, cheap, low-quality German infantry packed with Panzerfausts has been left untouched. I’m sure their time will come, and I’d hope that they would be first priority for consideration in the next round of updates.

For now, it is left to tournament organizers to find ways to set up their events to reduce their dominance. Some have already addressed this by banning certain formations entirely, limiting the number of times each Battle Plan stance can be used, or through tweaks to the rules such as removing the “zero points for Reserves” aspect of the Local Militia rule. I would expect to see more of these types of restrictions being imposed at tournaments over the next year, to reduce the attractiveness of these formations until Battlefront hopefully provides a fix through additional Dynamic Points changes for 2027.

My Thoughts

The update covers way more ground than I had expected, which is really great to see. On the whole I’m very happy with most of what has been changed.

There are a few problems with the new points that I had hoped would have been corrected following community feedback. Hetzers as mentioned earlier are one. British Cromwell CS tanks are another, with a large inconsistency between their pricing in Bulge compared to D-Day.

At this point, however, I’m happy to see how the new points bed in over the next 12 months. They will shake up competitive list-building and refresh the Late-War meta, creating new challenges and opportunities, so while it’s fair to say that these Dynamic Points aren’t perfect, they are overall a good change.