Flames of War

After two years of mid-war battles and tournaments, we’re all pretty excited for the release of Fortress Europe: new lists, more powerful vehicles and new stats to give a new flavour to FOW V4. Now that the book is only a couple of weeks from hitting the shelves, it’s time to have battle with the new forces – and we can’t wait to see how the “new” games taste.

With my friend Stefano Grombi, a veteran both for FOW and wargaming in general, we had our first battle with Fortress Europe lists. Reading the book it’s one thing, playing a game with the new lists is another.

By Scott Grasse

I am very excited to be talking about Firestorm Sicily which launches this weekend on May 25th. The notion of creating a Firestorm Italy campaign has always been a burning desire but when Tom Richards approached me with his vision of a Mega Firestorm Italy Campaign – one that would cover three phases of operations in Italy and spanning from mid-war into late war – I immediately became energized to join the team and get to the fun.

Themed campaigns are a great way to delve deeper into the historical elements of WWII battles and tactics. The Battle for Sicily represents an interesting, dynamic and unique time period in the war that makes for a particularly great campaign. Many things were changing at the time. Everything from – the terrain the battles would be fought on to troops and equipment that would participate. Political and military leadership strife was occurring on both sides. The fight for Italy would be a very different experience than the battles fought in the open deserts and rugged terrain of North Africa just months before. Sicily was to be the flashpoint for a new phase of the war.

By Tom Mullane

As a teacher, my gaming time is limited due. Spring Break is a time where I try to get games in and catch up with friends in the hobby. This spring, I got to connect with a friend I haven’t had a chance to play a game within a long while and made the most of the opportunity.

Joe and I played four games over the course of the afternoon and evening consisting of one Flames of War MW at 109 pts, and three Team Yankee West Germans Vs West Germans.

By Austin Coped

V4 Late War is so close I can almost taste it! And BLUF: While not super in-depth or unique, the British lists are super competitive with the lists that have been shared. List Gold!

***Disclaimer*** Buy Churchills before they go up in value from supply and demand!

Now that you have my initial thoughts, I want to show you a deep dive into the units, the formations and the rundown of National rules and tidbits of info I have run across. First up Special Rules.

By Benny Christiansen

Soviet players, rejoice! Even if the prospects of another Soviet book is a long time into the future, there is plenty of “good stuff” in the Fortress Europe to keep you busy painting and gluing and playing till then.

In this article, I will try to describe a few of the things I have found most interesting and most promising about the content of the Soviet part of Fortress Europe. It will not be a page-by-page walkthrough, but more like a tactical suggestion article. My aim is to let you get a feeling of the things that I have found most likely to be in my first LW battles.

Finally, the Late War has come! After two years from V4 release, we’re nearing to the most significant and hyped WW2 period, the latter two years of intense fighting towards Berlin. Battlefront is going to launch Late period with Fortress Europe, the first Late War book covering the period between the end of Mid-War period to D-Day.

The focus of this book is to ferry players from the desert and Russian plains to the later stages of war pre-D-Day. So, for British, we’re talking about the invasion of the Italian boot. In Mid, the British generals can count on a single book that is a bit outdated if compared to the last German Ghost Panzer army list. If you played a game between 8th Army vs Ferdinand or Panzer IV spam you’ll surely have that “unbeatable” feeling.  We can still win the day, since FOW scenarios are based on taking and defending objectives, but it’s really hard when you face lots of frontally uncrackable tanks. Well, in late-war this is going to change…

By Chris Jackson

The question on everyone’s lips on the interwebs these days, at least in the forums I frequent, is what’s coming for Late War? has given me a sneak peek at the new book Fortress Europe and I think they have done a good job with it.

A lot of thought was put into how to roll out the new era, and it seems to me a lot of the complaints we as a gaming community have made since V4 was released have been addressed. Now I’m not saying the new v4 is perfect, nor that I don’t have some issues with it, but I think, on the whole, BF has done a good job, particularly with the concept behind this book.

Fortress Europe is designed primarily to get existing FOW players into Late War with a minimum of muss and fuss. Almost every unit in the book (and for the Germans, EVERY unit in this book) is already produced. The units are simply repointed to Late War levels.

My focus for this article will be the German Forces in Fortress Europe.

By Tom Richards, Scott Grasse and Christian Sorenson

Firestorm – Sicily is a new mid-war Firestorm campaign that allows gamers to recreate Operation Husky as either Axis (Italian or German) or Allied (British or American) forces.

In the traditional format, Firestorm – Sicily is played as a series of linked battles that are resolved by playing Flames of War games.  The outcomes of the battles affect the larger campaign map and allow players to re-determine the outcome of one of the most critically important operations of WWII.  With the material posted here on NDNG Firestorm – Sicily can be run with your local group or can be played as an online campaign.

 4^th Battle of Kharkov – August 1943

Mega-Game

by NDNG_Dane

The Huntsville Historical Gamers gathered in April to recreate the Soviet offensive that aimed to recapture Kharkov and destroy the German 4th Panzer Army.   The 4^th Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles between 3 and 23 August 1943, following the Battle of Kursk. After their defeat at Kursk, the Wehrmacht was clearly on the defensive, with the Soviets launching a massive offensive. The 4th Panzer Army conducted a fighting withdrawal to fighting positions around the city of Kharkov.

The Kharkov Mega-Game was the culminating engagement of our spring Ghost Panzer – Red Banner, Eastern Front Campaign.