Flames of War

By Richard Steer

The Late-War period of Flames of War was completed last year with the release of the Berlin books. With no new releases over the last 12 months, the meta of the competitive scene is probably the most stable it has ever been.

A meta can be defined as “the game around the game”. In Flames of War this includes all of the things that go on up until you start deployment, such as the options that go into list building and your choice of Battle Plan. There’s always been a meta: those lists that appear, dominate the competitive scene for a while, become super popular, and then fade as players work out how to counter them and new books create new competitive opportunities.

Local metas are often created by the way that the most successful players in a particular region or gaming group approach the game. To find out more about the Late-War meta in our local region of Wellington, New Zealand, I recently spoke with four players who have for many years been among the top FOW players in New Zealand: Bede, Chris, and Simon from Wellington, and Sofia from Auckland, to hear their views of the state of the Late-War game in our corner of the world.

By Robert Kelly

Visit IWM London – Plan Your Visit | Imperial War Museums

I’ve left the granddaddy of all London museums to the end, the Imperial War Museum (IWM)London. There are actually five Imperial War Museums. This one in London, HMS Belfast and the Churchill War Rooms also in London, Duxford for all things aircraft and IWM North in Manchester.

By Tom Gall

The folks at Hard Knox Games in Elizabethtown Ky are on to something for Flames of War and you probably want to know about it. With Flames of War (FOW) (and TY) I’m sure you’re more than familiar with the current matrix of missions that dot the competitive and casual landscape.

Part of the fun of FOW is showing up with a list, and not knowing what mission you’re going to play. You and your opponent each pick a stance (Attack, Maneuver, or Defend), reveal which gets you to a table to roll a D6, and decide the mission to play. The mission of course determines where you place objectives, where you deploy your forces, if you have reinforcements and other situational rules that’ll give your game extra flavor.

It’s a great system and thankfully Battlefront has been refreshing it approximately yearly. Sometimes tho, you want a little more variety. This is where the Move to Contact format you’ll find is interesting!

The folks at Hard Knox have run this format of missions 5 times now. Locally we’ve been using the missions for casual play, we’re fans.

By Tom Gall

This past Saturday December 30th the usual suspects in Minnesota gathered to play a 3-round tournament at DreamersVault in Minneapolis Minnesota. This time was a 95pt LW contest with 15 players gathered. A number of the crew are bound for LVO at the end of January so they were eager to try some lists out.

Were I in the same state of mind my list would have been trying to balance between something competitive with what can I fit on the airline. It’s extra hard especially if you’re playing both Team Yankee and Flames of War that week!

I ended up taking my Brigade Armoured Assault Company. It’s one of those lists where almost all the units are hit on 3s, most everything is reluctant 5 motivation and skill tends to be a 4 for most units. Those basics are not a solid set of fundamentals to build around, the list is trash and has all sorts of issues so …. hold my beer.

By Richard Steer

The latest round of “Dynamic Points” for Flames of War has been finalized. If you are not familiar with the term, a Dynamic Points document is an update that Battlefront publishes that adjusts the cost of units in the game without needing to re-release the books. If you are playing a game using Dynamic Points, treat any units in the document as costing what they are listed there, while any units not in the update continue to use the points given in the books.

So far this concept has only been applied to the Mid-War era, with the 2024 version being the second round of adjustments for the era. The update can be downloaded for free from the FOW website, and have also been applied to the Forces of War list builder.

By Paolo Paglianti

Imagine an airport hangar packed with tin soldiers: tin soldier shops, tin soldiers demo tables, tin soldiers tournaments. Well, that’s literally what happens at Warfare 2023, one of the biggest and most significant wargaming and modeling shows in the Old World, located south of London. Warfare is a heaven for every wargamer: there are lots of shops selling essentially anything you can imagine: books, miniatures from 6mm to 54mm, and terrain for any wargame from ancient to sci-fi.

It is organized by the Wargames Association of Reading and it’s simply excellent – I know how difficult is to organize an event so huge and complex, and David, Steve, and the Reading Team always do a fantastic job. I really recommend you pay a visit, if you’re in the UK next November.

By Tom Gall

If you like to play Flames of War you’re probably aware of what are the two modes of play, casual and competitive play. There is a fairly healthy tournament scene for Flames in the US, it’s been coming back since COVID.

Competitive play isn’t for everyone but it does make for a fun day of getting in a few games,  pitting your skills against other players, and as a result learning how to play better. Often people at tournaments talk about how to play better, make better lists, unit recommendations, painting suggestions, and so on.

by Paolo Paglianti

We already had an article about ETC 2023 (you can read it here), probably the biggest and most important FOW tournament of the year. Now it’s time to talk about the six games I had during the tournament. I first attended the ETC in 2022 with Team Iceland – I was the “Italian Viking” mercenary invited to join the Nordic team by Soren Petersen and the rest of the squad. I was very happy and fortunate enough to secure the second overall position.

For my debut with the Team Italy at ETC 2023, I stuck with the British Army, my preferred list in FOW. However, this time I was up against a challenging opponent. While the British army in Late War is a highly respectable list, equipped with all the tools needed to face any adversary, its Desert War counterpart for Mid War is an entirely different story. The British in the desert lacks effective Anti-Tank capabilities with solid AT values. You can acquire some costly 17/25 pound guns, but they are rather immobile. Alternatively, you can opt for the even pricier M10s from our wealthier US counterparts, but they are easily hit (3+) and struggle to effectively counter the formidable armored units of the Russians or Germans.

By Robert Kelly

This is my latest museum report from last year’s Grand Tour of Europe. I had always heard that Budapest was a city worth visiting and it didn’t disappoint. Budapest has many things to see and do and is quite inexpensive compared to places like London, Paris, or Copenhagen.  The Hungarian Army Museum is located on Castle Hill near the Buda Castle.

There are two ways to get to the top of the hill.  To ensure that you go right to the museum first, you take the minibus/golf carts that are parked at the base of the hill.  They are inexpensive, rather fun, and will drop you off at the entrance to the museum before it heads over to the castle (with the rest of the family). The second option is the funicular. It won’t drop you off right at the museum but it was impressive.

By Richard Steer

Trains are great. I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that I’ve loved trains for as long as I can remember. It’s no surprise, therefore, that when Flames of War allows you to stick a giant anti-aircraft gun onto the back of a railway wagon, I’m going to jump at the opportunity.

To this end, I recently purchased four 10.5cm FlaK39 Railway Cars to add to my Late-War German collection. Unfortunately, there are no assembly instructions either included with the kit or on the web, so I’ve written up the assembly process I used in the hope that it will help others.