FOW – Armies of Late War Review!
By Ed Sales
Additional photos courtesy of BattleFront, or as noted.
Today we take a look at Flames of War’s most recent book, Armies of Late War. This book was released as a basic starter book for Late War Version 4, with four major nations, Germany, United States of America, Britain, and the Soviet Union having their standard armies released, with adjusted rules. Repointed units are here to go with the recent Late War rules updates, this includes the removal of redundant teams and properly adjusted aircraft stats.
The book is well written, and the graphics were laid out nicely. All the nations special rules are listed. Also, before you get to each nation’s forces there are brief histories of the nations’ armored forces history in the war, followed by a Know Your Tanks section, which gives brief stats of the tanks and helps those unfamiliar with the different tanks be able to identify them.
In this article, I will break down and highlight several things that I noticed which stood out to me in the lists. For experienced gamers, most of these lists were pulled and modified from other books that we have already seen and owned.
Why is this book needed? For those who started their foray into FOW with Version 4 Mid War, or who have played Team Yankee and want to see what all the fun with FOW Late War is about, this book helps those individuals make a much easier transition.
All the force diagrams in this book have been updated to what we expect to see in Team Yankee and Mid War Version 4, and you build your force in the same manner. There are also unit cards to go with every unit in the book. The cards are sold separately for each nation and are not needed to play. They are a nice addition if you’re already used to using the cards.
Units have had their points and stats updated to the most recent Late War Rules update, so you should see some of the units with different point costs, and you will no longer see Observers and Command Teams within the Unit structure. If you’re a veteran player, such as myself, and you are asking questions like “why did this book come out?” or “Are these the super competitive lists you’d want to take to a tournament?” or, you have noticed “These aren’t new lists!” then this book is probably not for you.
This book was made for new FOW players who want to transition to Late War Version 4 with a force building diagram they are already used to. It also allows people to work with the most recent Late War Rules updates already incorporated into the points and stats of those units in the book.