Flames of War

By Richard Steer

The next Late-War compilation for Flames of War is about to be released. Operation Bagration consolidates the previous Soviet, German, and Axis-Allies books for 1944 on the Eastern Front into a single volume.

It is now five years since the first of those books, Bagration: Soviet, was published. It’s fair to say that there haven’t been any earth-shattering updates to the Soviet lists. However, Battlefront has taken the opportunity to update the Soviets to include a few products that they have released in the intervening years, and it’s worth taking a closer look at those changes.

By Paolo Paglianti

Rome wasn’t built in a day, and every journey needs a starting point. If your journey is collecting a German or US Late War army for Flames of War, we now have a great foundation to begin with!

Battlefront sent us an early preview of the Fortress Europe box, perfect for anyone looking to get started with Flames of War or for those who already play and want to start a new American or German army. It ideally replaces the older Open Fire starter boxes and, as the name suggests, it’s themed around the D-Day period — but it can be used for any US Late War army or German Mid and Late War forces. Let’s take a look at what’s inside.

By Paolo Paglianti

As every year, the ETC – European Team Championship for Flames of War takes place towards the end of July. It’s probably the most important tournament of the year for fans of the game, and the whole FOW community, including US and New Zealand.

I was lucky enough to take part in 2022 as a “mercenary” for Team Iceland in Belgium, then returned in 2023 and 2024 with Team Italy, again in Belgium and then in Poland. This year, the ETC was held in Austria, in the town of Loben, and Team Italy was back on the field! Let’s see how it went!

By Paolo Paglianti

Our friends at Battlefront sent us one of the Limited Editions from the new Pacific range — and it’s packed with Japanese troops! What do you think, shall we do a nice unboxing together?

After many years of games and painting WWII armies from North Africa and Europe, we can finally leave the Old World and travel to the Far East: Battlefront is about to release the highly anticipated Pacific expansion for Flames of War.

As we saw in Tom Gall’s preview, the new book is already shaping up to be a “compendium” of over 170 pages, covering the armies that fought in Southeast Asia. It includes the US Marines, the British Commonwealth and their Indian and Australian allies, and of course, the Japanese—who will be the focus of this article.

By Richard Steer

“Why aren’t more people choosing the Manoeuvre stance?”

I asked this question of my friend Bede after a day spent running a Late-War Soviet Forward Detachment at a recent Flames of War tournament. In several games, I had attacked Berlin: German armored forces with combinations of StuGs, Hetzers, Panthers, and Panzer IV/70s. Every player I faced had also chosen to attack, with that combination in the Battle Plans mission selector leading to our games being meeting engagements.

I can see the attraction of the Attack stance. It leads to faster and simpler missions, and you usually don’t have Reserves so you get all your toys on the table. However, I was thinking about the advantages the German forces had over my Soviets: Careful Veteran skill, high front armor, and good anti-tank weapons, and whether the Attack stance was making the most of those.

By choosing to attack, the German players had been forced to advance to take objectives, reducing their Rate of Fire, bringing their tanks towards the anti-tank weapons of my infantry, and allowing my Shermans and SU-76s to get into their side armor.

By Paolo Paglianti

Tomorrow marks the first FOW Nationals of the year! Near Milan, 40 players from all over Europe (plus an American and a Canadian!) will clash in battle to claim the title of 2025 Italian Nationals Champion.

The event is organized by the Milan FOW club, which is participating in full force—with four new players joining in (we’re growing!). They have also been a tremendous help in setting up the 20 tables for the Flames of War MID tournament.

By Richard Steer

Every year, the Hutt Miniature Wargames Club hosts the ValleyCon wargaming event in Upper Hutt, New Zealand. 2024 was the club’s 25th anniversary, and fittingly, ValleyCon 2024 was its biggest event yet. 170 gamers came together from across New Zealand to spend two days playing in tournaments for eight gaming systems.

I played in the Flames of War tournament, which had 20 players with 98-point Mid-War lists using Dynamic Points in five 2.5-hour rounds. I try to bring a new army to each ValleyCon, and 2024 was the year that I finally built a British ‘Death or Glory’ Armoured Squadron.

By Richard Steer

Late-War Leviathans first came to Flames of War in May 2024 via a free “Early Release” PDF of tanks from Gale Force 9’s alt-history game Clash of Steel. This stretched Flames of War’s timeline into the early years of the Cold War, while also adding tanks that were only prototypes, or in some cases never made it off the drawing board. That early release has now been expanded into a full book, with additional units and new formations.

I liked the Soviet Early Release Leviathans. The ability to add the IS-3, T-44, T-54-1, and ISU-130 as Wildcard units to other Soviet Late-War lists provided some nice options for upgrading existing FOW forces. The new Leviathans book provides even more options, so let’s take a look at what the Soviets get from it.

By Paolo Paglianti

It’s the most anticipated Flames of War tournament of the year: the top 120 players from around the world (not just the Old World, but also New Zealand and the USA) competing in a weekend of FOW matches, but more importantly, many friends reuniting under one roof for the same passion for wargaming.

I was fortunate enough to participate in my first ETC (European Team Challenge) in 2022 when my friend Søren Petersen invited me as a ‘mercenary’ for the Iceland team. I had a great time and it went very well! The following year, we returned as Team Italy led by the new Captain Livio Tonazzo, and things went very well indeed again. This year, the same team—consisting of Livio Tonazzo, Flaviano Maggioni, Giacomo Velini, Antonio Soncini, and Tiberio Vinante—is heading to Kraków, Poland. This time, the tournament is in the Late War format.