Flames of War

By Benny Christiansen

Background:

Having had access to the Italian Avanti book for some time now, I have had some great fun with trying different things out. One choice keeps coming back to my lists, is the L6/40 Light Tank Platoon. It has a front of 3, which is very nice in MW. It also has Spearhead, making it possible to dash forward and establish a forward position in several missions. Scout makes it hard to hit. The only place where I really find it lacking is in the weaponry. I’m sure that is also the main reason why many players choose not to field them.

Many of my fellow writers, due to distance or circumstance, will not be able to make the great summer gathering held by HMGS this July 12th through the 15th in Lancaster PA.I am, however, able to attend to, and I am excited to get in some days of intense gaming, catching up with friends, and seeing the sights.

I have been feverishly painting minis in preparation for the events. We will also provide some coverage from the event (on the road podcasting organized by Mitch Reed).  For those looking to find any No Dice No Glory folks to say hi to, this article will give you an idea of where to find me. So come by and say hello!

We return for part 2 of the three-part series of Kampfgruppes in Flames of War. For this report, I take a Kampfgruppe into combat.

For this game, I played against Brian Sullivan. I was expecting to go against his Soviets, or for him to make a list from my Americans. Instead, he decided to pull out his Hungarians for a run.

We used the More Missions matrix.

I was attacking and Brian was defending for our scenario. We ended up with No Retreat for our mission.

Today we are going over part one of a three-part series of Kampfgruppes (KG) in Flames of War.

The first thing you may be thinking to yourself if you played Flames of War in Version 3, is that the Kampfegruppe rule was taken out in Version 4.

I am actually referring to a little known, but very well written article that Battlefront put out when Desperate Measures was released. In that article, is a Random Kampfgruppe Generator.

The Kampfgruppe Generator is used to simulate what a German Commander might have faced when an operation got underway. He really didn’ know what he had till it was time to go into action.

For example, several of the tanks could have broken down on the way to battle. His company of Panzergrenadiers actually may be only Platoon size, or worse, squad size. Inits that existed in paper only. The Battalion of Panzers that were promised to him from reserve ends up being just too worn down Panthers.

As a tournament organizer (TO), the choice of how to find the attacker/defender is a choice, that can have a significant impact on the lists you will see.

I started playing Flames Of War (FOW) about the time when version 3 came out. I have always been an organizer. One of those pesky types, that loves to see people gather and have fun, pushing their small homemade dolls, sorry soldiers around. Before FOW, I was active in another well known doll-pushing community. Always making events, small and big.

Greetings from Virginia. I wanted to start by introducing myself. I began my journey into tabletop wargaming as many of us do, with a force of plastic warriors from Games Workshop’s, Warhammer Fantasy.

I reveled in the joy of High elves before slowly getting bored with the game. I found a winning strategy ended up with who had spent more USD and not who had built a better force on paper or led his troops better.

I moved from Warhammer to a new game I had seen at my FLGS, Flames of War (FoW). This game seemed to have it all. Tactics, list building, and strong individual models (Yup I thought King Tigers were invincible, how quaint young me was.)

By Scott Grasse, Kevin Morris, and Tom Burgess

—FLASH —

AXIS OFFENSIVE THREATENS ALLIED HOLD IN TUNISIA – ALLIES FAIL TO BREAK MARETH DEFENSES
Press release – March 1943

By Tom Burgess

With Flames of War moving back to its Mid War desert roots, this seemed to make this year a good time to for me to build an 8th Army force to oppose my existing DAK German force. Even better, from my perspective, was that I’d be able to do this new force, even the infantry, in plastic. The announcement of this caught me off-guard as I recalled an earlier WWPD interview with Pete that indicated that Battlefront was steering away from plastic infantry. This was due to the fact a hard plastic infantry sprue took up the same time and effort as three hard plastic tank sprues. So I was caught quite by surprise with these new figures becoming available and I was excited that I’d get to move forward with an all plastic Battlefront 8th Army force.

We are back on the road at the “Trial By Fire” FoW Tournament hosted by the great folks at ” in Chantilly VA.

Segment 1: A chat with Brian “Bocage” Sullivan from Battlefront with Mitch and Ed Sales from the NDNG team

Segment 2: Mitch sits down with Tim McClelland from the Pittsburg crew and Ben Gobel talks about his return to the game

Segment 3: A gaming rarity; we talk to James and Jo Copeland, a husband and wife FoW team

I know I’m late to the party on this topic, but I finally got in a couple of games with the Fog of War cards.

As a teacher, I use games such as Flames of War in my Military History course. 

Objectives are placed and platoons assigned. These games help the students learn about different equipment types and generic tactics. In addition, the games help get the students engaged in the lessons and make my Military History course fun.

One of my students, Malcolm, is an avid Flames of War player. He picked up a half-painted army from his brother and is working to finish painting it.