British

By Michael Rafferty

This year marks the 80^th anniversary of Operation Overlord and the Battle for Normandy. To commemorate this my local group, the Nerds of War, wanted to run a D-Day themed mega battle. It’s been a few years since we’ve run a mega battle at our FLGS The Game Room and not at AdeptiCon, so we wanted to start things off with something big and flashy.

We have a logo and a banner, we’re official!

I really enjoy running large games for people and I’ve always enjoyed playing in something larger and more cinematic. It’s a good feeling to be maneuvering whole tank companies about the battlefield instead of a platoon. That’s what got me started running big games a decade or so ago.

If other people weren’t going to run the kind of games I like, I would do it myself. These games also motivate me to complete modeling projects. Setting a date means I need to have things ready by then and I work better with firm, external deadlines. Big games both keep me recharged in the hobby and progressing along my projects, a win-win!

By Richard Steer

Late-War Leviathans are coming to Flames of War. Battlefront is releasing a free PDF on 2nd May that allows the models from their new 1948 alt-history game Clash of Steel to be used in the Late-War era of FOW. These new tanks, the Leviathans, are a mix of vehicles that entered service shortly after WW2, and experimental prototypes that never entered production.

By Richard Steer

“Does anyone have any Wespes that I can borrow?” The request was posted by a friend on one of our local group chats ahead of a Late-War Flames of War tournament last year. Once the accusations of “meta chasing” died down, it led to a conversation about the role and effectiveness of artillery in the game.

As someone who primarily plays British forces, my contribution to the discussion was that while the Late-War British lists have a lot of artillery options, only mortars and AVREs offer good value. The British towed artillery piece, the 25pdr, is only Firepower 4+ and is expensive due to being Fearless Veteran. Where the Germans and Americans have cost-effective three-gun units of self-propelled artillery, the British Priest and Sexton troops are units of four, again being Fearless Veteran.

To cap it off, it’s not easy to make use of that Veteran skill because most British Formation Commanders are only rated as Trained. Almost everything that the 25pdr should be able to do in the game can be done more effectively by Crocodiles.

The 25pdr field gun played an immense role in British and Commonwealth actions throughout the war, and it’s a shame that they don’t see the table more often. To do my bit to help correct this, I challenged myself to build a British list that goes all-in on artillery.

By Richard Steer

One of the most enjoyable parts of the current Flames of War release cycle has been the new plastic kits that Battlefront has developed. A number of new kits have been released for Bulge: British, including a box that covers the Sexton self-propelled gun, the Ram tank, and the Ram Kangaroo armored personnel carrier. I have a bit of a soft spot for the Kangaroo, so I recently picked up the box in order to add some to my Late-War British.

The box can build four vehicles, and contains two sprues per vehicle. The first sprue has all of the components needed to build a Sexton, specifically the Sexton Mk II.

By Richard Steer

Bulge: British is the final book covering Late-War British forces for Flames of War 4th Edition. Combined with D-Day: British, these books are Flames of War’s representation of the British, Canadian, and Polish forces in Northwest Europe from D-Day through until VE Day.

Supporting each book is a deck of Command Cards. These cards add additional formations, units, and upgraded weapons, that are not included in the core books. Amongst the cards for the British books there are a number of options for different reconnaissance units. This article looks at the historical units, and how they have been represented in the lists.

By Mike Rafferty

The British Bulge book is finally out, which covers the British from post-Normandy Market Garden up to the end of the war. The book adds a lot of new features and army lists for the British and has a special significance for me. Welsh Guards Cromwells were the first army I actually built and painted fully. I still have this force and the Cromwell is my favourite-looking tank of the war, despite the obvious superiority of the Sherman. The new book adds Challengers, so I can finally play my Welsh Guards as intended with Cromwells and Challengers.

By Richard Steer

Bulge: British is the latest release for the Late-War era of Flames of War. This book covers the British, Canadian, and Polish forces in Western Europe from August 1944 through to the end of the war in Europe.

It’s a book that many of us have been looking forward to for a long time. The arrival of the Comet is a large part of that anticipation, but there are several infantry formations in the book that also deserve a close look.

Kangaroo Rifle Company

Bulge: British takes the standard Rifle Company from the previous books and upgrades it. The overall structure of the formation is identical to those earlier iterations, but the Company HQ and Rifle Platoons now have the option of including Ram Kangaroo transports.

By Richard Steer

The Flames of War army boxes are a great value. They are big boxes packed full of plastic sprues and are the ideal way to either start a new army or reinforce an existing one, at a significant price discount. The new British Crusader Armoured Squadron boxed set for North Africa is no exception. Containing 21 sprues and retailing for US$110, it compares very well to the usual price for a normal unit box.

While the Crusader Armoured Squadron box contains a lot of plastic for your money and a wide variety of models, a closer look at its contents reveals that it is an awkward combination of units. The default army list that is provided with the box is a legal force totaling 93 points, but game-wise it is not a great list.

By Richard Steer

The North African campaign has always been the theatre of World War II that I have been most interested in, and specifically the British perspective of the conflict. This interest carried over into , with British forces in the Mediterranean has been my primary focus in the game.

To be honest, I was pretty disappointed with the first releases for FOW V4. Desert Rats and felt very lightweight compared to the previous lists for the African Campaign that we had been playing with, being the original North Africa compilation from 2009. That’s not to say that the V4 lists were bad. On the contrary, with the exception of the 17/25pdr anti-tank gun, Desert Rats was a reasonably historical representation of the most common British armored formations in Egypt and Libya in the middle of 1942. The British lists from Desert Rats were later expanded and re-released as Armoured Fist, which filled in many of the gaps, but the fact remained that the army lists had taken a step backward in detail and completeness under V4.

By Richard Steer

I am in the process of for my Late-War British. The Kangaroos were created in August 1944 by converting 72 Priest self-propelled guns belonging to the 3rd Canadian Division into armored personnel carriers. The converted Priests retained the markings of their original units: the 12th, 13th, and 14th Field Regiments, Royal Canadian Artillery. The are focused on the armoured divisions, with nothing suitable for the artillery units of an infantry division. In order to provide markings for my Kangaroos, I decided to try printing my own using our home inkjet printer.

The specific decals that I wanted were the divisional insignia, the Arm of Service flash for the regiment, and the battery identification markings. I created the images I needed using PowerPoint, while the divisional insignia was downloaded from Wikipedia then scaled to the right size. The big issue was always going to be how to achieve the white lettering in the unit symbols with a printer does not use white ink.