by Tom Burgess
After playing several city fights with the new Version 4 Mid War East Front lists, and I decided to turn our attention to more open field battles.
We set up an East Front looking table with few woods, wheat fields, a couple of built-up areas, and a rail line. We also increased the points we were playing at from 55 to 81 points as that’s what we’ll be playing at Advance the Colors in October.
By Players at the tourney: Johnny Vasquez, Justin Rodriguez, Hyato Tukakosi, Scott Miller and Tom Richards
Photos by: Hyato Tukakosi and Troy Hill
Compiled by Troy Hill (Edited to include Justin R’s comments).
I recently organized the Pacific South-West regionals, a two-day, five-round FOW MW Tourney held at . No Dice No Glory and sponsored the tourney (along with the Team Yankee tourney the day before).
Since the tournament occurred one week after BattleFront’s new books for the Eastern Front, Iron Cross and Enemy at the Gates hit the shelves, I allowed lists from the new books in the event.
Afterwards, I asked players to send in their thoughts to several questions about how the new forces affected the games they played. Below are their responses. The only editing I have done is for spelling and grammar, as well as organizing their comments by category.
Final Standings: Surprisingly, the top player fielded a force from Armoured Fist – a Death or Glory list. Another Brit list took fourth. Soviet lists were second, third, tenth and fourteenth. Germans bunched in the middle of the pack at fifth through eighth place, with one at eleventh. The fourth Soviet player, Ramses, is a younger new player in his first season of playing Flames of War. Give him some time to learn both the game and his army, and he’ll climb the ranks.
By Benny Christiansen
When you get your hands on not one, but two new books; and you have a chance to get a game squeezed in during the weekend, you have to make a priority list. What is the first thing you want to look at and test!?
For me, and my friends, it was the infantry. I am a big fan of infantry, and I love the way it can move and no longer just lie down and take punishment. They are, to me, a real asset now.
The German DAK book had left the Germans with a somewhat less than optimal infantry. I don’t play the Germans, but if the lists are less than optimal, fewer people will play them in tournaments, nor even in pick up games. So the new German book, Iron Cross, has been expected with great anticipation by players who field German Infantry. I find that the book has provided these players with a good source for good infantry choices.
by Tom Burgess
Our local Flames of War gaming group got in a second City Fight game. Last time we fought out “The Square” mission from So this time we turned out attention to Iron Cross with “The Boulevard” mission. “Battle Buddy” Ed would be playing his Soviets while Charles “6by9” would be rolling out the Germans. The point level was 55 points.
We played the game at Hard Knox Games when we could make great use of the in-store terrain collection. We used a 28mm city game mat as the base, which we thought looked much better than the plain black base we used last time. We the two halves of Miniature Building Authority (MBA) “Factory Building” to make the two main objective buildings. To further subdivide these two buildings into four “rooms” we simply added some Battlefront Desert Walls. We added some other MBA building halves to add to the boards generic “rubble” look. We also added some building around the perimeter edge of the board which were “off table” but helped with the visual back-drops.
By NDNG_Dane and Mitch Reed
Today, our resident Historian Dane takes a look at Street Fighting on the Eastern Front of WWII, and Mitch ties the real-life tactics into the new Flames of War (FOW) Eastern Front books.
During the summer of 1942, the German 4th Panzer Army and the 6th Army were given the task of capturing Stalingrad. These veteran soldiers were to learn a whole new level of urban fighting. The initial German offensive and invasion of Stalingrad started with 270,000 German military personnel, 500 tanks, 3,000 artillery pieces and 1,600 aircraft. The Soviet defenders included 187,000 military personnel, 400 tanks, 2,200 artillery pieces and 300 aircraft.
After a look over the new Version 4 book Soviet book, Enemy at the Gates, I could not imagine anything better for them, good infantry, good tanks and good special rules. They seemed to have it all.
Over all I was pleased with the release of Russians into V4 MW. How could it get any better Then I opened up the Command Cards and I saw this:
by Tom Burgess
Enemy at the Gates at last answers the question that we’ve had for over a year “how will big Soviet infantry units be treated under Version 4 ?” I like the answer and am eagerly looking forward to getting my “Strelk On” with this new book.
Why am I so excited? Diversity! Even before we get to Command Card options, the “Enemy at the Gates” brings the interesting Version 3 Flames of War Late War Soviet Infantry options into Version 4 Mid War.
There are two glorious Soviet Infantry Formations that allow the faithful Soviet gamer to employ no less than six Soviet Infantry Companies types: Rifle Company, Submachinegun Company, Penal Company, Hero Rifle Company, Hero Submachinegun Company, and Storm Groups.
