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
The Late-War era of Flames of War V4 is rapidly drawing to a close with the upcoming release of Berlin: Soviet. This book picks up where the Bagration series left off and represents the Red Army in its campaigns in Europe in 1945 leading to the final destruction of Nazi Germany.
The pattern that V4 has followed has been to support each book with the release of new plastic kits. Berlin is no exception, with the main new plastic kit being the lend-lease M4A2 Sherman.
Battlefront is releasing a new compendium entitled Eastern Front for MidWar Flames of War players. Within this massive 361 page book are the previously released v4 books Enemy at the Gates, Red Banner, Iron Cross, Ghost Panzers, Death from Above, White Death, Hungarian Steel, and Brave Romania.
But wait, there’s more, like the North Africa book that was released this year, they’ve included new units and formations which no doubt you’ll want to consider when composing new armies to field.
It’s also filled with the usual unit histories, great artwork, and polish that makes Battlefront sourcebooks a joy to read.
By Troy Hill
What do we eat on the Russian Front during Operation Bagration?
Baggy Rations, of course.
At least, that’s what gamers snack on while playing a historical-themed event this past weekend. Anything to support the FLGS, right? Whatever snacks the store had disappeared as our local Bolt Action players munched their way through three rounds of operational madness.
By Tom Burgess,
If you know me…you know I have been very excited about what 3D printing and how it is revolutionizing the wargaming hobby. If not, you can check out an article I wrote about it . One of the things I said in that article that would revolutionize the miniature wargaming hobby would be independent miniature designers being able to offer products through venues like Patreon and Kickstarter. One such independent designer who has been at it for quite a while with a good bit of success is Henry Turner. Henry, based in the UK, has done very will with is 1:600 sailing ship range, his 6/15mm American Civil War and 6/15mm Napoleonic Wars, and now a 10mm/15mm/28mm Modern “1983” Warsaw Pact line.
By Richard Steer
Soviet artillery is quoted as being “the god of war”, so it is no surprise that there is a large array of artillery choices available in the book for Flames of War. Being so spoiled for choice leaves players with some difficult list-building decisions. Mortars or guns? One big battery or two smaller ones? Which of the 8pt units is the best? Is Soviet artillery even worth spending any points on in the first place?
To test this, I built a model that simulates each dice roll in the scenario being tested to find an outcome, then repeats that simulation thousands of times in order to find the likelihood of each particular outcome occurring. The targets are dug in Careful infantry teams, with five teams under the Artillery Template, or nine teams under a Salvo Template. The other assumptions are that the Spotting Team is the Formation Commander, and a +1 penalty is added for Ranging In on terrain.
It is important to remember that dice can do strange thing, and the numbers may not line up with your experience. There are always going to be patches of good or bad luck, or that one in a thousand chance which could occur in a game, but knowing the most likely outcome does help you have realistic expectations that can assist with your planning for the game.
By Tom Burgess
My good friend Ed and I have been playing the campaign for the last couple of months. With our sixth game of the campaign we matched up for the River Crossing mission from the Bagration: Soviet book. Ed had bought which would give us the special pieces we needed for this mission. We played at 105 points.
The River Crossing Mission is much like the No Retreat…with a wide river down the board center. To balance the attacker’s difficulty of having to force a river crossing, the defender does not have an ambush in this mission and instead of having immediate reserves, they are delayed.
By Tom Burgess
My good friend Ed and I have been playing the campaign for the last few months and we have been having a great time with it. When it came time for our sixth game, the campaign called for the River Crossing special mission that was covered in the Bagration: Soviet book.
Previously we had to use standard mission instead of a special mission because we did not have the still yet to be published Bagration: German book. So this was to be our first special mission played from the Bagration expansion for Flames of War. This would require some special terrain pieces and assault boats.
Fortunately Ed had bought We knew this terrain pack would have a river mat and card punch-out assault boats we needed, but I did not realize how much this pack actually had in it. Yes, this pack had the river mat and special pieces but it had so much more.
By Tom Burgess
Battlefront is continuing to expand its plastics range now adding Anti-Aircraft options to its Soviet Late War line. As these are now a formation unit in most motorized/mechanized Soviet Late War formations, they have become a bit of a “must have” that I did not have. So I decided to pick up a box to add to the T-34/85 Soviet Tank Battalion I planned to run in the 2020 US Flames of War Masters Tournament. I eagerly awaited for these to show up at my local game store, Hard Knox Games.
In my previous , I discussed how excited I was for this book to come out for and now I want to share with you some of the lists and new toys I want to run in the future. Along with these new lists, I also want to explore how my playing style may change with this new book and which of my older lists will need to be adjusted with the release of the new book.
