V4

By Benny Christiansen

Soviet players, rejoice! Even if the prospects of another Soviet book is a long time into the future, there is plenty of “good stuff” in the Fortress Europe to keep you busy painting and gluing and playing till then.

In this article, I will try to describe a few of the things I have found most interesting and most promising about the content of the Soviet part of Fortress Europe. It will not be a page-by-page walkthrough, but more like a tactical suggestion article. My aim is to let you get a feeling of the things that I have found most likely to be in my first LW battles.

 4^th Battle of Kharkov – August 1943

Mega-Game

by NDNG_Dane

The Huntsville Historical Gamers gathered in April to recreate the Soviet offensive that aimed to recapture Kharkov and destroy the German 4th Panzer Army.   The 4^th Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles between 3 and 23 August 1943, following the Battle of Kursk. After their defeat at Kursk, the Wehrmacht was clearly on the defensive, with the Soviets launching a massive offensive. The 4th Panzer Army conducted a fighting withdrawal to fighting positions around the city of Kharkov.

The Kharkov Mega-Game was the culminating engagement of our spring Ghost Panzer – Red Banner, Eastern Front Campaign.

By Benny Christiansen

As FOW V4 was released, I still remember that surprise I felt when I found out just how mobile the game became. Mobile is a word that contains value based on your own point of view. In this case, I am thinking of the infantry and the amount of movement they made. In my V3 games infantry tend to stay stationary and in competitive situations, I would have a certain way I would deploy my infantry platoons to optimize my defensive position. After deployment, they would rarely – if ever – move.

Under V4 rules, my infantry will, in most of my games, be forced to move a lot. Under the V4 system, I see only benefits in moving them (in general). Standing still is an invitation for destruction. But such claims are easy to make and hard to prove. So I will try to make an example via a game I played recently.

By Benny Christiansen

Having played a few games with less than 50% win rate, I have decided to try and find a stronger list. One of the things that I have thought about earlier is the “Gun line”. Many of the lists in FOW MW are mobile and flexible. I find MW to be a game of mobility, but I have decided to test that requirement by making this Gun Line list.

by Tom Burgess

As Battlefront expands its Version 4 rules back to the battlefields of the Great War, Germany still remains the only representative of the Central Powers in the new lists. Though not as well equipped with tanks and armored cars as many of the Allies in the book, the German lists offer some interesting options for both previous and new German players.

The two lists options in Version 3’s Great War for the Germans has now been expanded to four list types in Version 4. These are the Infanteriekompanie, the Stosskompanie, the Jägerkompanie, and the Siegfriedstellung. The fist two of these will be familiar to previous German Great War players.  The Jägerkompanie is an elite “light” infantry unit while Siegfriedstellung is more of an economy of force unit used to hold defensive positions.

By Ed Sales

With 2019 now upon us, I thought I would write up an article on what my resolutions are. These will focus on my personal goals as well as some I plan to make to grow my local gaming community.

Run Demo Games at my Local Gaming Store

Back when we had a gaming store in Culpeper, Virginia, two of my buds and myself would run demo games of Flames of War using the old V3 Tank Ace rules. It was a simple way to introduce someone into the game with the basic set of rules, and who doesn’t love tank duels?

by Keith Gilmour

On October 3rd, I was super happy to get my second ever invite to . The invite started all sorts of list noodling and planning on what I was going to bring. The Masters tournaments all have some sort of twist to make them interesting. This year, it was an escalation theme where you had to bring three lists of 62, 88 and 104 points that need to be built on different formations and each would be played twice.

I have begun testing various MW Infantry lists and trying to use them as the aggressor/attacker. It is my belief that infantry lists could be played very aggressively and with good effect. To define “infantry list” it means that the majority of the points are put in infantry formations. It is not an “all out infantry list” with no gun teams or vehicles or tanks, nor is it only 1 infantry formation.

I will try to share my knowledge/experiences. Be aware, that it is NOT a “how to”- manual, but simply meant as an inspiration for the readers to develop further, if they are interested in playing infantry lists.

I will use 100 points as my list size. Effects may vary depending on the point size.

By Dennis Campbell AKA Matt Varnish

Hey guys, what’s going on? Well, after a solid MONTH of painting nothing but Crusaders, I was ready for the Flames of War tournament portion of the No Dice No Glory Iron Man competition, at Fall In 2018 in Lancaster PA  (Apparently the locals make it rhyme with ‘kissed her’ not ‘Pastor’)    Anyways, while I would normally post my list and how I did, this time all I will say is, sometimes a good list in the wrong hands doesn’t perform well!   James Copeland and Chris Johnson helped me tweak out a Cavalry Crusader List, but I guess I’m not aggressive enough to field them correctly.     ‘Blah Blah Blah, let’s see pictures”  Alrighty!

I think this was Bill White’s US force.  I dig the captured Dingo objective 🙂