Ver 4

By Benny Christiansen

Following up on my Tactical Suggestion article about the Red Banner Command Card with Leonid in it, I have had a game with a friend, where we tested a list using that card.

I have already had another game with the list, but in that game, he never got to be a part of the game, and I found it hard to make any real analysis based on that game.

Be aware that the game is a Fog Of War game, as I am going to a tournament with all Fog Of War matches, and this was a test of a list for that event as well. We played Dust Up.

By Ian Birdwell

Editor: This week we take a look at one of the first User-Generated Content pieces produced for No Dice No Glory. Author Ian Birdwell on his Flames of War for the Hungarians in WWII:

Hungary and the Eastern Front

By the end of 1942 Hungary was dealt a series of sobering blows by the Red Army, and had lost the entirety of the Hungarian 2^nd Army by March of 1943.

In short, the Hungarian Army was in a bad way following the conclusion of the Battle of Stalingrad. With their history of continual losing ground, along with their dramatically outdated equipment the moment it enters service, what’s not to love about the Hungarian army?

Especially with mid-war, when it all begins to circle the drain. 

By Ed Sales

If it’s one thing I love about painting and making these models, it’s that I have a range of creativity at my disposal. You can really add a lot of character to your tanks. I like to make each of my tanks different from the others, even if they are the same model.

When Desperate Measures came out, this added a whole new dimension of how I looked at modeling tanks. When I modeled my tanks, prior to that release, I might have the stowage a little different on each tank.

Now I can take a StuG Platoon, and paint each tank with a different camo scheme and say that the platoon was thrown together last minute. Maybe one of the Stugs left the factory in primer red because they were running low on dunkelgelb. I could do up a Tiger, and paint the running gear a different color, saying a T34 hit it to track it. You could really go all out and really have fun with it.

by Tom Burgess

It always amazed me how many comments I have heard over the last year or so about the “collapse” of the US tournament scene. For sure, Flames of War (FOW) tournament play has declined with Version 4, along with other factors. And though I’m sure FOW has completely dried up in some areas, overall I never felt that the situation was particularly as dire as many have portrayed.

So I did some research to get some actual numbers beyond my own or other’s personal perspectives. Fortunately, US tournament data for the last several years can be easily pulled off of the website, to include its predecessor’s Ranking HQ data. I will share here the data for what its worth. I’ll offer my opinions with it, but I encourage all to make up there own minds on what it all means for the current state and future of the game and our community.

By NDNG Dane

 The Huntsville Historical Gamers gathered on December 8^th (the day after the day that will live in infamy) to recreate the German attack on Stalingrad as part of Operation Fall Blau (Case Blue) and the Soviet Heroic Defense.  The Mega game was the Culminating engagement of our Mid-War Eastern Front escalation league using the Flames of War V4 system.

Our three board Mega Game centered combat action on: Board #1: The Univermag Department Store and Barmaley Fountain, Board #2: The Red October – Tractor Works, Board #3: The Grain Elevator and Pavlov’s House.  Additionally, we added a few campaign specific rules such as sewer movement.  Infantry teams were allowed to use sewer movement, based on a skill roll, to enter and navigate throughthe Stalingrad sewer network.

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.

By James Copeland

When I first started playing Flames of War (FOW) many years ago I fell in love with the Late War period. It was my favorite because it was the culmination of the advance of technology of the nations involved in the conflict. By 1944 the major armies of 1939-1942 either improved their weapons, tactics, and doctrine drastically from the start of the war or ceased to exist as a credible force.

By Benny Christiansen

I am one of those guys… you know them… one of those guys who is always positive and smiling and happy. My wife often reminds me that she considers it a disease and I should have some sort of medication to become less positive. But so far, I have dodged the Danish Health System in regards to this matter.

That is why I will now provide you with an optimistic view of British Infantry. YES – I know… British lists seem to be very rarely at the top of the list when it comes to tournaments, though I’m sure it does happen occasionally.

By Benny Christiansen

As we all know by now, all new books will be accompanied by command cards. These cards add to the diversity of the books and can present you with an easy way to spend a lot of points, instead of spending them on troops.

To the best of my knowledge, it seems like there is in the USA a trend of not spending many points on command cards, while in Denmark (at least where I play) we spend up to 10% of the total amount of points on cards. So there is no doubt, that the cards can produce a significant change in the list you field.

For the new Red Banner book, there are also new command cards. A lot of them are exact replicas of the one from Enemy At The Gates, but some of them are very new. I have chosen only to focus on a few of them. The ones I mention here are the ones I find to be the most spectacular, though more may come in another article in a not so distant future, where I have had the chance to test them more.

By  Tom “Chairborne” Mullane

The next German Mid-war book has arrived here at No Dice No Glory, and we would like to spoil it for you. When you combine this book with Iron Cross, I think you have a really bulked out set of options for the midwar Germans.

If you have been quietly petting your panthers or peeking in on the shoebox holding your Ferdinand, your wait is over.  Battlefront has effectively added the LW German equipment in here, but with midwar points.  This book should dramatically change what the German player takes in a list, and will add a lot of color to the Germans in general.