Beginners: Late war lists ready to go!

Right. Continuing the Flames of War for beginners theme I wanted to write a couple of 'starter' lists for the Late War period. In this post you'll find some introduction to the lists, the lists themselves and some discussion about the selections. I've also made your shopping experience pretty easy if you want to actually go ahead and buy that exact list. Cut, paste, email your LGS and ask for a quote!

Ok, for starters, it's tough to pick a book for the lists. Each Flames of War source book is specific to a time period in the war. Blitzkrieg deals with Early war. Eastern Front and North Africa deal with Mid War and pretty much everything else is focused on Late War. I've proposed the use of Fortress Europe as it's a good starter source book before but for specific reasons I'll explain further on, I think Turning Tide and Earth and Steel are wise investments for the new Late War players.

Review: The Plastic Soldier Company 15mm Panzer IV

Alrighty then! Griddon here and I'm pretty excited to give you a review of 'The Plastic Soldier Company' 15mm Panzer IVs.

I hadn't heard much about this company until a few weeks ago when I listened the guys on the WWPD podcast talk about the T34s the company makes. They gave the kit a pretty positive review. (I can't remember the episode number but maybe one of the guys will chime in below and help us out!) When I went looking I found out that they also made PzIVs. My German project needs at least ten PzIVs so I figured I'd give them a go. Straight off the bat, they are a solid value proposition. Delivered to my door by the fantastic Irresistible Force here in Australia for $30 AUD per box.

Each box comes with five injection moulded plastic sprues with one Panzer IV per sprue. The Plastic Soldier Company have been very smart about how they went about making this kit and the box is capable of making four variants of this popular tank.. The PzIV Ausf F1, PzIV Ausf F2, PzIV Ausf G and the PzIV Ausf H. I'll be making the PzIV H for my late war force but that leaves me with five kits and I hope to use them for an upcoming mid war army.

The sprue

Making my Normandy Table: "Trois Ponts" Part 4

Hi Folks,

I've been fairly distracted from the table build this week, because I got a shiny army delivery! So, of course, getting stuck into the assembly was my first priority. I love the smell of resin in the morning... smells like victory!

I did get some terrain done though...

LAAR: 9.SS-Panzer vs 15th Scottish

Hi! Blackwolf here with an After Action Report from a battle Griddon and I played today down at our local gaming club, the Western Suburbs Wargames Association. I was using my SS-Panzergrenadiers from 9.SS-Panzerdivision while Griddon was using his British Rifle Company from the 15^th Scottish Division. Points limit was 1750.

THE LISTS

My list comes from Earth & Steel, using the 2.SS list, as the 9.SS PDF is yet to be updated.

9.SS Panzerdivision - Fearless Veteran

HQ – Upgrade both to SMG/Panzerfaust

SS-Panzergrenadier Platoon – 3 squads + Panzerfaust upgrade

SS-Panzergrenadier Platoon – 3 squads + Panzerfaust upgrade

SS-Panzergrenadier Platoon – 3 squads + Panzerfaust upgrade

SS-Mortar Platoon – 2 sections

SS-Anti-Tank Gun Platoon – 3 PaK40’s

SS-Rocket Launcher Battery – 3 Nebelwerfer NW41’s

SS-Assault Gun Platoon – 4 StuG’s

Field Fortifications – 2 HMG Nests

Griddons list was from Fortress Europe. I’ll have to ask him why he didn’t use the actual 15^th Scottish PDF list ;) (Griddon: Because the PDF doesn't allow M10Cs along with a few other points discrepancies for carriers)

15th Scottish Div - Confident Trained

HQ

Rifle Platoon – 3 Squads

Rifle Platoon – 3 Squads

Rifle Platoon – 3 Squads

Anti-Tank Platoon – 2 6 pdr’s

Machine-Gun Platoon – 2 sections + carriers

Tank Platoon – 3 Churchill VI’s + aplique armour

Tank Platoon – 3 Churchill VI’s + aplique armour (only on 2)

Anti-Tank Platoon (SP) – 4 M10C’s

Field Battery, Royal Artillery – 4 gun sections

Beginners: De-mystifying Flames of War

Alright then. As I mentioned in my post earlier this week on the subject of the Games Workshop scandal, the Bunker 3030 authors want to put together a series of post designed to help new players or people not familiar with Flames of War. For this post I want to talk about some of the key differences with Flames of War (FoW) compared to my previous love, Warhammer 40,000.

It's certain that Flames of War is different to Warhammer 40,000 in more than just the type of miniatures used and the scale. However, if you have the ability to comprehend the rules of 40k and assembly and paint the models Games Workshop sells, you are more than qualified to start Flames of War. I'll break if down for you.

News: Games Workshop makes Flames of War even more attractive!

After much rumour and speculation, Games Workshop (GW) this week announced new trading terms for their UK independant stores. You can read the full details over at Maelstrom and Wayland Games sites. The upshot of this is that to most Australian gamers the Games Workshop systems just got a lot more expensive from the end of May. I have no doubt that in time other avenues to achieve the same good price from UK indies will surface. (Erm... Ebay?) However, it's more GWs attitude to fixing the price discrepancy. Instead of conducting some price adjustment to make shopping in Australia more attractive, why not just prevent Australians shopping elsewhere? Not cool and I really don't think the move is going to benefit local gaming stores at all. Combined with GW's recent announcement of their Finecast range, which if you can believe it will cost more than the outgoing metal models, and the total picture for Australian GW product fans is financial pain.

LAAR: Germans vs Brits

Folks! Griddon here with a new acronym. Light After Action Report. I had Robin (Dicehex) and Luke over last night to give them a proper introduction game into Flames of War. Robin and Luke had both played before but just not with proper miniatures at a full 1750 point late war game. Mat was away for the weekend so was kind enough to leave us with a collection of his Germans. I wrote up a mixed German list to face my 6th Guards Tank Brigade with 15ths Scots list I recently finished. Robin commanded the Panzer list and Luke debuted my Churchills playing the Brits. It worked out reasonably well as Robin has a big order in transit for his first Flames of War army and he's picked 21st Panzer Div.

The light part of this AAR is that it doesn't do a turn by turn. It just described what happened in the deployment, early, mid and late portions of the game and shows some photos of the action. Simple.