Flames of War D-Day and Late War releases

Hi folks,

I do occasionally delve into some hobby stuff for Flames of War on my blog, and came across a few things which I thought was worth talking about. Oddly enough, I feel that my position within the hobby as a gamer is a bit odd.

I don't play competitively (I've not played a one on one competitive game of Flames of War for years). I use the rules and source material to play scenario games that I think get over the 'feel' of the period and theatre I want to play, without being clunky. But I also freely alter and interpret the rules and forces to suit myself or my group. And the guys I play with are happy to just wave a hand, chat about what we think something should look like or work like in the rules and crack on with 'unofficial' units or kit.

But I still love new printed 'official' material...! I still love to keep track of what Battlefront are doing and releasing, what new stuff is in the pipe line, etc. It's a bit of an odd place to sit, really.

Anyway, with that in mind, I thought I would do a post about some of the stuff that's coming down the pipe in the next few months. I've seen some scattered information around about this, but wanted to condense it all here - of course, this week the guys over at Breakthrough Assault have also started posting stuff, but I had initially through about this post following a tweet I saw last week while entering the BF twitter competition (which, incidentally, I won!).

In June (6 June 2019), Battlefront will be releasing their 'version 4' Late War stuff. This initially consists of a 'Fortress Europe' book which has 'basic' Late War lists for the Germans, Americans, British and Russians. Breakthrough Assault have some excellent previews of this here. These forces are described as covering the period from 'Mid War' in 1943 till May 1944, and are designed to allow crossover of some of the 'Mid War' stuff players have into the 'Late War' period. So really this covers some of the fighting in Italy and Sicily.

Also in June, Battlefront are releasing this (also covered by Breakthrough Assault here):

 

So this box, which replaces the old 'Open Fire' box set is supported to retail at $50, and contains lots of plastic:

3 x Panzer IV's
2 x Pak40's
1 x Grenadier Company (2 x Grenadier Platoons with Company HQ)

5 x M4A1 '75mm' Shermans
3 x M4A1 '76mm' Shermans
1 x US Para Infantry Platoon

As well as a full colour v4 rulebook, V1 Flying Bomb terrain piece, unit cards, and other bits such as dice. That is a lot of stuff for (probably) around £50. A German Grenadier Company with support and a US Tank Company with support.

Edit: Battlefront has this box on preorder for £35

From my perspective, even if you decide not to play v4, thats a lot of high quality 15mm models for your money. The Shermans are not the difficult to assemble ones found in the early days of the original 'Open Fire' box, while the infantry looks like the decent hard plastic stuff found in the earlier box - be careful when clipping the Pak40 parts out the frame! If it is the same model, bits would snap if torque was applied when cutting. I think this box will be popular even if it's just something people buy because of the value of the plastic.

At the same time will be released:



The Fury box seems to be a 'simple' starter, which includes 3 US and 2 German tanks, the rules and a few other bits. Card packs for Fortress Europe provide unit cards, which give unit stats and special rules. These are definitely NOT a requirement to play, but certainly do seem to help as they save you flicking through a book for stats, and often explain unit rules on them.

Colours of War also points to Battlefront going back into partnership with Vallejo (hurrah)!

In June there will also be some massive army deals to go with Fortress Europe:



These appear to be priced at $100 on the tweet I saw, so I would expect a similar price in Pounds post VAT. They all appear to have a large amount of plastic in them, and give a great starter for an army. I'm pretty sure the German or US one, when combined with the 'Hit the Beach' box troops, will give you around 100pts worth of troops (around 1500 points worth in 'older' editions?). These boxes also include v4 rulebooks!

Edit: Preorder priced at £70

With the release schedule for more specific 'Normandy' era 'Late War' books being:

US - July 2019
German - September 2019
British - Feb 2020
Waffen SS - April 2020 (not included in the German book due to delays in getting plastic SS infantry finished, apparently)

These books fill in more of the specifics from the 'Fortress Europe' book that's out in June, while the June book allows those with armies coming further down the line to still play. I would expect specific unit releases for the different units covered in the book but not included in 'Fortress Europe'.

Further on still will be:

Soviets, German East front and Axis Allies books in 2020
American, German and British 'Bulge' books in 2021
Soviet, German and 'other' books in 2022

As with the other 'Mid War' books, a benefit (and a damaging problem to some) will be that you can mix and match the same nation lists more in Late War, effectively allowing you to build some either very historical or very unhistorical armies. So you can build a D-Day US tank list, but pull support units from the Bulge book to represent a particular unit at a particular time, or visa versa, for example. Or I can build my Totalize forces of mixed tank and infantry as they would have been during the night assault on 7/8/44.

However, this also does lead to players being able to field Panthers and Ferdinands in the desert (to use a mid war example), it's a bit of a dual edged sword (and I view that as being an issue for players and their own playing groups to resolve).

So all in all, a large amount of good value plastic 15mm stuff will be hitting the shelves soon, which will hopefully bring more interest to the game and the hobby. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing what the new stuff includes and how we can use it to make our own club games bigger and better. Even if it's just to borrow ideas we can twist into other things!