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!

AAR: 28mm ACW Battle of Kernstown

Hi folks,

I had hoped to post this earlier in the week, following the club game last Sunday. However, I was distracted by other things and no progress was made beyond a couple of pics being posted on Facebook.

This game was put on in the hall we hire in Billingham, and this was our 3rd time at the location, which seems to be going well. On this occasion, we managed to get all our folding tables up, meaning the table size was 17.5' by 6'. I believe Dave may have plans to add another table to take it up to 20', but time will tell!

The scenario was planned by Martin and using his 28mm figures. Unfortunately as a result of my bottom being wider than I sometimes remember, I knocked a box of Martin's figures on the floor during setup. I did dash off home to get superglue and no major damage was caused, which was lucky.

Gamers comprised of myself and Dave as the Union, Ian and John as the Confederates and Martin as umpire - we were playing using rules that Martin and Matt Crump have concocted, which are a bit of a mix of bolt action and black powder. Simple, but pretty effective. Martin has outlined the scenario and such here.

On with the photos then. Union objectives were the hill we were deployed on, the church and the bridge defended by the initial Confederate brigade. We decided early on to just keep putting our brigades (of which we had three, with two independent Cavalry units) onto the hill in order to ensure we held it. The aim was to just bulldoze over the table, split the rebel army in half and grab the church.

Martin here being both very small, and very far away. Table coverings were care of Dave, while the scenery was mustered from several people - large amounts of non desert 28mm stuff being in short supply!

Rebs closest to the camera defending the bridge, Union on the hill in the distance.

The first of the forces arrive. Brigades were activated by using the Bolt Action 'Dice from a bag' method. As brigades were activated we could choose to bring them on. All union troops came on via the hill. Ian had control of the Reb army, while Johns Brigade held the wall (and fixed the masonry, for the whole game). 

The Union position is re-enforced with another Brigade, this one with artillery. 

Union skirmishers and some infantry take to the woods, while Rebels push up. Meanwhile Johns Brigade conduct a litter picking exercise. 

The Rebels advance in column. Ian struggled a bit with deploying his units, mainly as he is a bit unfamiliar with the rules, period and using brigades in column (me and Dave have some GdB and Grand Manor experience, so knew about spacing and the like). 

Rebs move to secure the church. Seeing the infantry in column here, we threw one of our Cavalry regiments down the road to the right here - mainly just to throw off the deployment of this Brigade a bit. 

Union forces advance on the Church and tho opposite table edge. Ian's units did cause some casualties but he was really unlucky with his artillery dice.  

The third union Brigade arrives. 

Our gamble with our Cavalry forces Ian to use his Cavalry Brigade to counter. We brought on our second regiment in support. Ian's infantry shown here have also formed line facing our Cavalry in the hamlet. 

The Union keep on the pressure. The Flags look impressive!

Slightly outgunned on this flank, but Rebel units are still in column!

Our third Brigade moves up to put pressure on this flank. 

Johns Brigade finally move, having completed their beautification of the area around the bridge. 

The Union wave rolls forward

Our units were blocking line of fire, but we were leapfrogging them forward. Martin's rules allowed lines to pass on a successful command check. 

We used Dave's lego counters to mark casualties and skulls to mark pins. Pins reduced the effectiveness of fire and made it harder to pass command checks. Units received pins from coming under fire. Units lost bases once they accumulated 4 casualties. 

Union traffic jam!

The Rebs start to lose the battle around the church - too many Union rifles in this area for them to stand up to the fire. 

But Ian does start to shake out into line, and hitting my units back. Some of our first brigade units are losing effectiveness and one does break. 

Casualties are, however, acceptable. More troops move forward to fill the gaps. 

Johns brigade is still moving forward... slowly. He gets two units in rifle range, one of which takes a pounding and runs. His Brigade commander then decides the saving his Brigade is the best option, and starts to break off. Ian by this time was starting to be overrun. 

Little now stands in front of the main Union advance. With a couple of his Brigades broken and the Union in charge of the hill and the church, the game ends. A good laugh was had by all! 

We finished the day about 3.30pm, having started playing around 10ish. The rules worked well and well had various tweaks and suggestions as we went along and encountered situations. Hopefully, we'll get some more games of this in the future, and I would be interested to try the rules using our 10mm collections as well.

A brave defence by the Rebels - but one of their brigades was out of the battle for much of the game, while the other three had a steamroller come towards them. Ian made some good calls, and seemed to be getting the hang of moving the blocks of troops after a few turns. But I know from playing GdB that it can take a while to get your head around deployment space from column to line, and not masking your guns, etc.

Next game we have booked at this venue is on the 2nd of June, where we are playing a 15mm WW2 game using Dave's collection. Utah beach at one end of the 17' and para landing zones/Brecourt Manor at the other, with a couple of the causeways in between. Dave has been working like a trojan getting beach defences, terrain and US infantry and Para's painted. It should be a great game!

Next plan...

Hi folks,

So not much in the way of painting done recently. I've been prepping models for my next couple of projects, going with both 'old' and 'new' ideas.

For the 'old' idea, I've built and prepped 9 Battlefront Humber VI Armoured Cars and 6 Humber Light Recon Cars. This has included sorting hatches, drilling out holes for radio aerials, adding stowage, etc. The only thing still to do before painting is drilling out and magnetising the turrets.

These models will make up the three combat platoons of my 2nd Derbyshire Yeomanry squadron. This unit was the recon regiment of the 51st Highland Division. 'Famously', they were equipped with Daimler I Armoured Cars - but as it turns out, this happened from September 1944. So for the Operation Totalize period (August 44) they still had the Humbers. I sold the painted and unpainted Daimlers I had on to Martin, where they will become (I believe) Belgians A/C's which fought with the Paras.

For this force, I will also have some 6 pdr A/T guns, Mortars and Halftrack mounted MG Pioneer teams to add, but I am going to focus on the A/C's for now.

The other 'old' thing I'm working on are three more Sherman 'Crab' Flail Tanks. These will be added to the two other 22nd Dragoons Crabs I painted back in 2014, bringing the full troop up to the historic five Crabs. I like to see these on the table in the bigger games we play, so I wanted to expand the numbers a little to provide more options. As I did with the original two models, I added a 'green stuff' attempt at a canvas covered gun mantlet, as well as thinner costume jewellery chain for the flail drum (the stuff that comes with the model is just too thick. The thinner chain I used is still out of scale, but looks a lot better I think. My top tip if you plan on doing this is buy double the amount of costume jewellery you think you will need, as it never goes as far as you hope!).

The 'new' project is the DD tanks, both swimming and deployed. Two of the swimming DD's came painted, but I will be repainting to match the three I painted previously. The deployed DD's will be from one of the Canadian regiments that landed on Juno beach.

I'm not setting any sort of time scale expectation for these models. Hopefully once they get a base spray coat, the DD's should be fairly quick to do, though I am a bit stumped for basing on the deployed DD's. I want to keep to the same style as the rest of my army, but at the same time accept these things will be on a beach at some point.

The Armoured Cars I will try to do in batches of five, and I'll probably do the three Crabs at once. Although when it comes to highlights and such, the previously finished models will also get some work to try and bring them to the same standard.

So that's it for me. Tomorrow see's a 28mm ACW game played on a 6' by 17' table at the club in Billingham - our first time with this size of a layout, and playing with Martins growing 28mm ACW collection. Pictures should follow!