My Future with Flames of War

Just over 7 years ago I played my first game of Flames of War after literally years of wanting to try it.  This was towards the end of 2nd edition.  I had tried to get the game going back in the 1st edition days, and I even bought most of an army, but no one locally was very interested so it never got off the ground.  After that first proper game I was hooked and Flames of War soon became my main game pushing out others such as Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40,000.  Most of my time with Flames of War has been with the 3rd edition rules and for the most part I thought the rules were fine.  There were a few things I would have changed but I felt, and still feel, the core of the system works great.

Along comes Team Yankee and things start to get weird.  I was not really interested in this game, and I still am not very interested, but a few of my friend are and jumped right in.  They all seemed to really enjoy the game and most seems to like the card based unit creation system.  My friend Tom, after getting into TY, was convinced that this would be the model for Flames of War v4.  I wasn't convinced this would be the case and I wasn't even convinced that there would be a v4 any time soon.  Well, I was wrong on both counts and, as we all know, version 4 was released a couple of months ago and it is 99% Team Yankee (I am actually referring to Mid-war version 4). 

Battlefront really made a mess of the new release process and through some bad communication to the customer base really got off on the wrong foot with version 4.  As an example, it was not really clear until just prior to release that this actually entails the release of what is effectively two games that share much of the same rules but have completely different army construction philosophies.  These two games are Mid-war version 4 and EW/LW version 4 (which our group calls v3.5).  A big part of the confusion I have about the release of the new version, for me, centered around what exactly they were giving away for free to existing players.  Battlefront has been really good about version changes in the past and once again they had plans to give free rules to all existing players.  The problem was the rules the game away for free (EW/LW) turned out to NOT be the rules they spent so much time talking about on the web and in publications (MW).

Another area of trouble and the one that I find the most concerning is in the area of army construction with MW v4.  The TY card based model seems to work great for an entirely new game set in a new era where most all of the players will be starting with no existing collections nor preconceived ideas on how things should work.  This worked great for TY and Battlefront was dazzled by its success.  Unfortunately this model is a complete disaster for a new version of a well established game like Flames of War.  When combined with another goal for v4 stated by Battlefront, the reduction of product codes, and you have the making of a dull, flavorless mess of a game setting.  It is now clear that BF intends to severely reduce the number of models they produce and have no intention of including units in the game for models they do not produce.  From a purely business perspective there is a certain amount of sense to this approach but from a customer relation perspective this is a disaster.  You see, there huge well established customer base already has many of these soon to be eliminated models in their collections and they would really like to use them in the game but Battlefront cannot see any value to keeping these people happy as they think these people are already unlikely to spend money anyway so no great loss.

This is EXACTLY the same attitude that Games Workshop had towards their long time customers for many years.  GW steadily convinced themselves that young kids and new hobbyists were where the real money was to be found and that long time gamers already had lots of models and therefore had no desire to by more.  This contempt for their loyal customers eventually brought the company to the verge of irrelevancy.  Huge numbers of middle aged gamers with lots of money to spend were so put off by this attitude they moved on to games that treated them better, like Flames of War.  But now the GW rot seems to have set in with Battlefront and they seem determined to destroy their game in the name of increasing sales.  We are seeing the tip of an epic iceberg that it set to rip the bottom out of Battlefront.

This brings me, finally, to the point of this article - my future with Flames of War.  Needless to say I am not very happy with the new direction of the game as it relates to the army construction in particular.  I really like the EW/LW version of the rules.  These allow you to continue to use the extensive variety of the version 3 army list books and while some of the points are now off due to changes in effectiveness of certain units in the game it all still works fine.  I really believe this should have just been the true version 4 rules.  I have yet to play any of the MW armies and I actually have no plans to buy the books.  The price of the books has actually gone back up with MW v4 as now you have to spend $40 to get a tiny variety of armies for only British and Germans.  The version 3 North Africa book was $30 for dozens of armies for four different countries.  Oh, and now you can buy card decks that give you additional army options that should have just been included in the pathetic army books for even more $$.  It is a disgusting money grab and I just can't bring myself to buy into it. 

I am not going to be playing the full blown v4.  In fact, I expect this game to fail.  I think that Battlefront is about to have their version of Warhammer 40K 6th edition.  I hope they can see the writing on the wall soon enough to turn things around before any lasting damage is done to their brand and their business.  I will continue to play the game using the EW/LW rules along with the old army books.  I have way too many armies collected for this game to just stop playing.  I will also make new model purchases to expand my collections.  I really want to get the new desert British tanks as well as Panzer Grenadiers and 88's.  The new models they are producing for v4 are great!

All of this drama (of which I have barely even talked about) is really souring the game for me right now.  It has been slowly falling in table time and the new version was supposed to spark renewed interested but it seems to have just caused a major split in the player base and created a lot of ill will. Ironically, all this is happen right at a time where GW seems to have righted the ship and is now moving in a very positive direction.  I am already starting to get pulled back into the GW hobby and my Battlefront lifeline seems to no longer be tied to anything.

Don't worry, I still have models to paint and stuff to post...

Another StuG IIIG Platoon for Flames of War

Continuing my exploration of the new Flames of War rules I have been playing some games with my late war German StuG IIIG Battery.  I needed an additional platoon so that I could take all StuG IIIG if I needed rather than always running a mix of the IIIG and the StuG42.  Fortunately I have three models in my dead lead pile so it was a simple task to pull them out and get them ready for action.  Just another excuse to build stuff I have rather than dreaming of models if have no $$ for.

US M2A1 105mm Battery

Once again we have a long ignored project that I have finally completed.  This four gun battery of US 105mm howitzers has been sitting half painted in my army for many years.  I bought these several years ago and told myself that with some touch ups and finishing the basing these would be ready for the table and that was true.  The problem is I had no actual need for a towed battery as I am playing a Tank company and have self-propelled guns.  Oh well, one day I will need these.  They were just looking so sad in their incomplete state that I finally decided to finish these.  It helps that with my limited hobby budget at the moment painting stuff I already own is really the only option I have. 

US M4A1 Sherman in Camo

After many years of delays on procrastination I have finally completed the third platoon for my Mid-war US armored company for Flames of War.  I bought these several years ago from a local gamer.  They were already assembled and had a basic paint job but I really wanted to repaint them in a camo scheme.  The problem was I really didn't need these tanks.  I already have 10 painted M4A1 tanks for this army and I don't think I have ever used all of them in a game so these just sat in the army box unloved and unfinished.  Every time I pulled the army out for a game I would tell myself that needed to finished these up but I never did - until now.

These tanks are painted to represent tanks from the 1st Armored division in Tunisia in 1943.  They will also easily work in Sicily or Italy all the way to the end of the war.  I really like how these turned out and I can see these might be the center piece of the army from now on.  With the new army construction with v4 I might actually need 15 Shermans.  Time will tell.  These are Plastic Soldier Company models and they are my favorite version of this tank in 15mm.

Shadow War Armageddon

The Easter Bunny brought me a new game over the weekend - Shadow War Armageddon.  I feel VERY lucky to have obtained a copy as this thing flew off the shelves.  As soon as I heard this game was to be released and was going to be heavily based on the Necromunda game, my all-time favorite games, I knew I would have to have it and play it.

With barely any reading of the rules Tim and I decided we had to get this on the table.  I created an Ork kill team and Tim took Chaos Space Marines proxying his old Chaos Cult Necromunda gang.  I dug out all my old Necromunda and 40K card terrain and we went to fighting.

This 'new' game is really about 90% Necromunda and probably 95% Necromunda Underhive.  It is so close, in fact, we actually picked up the rules very quickly and then ended up playing Necromunda as we missed most of the very subtitle changes.  Most of the changes are around the teams you can take and how the campaign system works.

The game was a blast and honestly it could not have been anything else.  They started with one of the best designed games of all time and really resisted making major changes.  In our first game I pulled out the win.  I have noticed much commentary about how allowing power armor and such is unbalancing to the system but In out game the Ork firepower, such as it is, was more than up to the task of taking out power armored troops so I think these fears are over stated.

I have a feeling this game is going to get lots of play this summer.  I am trying to get a group together for a campaign so we will get a much better idea on the biggest changes to the system.  I currently have all the Necromunda gangs, which seem to be pointed exactly the same as the new kill teams, as well as Orks, Space Marine Scouts and Catachans.  I pulled out some Chaos Space Marines to paint up and I will be expanding my collection with other factions.

Game's Workshop finally released a game that is guaranteed to suck me back into the GW hobby.

Warlord Plastic Tigers

My contribution for the Germans forces for our big Point 213 game is basically done with these two models.  My friend, Tim, completed his a few weeks back while I have been busy building and painting British tanks and terrain. 

The first of my two Tigers is tank number 211.  This tank was commanded by Obersturmfuhrer Jurgen Wessel.  Wessel was an infantry veteran but new to tank combat.  For game purposes this will be a regular Tiger per the Bolt Action rules.

The second tank is tank number 223 commanded by Oberscharfuhrer Jurgen Brandt.  This tank will be a veteran Tiger per the Bolt Action rules.

I am getting really excited for this game but there is still a ton of work to be done.

And just for fun here is a picture of three tigers in three different scales.

1/100, 1/56, 1/48

Germans for TANKS

I have been playing TANKS a lot this year and, of course, I must have painted models for the game.  In my early games I used some of my existing Flame of War tanks but I really want to have one box with models specifically for this game.  For the Germans I have purchased three expansion models so far - Panther, Tiger and Puma.  This is in addition to the Panther/Jagdpanther model included in the starter set.

Jagdpanther

Panther

Puma

Tiger I

The Panther is the only model I have purchased so far that had cards included in the starter set.  I wanted to know if you get new cards with and expansion that was covered in the starter set.  In this case there was only one new card.  If you already have Panthers/Jagdpanthers you might not want to buy this expansion.  The Tiger and Puma sets seemed to have all new cards and the vehicle cards are also new as they were not in the starter set.  I will likely pick up one of each expansion just to make sure I don't miss any cards.