The War Altar: Flames of War?

Ah, Flames of War. There's been a sudden surge of interest in the WWII war game during 2012, and with the hope of finding something to mix up my war gaming routine I've picked up a few bits and pieces and played some games. Here's a few thoughts for the beginner by the beginner. A lot of this will be from a 40k perspective, so should be familiar enough to most people.

While it used to be an expensive game to play a few years ago, smart people like the Plastic Soldier Company spotted this and started to produce excellent plastic kits for the most popular (and a few really bizarre) core choices in the lists. A typical platoon or unit will cost €24 if available, most contain five vehicles or a company of infantry. Depending on the choice it could be a considerable chunk of a list.

This is quite different to 40K. Where you were judged on individual figures, here it's all about the cohesive look of the force. Like most military engagements of the time the individual mattered much less then the overall force. Washes are your friend even more at the 15mm scale, a simple green uniform, back boots, face, hands and metal gun washed liberally with a brown ink produces some excellent results. This isn't to say you can't do the level of detail seen at the 28mm scale, there are some amazingly painted models around locally.

So you've picked up your starter, swapped one side with another person, and it's off to write up some cheese flavoured bentness. But hang on where do you get a list from. Well this is one of the few hurdles in Flames of War. There are many, many books with lists available. Each focuses on a specific part of the war, Normandy, Battle of the Bulge, Eastern Front clashes, and contains army lists based on the historical forces that took part. The most famous example I can think of is Easy Company from Band of Brothers which were released in Nuts, focusing on Bastone.

These lists have a slightly strange layout referring you to pages further back in the book, very different from the self contained codex page of a GW book. Some lists might look very similar, different Panzercompanies for instance, but small differences in organisation based on available resources or specific training make the key to spotting the really good stuff a little more difficult.

There is a website. A very good website that has a program similar to army builder but uses the force org charts as templates and lays everything out very clearly, and the output has all the stats in a very readable manner. This website is called Easyarmy. For a donation of one to two dollars per book you get access to a build any list from it with the website along with all the free books and PDFs released. Extremely worthwhile even for one book to get going. The basic forces one if free too!

The other thing with Flames of War is the names. Everything has it's army designated title, which is fine for the English speaking countries but gets very complicated when looking at German or Russian lists. There's a slight learning curve with it due to the slightly more technical nature of the naming than 40K but it starts to make sense after seeing it in action.

After battling through the army lists trying to work out why one should choose a Panzercompanie from Grey Wolf source book over the Basic Forces book, we arrive at the table. And what a table it is. Forget about your GW building and hills, Flames of War has some of the most amazing looking tables out there. Russian villages, French countryside, bocage, railways, cratered roads, vineyards, churches, little houses with chimney pots and outhouses, the list goes on and looks better then the last. Reasonably densely terrained, the game plays very well with tables set up with historical semi-accuracy.

No, not that game. So you've got your tiny, tiny men set up in foxholes, tanks ready to roll over the French countryside with your artillery zeroed in, keeping the enemy pinned in place, what next?

Well it's very similar to most turn based games. There's a movement phase, with difficult terrain of various types, vehicles potentially getting stuck. All quite standard. The shooting phase is where things start to get interesting.

In Flames of War the roll to hit an enemy is based on their skill not yours. This is to represent the ability of veteran soldiers to dig in better, use cover to the fullest extent compared to a green rookie, poking his head up and silhouetting himself. It's a strange one to get used to alright.

Cover works slightly differently with various effects resulting in penalties to hit not affecting your save. Saves are very similar to cover saves in 40K, you have a set one you either get or don't, unless you're a tank. They have a slightly different penetration mechanism not hugely different from 40K.

Assault is brutal. No being held in combat here, you either break the enemy or they break you. And being forced to fall back is no joke. Luckily to balance this there's defensive fire at the unit making the assault, which with enough hits can be stopped dead. Leaving them in trouble indeed.

It's a game that requires a little bit of patience, charging down the centre will most sure get you your blaze but very little glory. There's plenty of tricks and sneaky things, heavy armoured tough units, artillery batteries, infantry blobs, something for almost any play style.

Unfortunately there is one huge balance issue. The German Tiger 1e. This mechanical monstrosity is the terror of tank and soldier alike, coated in nigh impenetrable armour and wielding a weapon more suited to a Warlord Titan, these behemoths continue to ruin games driving straight over all forces in their path. A small black mark on an otherwise fun, informative and great looking war game.