What have we got planned for Flames of War!

It is always great to share what we have been working on, as despite the need to keep things under wraps for a while, sharing the projects that have been exciting us these past six months allows us to give you things to look forward to.

Let’s start with the Desert and the two books we have created. Yes two books. Not being content to follow our original plan of having a healthy sized 180 page book to cover the Early War each years, we did that with Hellfire & Back and then realised we wanted, no needed, to do it again with Burning Empires.


As gamers we are prone to the same weaknesses as all of us. That once you start down a path stopping when you have done something 110% and complete is very hard. After producing H&B we had so much extra cool stuff we could not fit in. We decided to make another book. If we had stopped there you would have had another 120 pages of lists for EW Desert. We left no stone unturned but once you say “hey lets make another book” you might as well say “hey lets add in cool raiding forces as well. It'lll be cool and won't take long”. That is how Burning Empires was born, a second 180 page hardback book on the Mediterranean and Desert.

Now for those of you who want the detail here is the list of forces in the book:

Italian Briefing: Fucileri, Blackshirt, and Alpini forces.
Greek Briefings: Mechanised Battalion and Infantry Company.
German Briefings: SS, Gebirgsjäger, Fallschirmjäger and Luftlandesturm forces.
French Briefing: Infantry force playable as either pro-Axis Vichy or pro-Allied Free French.
British, Italian, French, German and American Raiding and Garrison Forces for Early and Mid War raiding battles.

Now given the two books we have now produced created a vast array of forces to choose from, it also meant we had a huge assortment of models to make, terrain to create, sprays, dice, badges, tokens and campaign sets. Yes when we say no stone left unturned we absolutely mean it.

Over the coming months and into 2012 you will be seeing models for every force. Here are the boxed highlights.







As well as the pre-painted terrain sets that have just gone out, you will see spotlights on our other FOW terrain as well as new spray colours and a set of MIG pigments that give you an added level of finish to your models. If you are a kit painter, pigments and MIG will be old hat to you, but for everybody else they are coloured powders that allow you to add effects to your models like mud, rust, soot and other battlefield weathering that is not possible with standard paints. MIG are the creators of the worlds best pigments and as with our paint range we wanted only the best so working with the world leader was the only way to go. James will have some videos up soon on this set as they are definitely for experienced painters, but once you see how easy it is to use them you will wonder how you managed to live without them for so long.

Now you might be thinking that this makes the Desert 110% complete but you would be wrong. After we sent BE to the printers we had one last idea that simply would not lie down, “Raiding Aces”. Now for those of you who have seen or played with “Infantry Aces” we did for Cassino you will see why we wanted to do this again and for those of you who missed out, shame on you and make sure you try this one out.

“Raiding Aces” follows the logic of the first “Aces” system and gives you a campaign setting for Desert Raiding to have some fun in the sand blowing stuff up. I won't go into too much detail and rob Mike Haught and his brother Andrew who wrote it out of a future article, but after Burning Empires is out you will be able to get your hands on this and earn yourself another medal.

So you would think looking at this plethora of product that you could get to Christmas satisfied you had your list in hand and more than enough to choose from, think again. Whilst the Wayne and Mike have been working on the Desert, Wayne was also working on two new compilations. Following our ongoing plan of compiling LW books together this Christmas it is time to pull the four eastern front books, Stalin’s Europe, Hammer and Sickle, River of Heroes and Stalin’s Onslaught as well as various web lists and content from Bagration into two tomes, Red Bear and Grey Wolf.

Now these books are a tad (32 pages) bigger than the D-Day pair coming in at 482 pages. As with D-Day we have taken the opportunity to correct a few things and add lots of lists that were left out the first time round. The lists covered in these books are as follows.
Grey Wolf

German Briefings
Kampfgruppe (Battle Group Bäke)
Grenadierkompanie (Infantry Company)
Fallschirmjägerkompanie (Parachute Infantry Company)
SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadierkompanie (SS Volunteer Motorised Infantry Company)
Sturmkompanie (Storm Company)
StuG Batterie (Assault Gun Battery)
Pionierkompanie (Engineer Company)
Schwere Panzerkompanie (Heavy Tank Company)
Panzerkompanie (Tank Company)
Gepanzerte Panzergrenadierkompanie (Armoured Infantry Company)
Panzergrenadierkompanie (Motorised Infantry Company)
Gepanzerte Panzerpionierkompanie (Armoured Engineer Company)
Panzerpionierkompanie (Motorised Engineer Company)
Panzerspähkompanie (Armoured Car Company)
Sperrverband (Blocking Force)
Ersatz Pionierkompanie (Reserve Engineer Company)
SS-Panzerkampfgruppe (SS Armoured Battle Group)
SS-Panzergrenadierkampfgruppe (SS Mechanised Infantry Battle Group)
Sicherungskompanie (Security Company)
Feldherrnhalle Panzerkampfgruppe (Feldherrnhalle Armoured Battle Group)
Feldherrnhalle Panzergrenadierkompanie (Feldherrnhalle Motorised Infantry Company)
Panzerjägerkompanie (Tank-hunter Company)
SS-Kavallerieschwadron (SS Cavalry Squadron)

Hungarian Briefings
Harckocsizó Század (Tank Company)
Gépkocsizó Lövész Század (Motorised Infantry Company)
Rohamágyús Üteg (Assault Gun Battery)
Puskás Század (Rifle Company)
Önkéntes Puskás Század (Volunteer Rifle Company)

Finnish Briefings
Panssarikomppania (Tank Company)
Sturmikomppania (Assault Gun Company)
Jääkärikomppania (Light Infantry Company)
Jalkaväkikomppania (Infantry Company)
Pioneerikomppania (Engineer Company)
Red Bear

Soviet Briefings
Tankovy Batalon (Tank Battalion)
Strelkovy Batalon (Rifle Battalion)
Pulyemyetno-artillyeriyskiy Batalon (Machine-gun Artillery Battalion)
Gvardeyskiy Tyazhelyy Tankovy Polk (Guards Heavy Tank Regiment)
8ya Otdyelnaya Shtrafnoy Batalon (8th Independent Penal Battalion)
Udarny Strelkovy Batalion (Shock Rifle Battalion)
Gvardeyskiy Tankovy Batalon (Guards Tank Battalion)
Motostrelkovy Batalon (Motor Rifle Battalion)
Peredovoye Otryad (Forward Detachment)
Rota Razvedki (Reconnaissance Company)
Gvardeyskiy Kazachiy Polk (Guard Cossack Regiment)
Tyazhelyy Samokhodno-artillyeriyskiy Polk (Heavy Self-propelled Artillery Regiment)
Legkiy Tyazhelyy Samokhodno-artillyeriyskiy Polk (Light Self-propelled Artillery Regiment)
Inzhenerno-saperniy Batalon (Engineer Sapper Battalion)
Partizanskiy Brigada (Partisan Brigade)
Inomarochnikiy Tankovy Batalon (Lend-lease Tank Battalion)
Shturmovye Batalon (Assault Battalion)

Polish Briefing
Batalon Armii Krajowej (Home Army Battalion)

Romanian Briefings
Companie Tancuri (Tank Company)
Companie Tancuri Medii (Medium Tank Company)
Companie Vanatori Motorizata (Motorised Infantry Company)
Companie de Cavalerie (Cavalry Company)
Batalion Puscasi (Rifle Battalion)









These books will give the Eastern front some great new models in 2012 including German trains, Finnish StuG’s new guns for everybody and an assortment of new vehicles to leave no force without something new.



These books go on sale the week before Christmas. Unlike last year we have not bound them together in a slipcase so you can buy one or both right from day one on the 17th Dec.

Now I am almost through the list but have some more things to share. As well as working on a book or four we have been pushing technology and trying out a few ideas which have turned into projects that will come to market. With the success of the “rubble bases” to mount your infantry we decided to get James to do a set for the Eastern front theatre that will be out early in the new year. As well as this part of our ongoing work with plastics has meant we have created a German Glider model (our first computer generated plane) which will be coming out to give your Fallschirmjäger the ability to “death from above” onto the table. This is an exciting step forward for us giving us the freedom to do more plastics. Now we do have a few other plastic related items in the hopper but without some finished images to show you that will have to wait for another day but needless to say that the next few months shows you how busy we have been but 2012 will be a game changer in more ways than one.

John-Paul

General Seric wrote:
I don't think I will be geting any of the new books (Burning Empires will not include Bersaglieri ), so nothing interesting for me. Only complaint I have is I don't like how they are doing the titles now, they look kind of cartoony.