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I am thinking about starting Flames of War. I would want to start out with Germans and i am curious about what i would need to start. I know that Warhammer 40,000 has codex's and battle forces to start an army and sample army lists. If any one can give me some pionters on where to start.....that wuld be great. Thank you in advance!

First you need to figure out what part of the war you want to play. Each of the Campaign/theater books that have come out cover a certain part of the war.

Personally I like Mid-War the best. It feels like all the forces are fairly balanced and allows for a great variety of forces.

Late War leans toward beastly tanks and artillery, and higher trained troops.

Early War is coming this summer. This interests me the most. We have played some rules that they used to have on their site using French troops, and the small German tanks.

If you want to buy a German force, and you can afford to get it all at once, I suggest one of the big Battlefront army boxes.

Check out Battlefront's website, they have their own forums, that will be busier than this one.
They have free stuff to download, and the store for their games is there, but I suggest a shop or online store closer to home.
They are based in New Zealand.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/

I got the main rulebook and Fortress Europe recently for educational value. (I like seeing how other companies do rules, but have no interest in actually building a force unless a friend got hooked on it.)

TheWarStore has good deals on these books, by the way. Significantly less than the publisher's prices.

I kind of wish I had spent a bit extra and gotten North Africa instead of Fortress Europe. FE is 'Late War' and interesting, but NA seems much more packed as it's got a ton of force options in it, and I think the Middle War era might be a bit more interesting.

As I understand it, the Soviets in LW spent the winter gearing up and training, so in FE they're more skilled and trained, which means almost all of the forces in the book are rated Confident for morale. NA has Italians that are more variable as well as a couple other interesting forces from the look of it.

The FoW rules are a tough read for me. A lot is that the rules are somewhat 'monolithic' in that a vehicle or platoon gets a lot of rules based on a couple broad classifiers. There's a section for infantry, then a special section for vehicles, a lot of exceptions for specific kinds of vehicles, artiller, air, recon, etc.

That's the main rulebook. There's also some army-wide rules for each nation that may change based based on specific formations. (For example, playing a German Tank Company uses the normal rules, but there could be a (making something up here!) a '7th Panzerkompanie' that disregards or replaces a certain normal German rule.

This is, admittedly, a lot of 'pre-game' complexity and hopefully boils down to something manageable when the game actually starts.

The 'Open Fire' boxed set is supposed to be a great way to get into the game, too. However, I've heard the mini-rulebook included doesn't have rules for a few things like Fortifications and other field engineering.

It looks interesting, though. The best comment I heard is that "everything does what it should" even if not 100% accurate. Artillery sits back and trashes targets, tanks move forward but are vulnerable if unescorted, infantry do most of the work but need support.

If you're just interested, some of the briefings available online do allow you to get an idea of how the system works, but I had trouble getting into them until I had read the 'real' Fortress Europe book.

Oh, a nice bonus the Flames of War guys did is they've posted PDFs that summarize all of a nation's rules. They're more comprehensive than GW's quick reference sheets, but not the 'army books' either. Just the pure stats as well as the army-specific rules and such. These are kind of meaty PDFs due to the sheer amount of content.

I'm pretty much in the same position as the OP there, I got the rulebook and the obsolete ost front book recently, and I've got Fortress Europe/Eastern Front shipping.
From what I've seen so far, the rulebook is needed, obviously, but doesn't feature any army list, there's one army book for the late war period (Fortress Europe), all the other books are either campaign (firestorm series) or focused on precise engagements (like Normandy or operation Bagration), with more specific army lists. There's two books covering middle war, North Africa, and Eastern Front (titles are self-explaining, I think), and early war is announced for around July. I'm definitely waiting on that one, for obvious reasons.

Having read the rulebook, so far I quite like it, the base rules are pretty simple, with a decent amount of subtleties and differences between materials and armies... That's about as much as one can say without actual experience though, but it's definitely a game I want to play this year.

In danger of asking a dumb question, witch would be the best army to start collecting for a Warhammer player of medium/nOObish painting skills? Something that dose not require enormous amounts of painting skills and so on, and what faction is the most player friendly?

Russian late war tankovy army maybe... if you dont take any supporting infantry (which will make you weak), it is just painting tanks one colour of green (and there is even a spray paint in a can for this) and tracks metallic, then adding decals and optional basic weathering. Infantry are all quite simple for russia too, but there are a lot of them.

legoburner wrote:Russian late war tankovy army maybe... if you dont take any supporting infantry (which will make you weak), it is just painting tanks one colour of green (and there is even a spray paint in a can for this) and tracks metallic, then adding decals and optional basic weathering. Infantry are all quite simple for russia too, but there are a lot of them.

Oh okay thank you Legoburner, Think I migth go with that then. And I got to have infantry, when it comes to painting Il probably keep the color scheem simpel, anyways thanks for the help.

I'm looking at getting into it (at least buy some models).

My favorite 'area' of WW2 has always been eastern front Germany vs Russia.

The sheer size of the soviet force is a dampener for a beginner.

So if I went German what difference is there between SS and regular army forces?
Also are most people playing late war now?
And finally which book are the SS in and canthey be used mid war (I'd like my forces to be used in as many situations as possible)

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:I'm looking at getting into it (at least buy some models).

My favorite 'area' of WW2 has always been eastern front Germany vs Russia.

Then, in addition to the main Flames of War rulebook, you'd want the Eastern Front intelligence briefing, which is a revision of the old Ostfront book, and focuses on the Eastern Front in 1942-43. I think that the Stalin's Onslaught briefing covers the 1944 Eastern front.

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:]The sheer size of the soviet force is a dampener for a beginner.

So if I went German what difference is there between SS and regular army forces?

Not overly familiar with the German forces so I can't say for sure, but I do know that the SS is ranked as Fearless, whilst the regular Germans are merely Confident and that can make a very big difference.

I'm also about to start playing. Don't know a whole lot about it yet, but I intend to start a SS army full of tigers

I've received the new middle war ('42-'43) Eastern Front a couple of days ago, and it's a gorgeous book. Hardcover, full color, pretty layout... It's so nice I'm tempted to get the other MW book, North Africa, not because I'm that interested in this front, but because it's going to look wonderful on my shelves, next to the other hardcovers, Eastern Front and the rulebook. Let's just say that after seeing the quality of their recent work, my interest in the coming soon™ EW book has spiked.
Anyway, that was the answer to the question "does it look good ?".
The EF book features 6 panzer lists, mechanized, motorized, and foot infantry lists, and some others, in both regular and SS variety. They're both vets, but the SS have better moral (they don't cost the same though). Tigers are nasty but at 385 per tank, you're going to be outnumbered badly. I'm not kidding, for that price, you can field 5 t34s, or a full sized russian infantry company (about 30 stands !).

If you want to do the tiger army , just buy the tiger box set, and a blister of Panzer greniders( that will give about 2000 points), for the price of about 70 dollars, its not a effective list, but in experience hands, its force that will smash other armies, or get smashed by larger tank forces.

Best bet if you want to play germans is to get the box set of german fallschrimjager( there just like SS but have more options). and you can get started with a box set, for 45dollars( give you three full units, some motors, light anti- tank, and then just get a few blisters of panthers and pak 40s and you have force that will stomp other forces.

The SS are quite different in appearance between mid war and late war as the style of camo changes. You can get away with having a mixture of units with different camo, but if you want to be really accurate, the SS, being the elite, would tend to get new camo very quickly.

SS lists can be found in the books river of heroes (along with sturmtigers) and cobra.

Soviet are actually not too daunting (beyond price) if you go for an all-armour company. The tanks are basically green with painted tracks and weathering, and you can even buy that green in spray can form now which will save a lot of time. 1750 points of tanks for soviets works out at about 25-35 vehicles in late war.

A lot of people are playing late war as that is where the coolest toys are (IS2, tiger 2, etc), but mid war is also very well represented with the excellent range of infantry and mid-level tanks so either are perfectly viable without isolating you.

I was reading some of the battle reports on the FOW website and particularly liked the 4 tigers (german) vs the huge russian force. Problem for the soviets is that their tanks sat in a forest or a wheat field the entire game, whilst the infantry advanced.
The tiger strode across the field smiting all before them.
And I liked that.

The germas also appeared to have pak 40s mounted on the back of halftracks or trucks.... is that possible or just modelling?

Yes you can move big guns around during the game on the back of halftracks/trucks/similar. Brits can even move things around on a lot of their tanks as well in late war.

I'm in the same boat, thinking about starting Flames of War(US Airborne interesting me the most).

What books in particular should I nab to start getting an idea?

legoburner wrote:The SS are quite different in appearance between mid war and late war as the style of camo changes. You can get away with having a mixture of units with different camo, but if you want to be really accurate, the SS, being the elite, would tend to get new camo very quickly.

Its not SS... Its Waffen-SS, meaning 'armed' SS, the military branch of the SS.

Camo styles remain in use from the inception of oak leaf in 1939 till the wars end. Oakleaf smocks (of both types) can be seen on troops in France in 1940 and then worn in Berlin in 1945. Other types are seen alongside it and the units would often have a mix depending of their supply situation. Also large numbers of Waffen-SS personnel would not have any form of camo but would wear the 'mouse-grey' uniform, of a differing colour to the Heer feldgrau. Though as always some units also got issued stock of Heer clothing, so really any viable combination is possible throughout the war. The only difference is the late war camo patterns such as 'peadot' that was only available from '44 onwards and was supplied in jackets and trousers rather than smocks. The Waffen-SS did not always wear camo, and their camo was different to Heer combat patterns.

What tends to be the main difference in German uniforms is the introduction of the ankle marching boot with gaiters rather than the early war jackboot. There are changes to the tunic too but these matter little at gaming scales.

As for the Waffen-SS being the elite... Well history tends to argue differently.

Some units, such as LAH, Das Reich and perhaps Wiking did have a high reputation in regards combat effectiveness. Others like 12th SS HJ had a reputation for fanaticism. But many Waffen-SS units were of low quality. Formations such as Handschar and other non-Germanic formations had limited combat potential and were virtually worthless for anything other than anti-partisan policing duties.

To call all the Waffen-SS elite is to perpetuate an incorrect myth. If you are going to play WW2, atleast try and get the history right...

The main rulebook is, well, the main rulebook.

FoW divides the setting into three periods: Early, Mid, and Late War. The game is intended that any two armies can fight as long ads they're built from the same period, even if it's not historical (I.E. US vs. British).

I picked up the main rulebook and ended up getting two of the big collections of army lists: Fortress Europe (Late War) and North Afrika (Mid War). Of the two, I think the Mid War might be more interesting, but that's purely a personal opinion. These are somewhat pricey books, but the free briefings really confused me more than anything else. :(

They do a box set with a mini-rulebook, too, but since I'll probably never play the actual game I really didn't want that, and it's missing a few useful bits like fortification rules.

Fortress Europe, as mentioned, covers the 'Late War' era and has a range of lists for the USA, British, Soviets, and Germans. Each nation has several variants to represent different companies, so building a Tank Company is different from a Rifle Company. They use a 40k-ish 'Force Org Chart' unique to each company listing to detail what is required and what can be added. Generally a platoon is a box on the chart and has minimal add-ons, many of which are just making the platoon larger or adding support weapon teams.

I think there's a US Airborne list is Fortress Europe, but I don't have my copy at hand.

FE (I think the FoW fans abbreviate it FE2 as Fortress Europe effectively replaced the older late-war book Festung Europa which is also FE) is interesting. The US has a big split between the forces assembled for D-day and those that fought through Italy. The Italy forces are a bit tougher (rated as Veterans) and thus a bit pricier.

FoW uses a simple two stats for all models, which are then tweaked by special rules: One is the team's morale, and the other the team's level of skill. Each of these only has three settings, and a lot of the late war armies seem to settle on either 'confident trained' (which means the morale is confident and the skill trained) or 'confident veteran.' One reason I ended up getting the North Afrika book was to see some armies that broke the mold a bit. In general, the entire army uses the same rating, but there are exceptions and specific rules may give an army or units bonuses to specific applications of those two stats.

For example, assaulting requires morale rolls. Units that have a tradition of assaulting may get a bonus to that specific morale roll, but still use the specified morale roll for all other uses.

FE2's Soviets look nasty. They've had a breather at this point and are really annoyed. They've still got numbers, but are not the untrained hordes we tend to think of.

Moving on to North Afrika, I found a book with much more complex army lists. The American forces are pretty simple in this book (and no airborne list as far as I remember) but the British are very complex as these rules include variants for specific British regiments and Canadians, English, Scottish, Indian, Australian, and New Zealand forces. All of which make slight tweaks. I think a few lists can also take limited US allies...

NA also includes Germans and Italians in addition to the Brits and a tiny section on the US forces. I think it's realistic though, as the US forces were still historically 'gearing up' at the period covered. The Italians are interesting as they can use German allies but have some weird rules of their own: stats are randomly determined by rolling on tables for each platoon, and they have a weird 'Unknown Hero' rule that lets them get a hard-to-kill morale booster as there command units are killed off. Weird.

As I mentioned, the British rules are complex and seem like they're nearly half the book.

In addition to these books, they also due shorter event-specific books. For example, you might find that there's a smaller book that covers D-Day and immediately after that might have a US airborne list and it'll probably have a German list or two (maybe whatever units handled costal defenses or encountered the paratroopers) and probably some British or other allies.

Some of these also have region-specific modeling and scenarios with special rules. From what I understand, the expanded bocage rules make getting tanks stuck on hedgerows very dangerous, as they're essentially sitting with the bottom armor facing the enemy.

Pretty accurate description by Balance, but I'll add that the "main" Late War book, Fortress Europe, doesn't include paratrooper lists save for the Fallschirmjägers, I know there's some UK/US paratroopers lists in D-Day minus 1 book, but I don't know about others (the market garden series have obviously more UK paratroopers, for example)

D-1 is the main US airborne list and Hell's Highway also has a small selection of the US market garden forces.

Most people seem to be playing late war here now.

I might suggest new players go to a event or gaming convention that's holding a event for FOW you'll find the fan base a very friendly and eager to show bunch of guys theirs also a great yahoo group based in New England that's a huge resource.

Im holding two before summer starts and Im encouraging new players to attend or just stop by to watch

to Ultra:

I think the best place to start is with the main rulebook and Fortress Europe. I don't have FE2, but Fortress Europa, the previous version, starts with the invasion of Sicily and ends with the period around D-Day. The army lists give you representative armies for the end of WW II in Europe, both Western and Eastern fronts.

Starting here gives you a lot of flexibility in terms of the kinds of units you can field, because in Late War everyone has the best toys, which is probably why so many people play Late War. This is when you get the really heavy tanks and great mechanized artillery for the Germans, anyway. I play 2. Panzer Division...

Fortress Europe is like the "base" set of lists for Late War. Then you get campaign specific books. Operation Cobra is the Allied breakout through the bocage in France. Monty's Meatgrinder is the battle for Caen. Both of these battles were follow-ups to the D-Day invasion. Those lists will be different to reflect the historical forces involved in those battles, but technically those lists should be balanced with the Fortress Europe lists because they're all Late War. So you can begin with Fortress Europe and then move into the campaign-specific books and lists for some extra, added flavor.

I personally find that learning something about the history of the war adds to your enjoyment of the game greatly. FoW is no simulation by any means, but the creators did do their homework in trying to create lists that reflect the reality of the armies involved at the time periods they go into. I used the Gerpanzerte Panzergrenadier (mechanized infantry) list from Fortress Europe and it only took a few, small adjustments to make a 2. Panzer Division company that was 100% historically accurate in terms of what the particular company I am fielding actually had in their ranks, to the point where I was able to do some historical research and make sure that the precise vehicle types I field were all actually in 2. Panzer in June, before D-Day. I even got the accurate Platoon numbers so that my vehicle numbers will be accurate.

The Germans kept really good war records. I could probably figure out the officers for each of my platoons if I really wanted to historical-geek it up...


In terms of modeling and painting, I found the game a little less expensive than 40K maybe...and painting them is pretty easy comparatively-speaking due to the scale. You can pretty much just paint the right colors in the right places and they look great from tabletop distance. You don't need to ink, or wash, or highlight if you don't want to. Basing is a little more important in FoW than in 40K I feel, but it's not difficult. All in all if you're just looking for tabletop-quality painting so that you can play the game with a painted army I think FoW paints up much more quickly than 40K or other 28mm games.


The biggest challenge I found in starting FoW was terrain. None of the 28mm stuff my club had on the shelves worked for FoW. We started off using construction paper to denote buildings, roads, forests, and rivers just so we could learn the rules, and slowly began building up a terrain set. Now we can put together decent tables but it took a lot of work.

If i wanted to start a Mid-War German tank force from scratch with no knowledge of the rules what would i need?

You would need the main rulebook (either the big hardback version or the smaller, cheaper open fire version).

You would then need either the East Front book (for Germans vs Russians) or the North Africa book (for the desert war germans). Each book has many different options so just go for the one that you find more historically interesting. You can also forgo those books and just use the free Tunisian Tiger PDF list here: http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&art_id=1629 which is tournament legal.

It would also help to read the boot camp info on their website:
http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=106

And then pick up some models depending on what list you like the look of most.

Thank you

Can you run just tanks competitively?

Short answer? No.

But you can run a quite effective tank heavy list. You will need some infantry.

DAMN how little infantry would i need if i was running tigers?

Tiger lists needs a fair amount of infantry to support them effectively. Of course it depends on the list you take, but 1 platoon per tiger is a good rough guide. That way they can support each other as they advance and take out relative threats (primarily it allows you to deal with assaulting infantry though).