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1000 point minimum. If you choose German Herr or SS it can be very cheap to collect as you don't need many points.

If you want to get into it, best thing to do is have an Armoured force. Buy a Box of PANTHERS (5 in a box) and buy one more extra and run a PANTHER Force. 2 Lehr Panthers as Command and 4 more in a platoon bingo = 1125points

2 command 2 x platoons of 3 = 1450. (Earth & Steel Book LEHR PANZERS)

Nice and easy to start, tho you not use the Panthers later on. Or try the Tigers Marsch cheap one off 5 Tigers...And yes you will use them as a German Player because they are brilliant tanks and beautiful to behold.

German Armour forces are cheap to collect if you use Plastic Soldier Company and they are about to release another box set of Panthers and STuG's soon. Not sure if you can get them in the US.

mwnciboo wrote:2 command 2 x platoons of 3 = 1450. (Earth & Steel Book LEHR PANZERS)

He's focusing on the Africa book, which is Mid-War. Earth & Steel is Late War, and therefore not compatible points-wise.


For the OP, there's one additional item worth mentioning. You apparently already have the Open Fire boxed set, so you don't need to get the hard cover basic rule book. Instead, all you need to "finish" the rulebook included in Open Fire is something called Das Book. It includes the missing rules and other items from Open Fire, and also includes a few extra goodies that aren't in the basic rulebook.

Is Das Book available at the moment? I was looking for it a few months ago and didn't see it online anywhere. I was thinking it was perhaps pending a revision for the newer EW and LW rules.

Balance wrote:Is Das Book available at the moment? I was looking for it a few months ago and didn't see it online anywhere. I was thinking it was perhaps pending a revision for the newer EW and LW rules.

I don't think that there have been any new LW rules since it appeared. EW is possibly another matter with Blitzkrieg, but the rules found in the campaign books tend to be specific to that era and/or campaign. So Das Book shouldn't really be affected. It has disappeared from the online store in the past, and I think the reason was a simple "ran out of copies" thing. It's possible that's happened again.

If the OP's interested, he should probably ask about availability on Battlefront's forum. There's a decent chance of getting a response from Battlefront's staff about what's going on with the book and when it might be available for sale again.


Getting Das Book is *definitely* the way to go if you already own Open Fire.

For friendly gaming, "das Book" shouldn't really be necessary. At least it hasn't been in my group. we just go by the main rules + common sense and that works out just fine

You're right in that he doesn't *need* it, particularly if he's only playing with a small group of people. But it adds a lot to the game, and it's something that I highly recommend every player have.

Off the top of my head, the only things that someone would likely use early on are the regular scenarios (Das Book has 9 of them, iirc), and the Pioneer/fortification rules (in particular, barbed wire and minefields, which are available in a Defensive Battle if you have a Pioneer Supply Vehicle start on the table).

Later on, however, you can do things like play the Hit the Beach or Airborne Assault scenarios, and other fun things.

Ok, didn't know it contained new missions, that makes it a better buy

If I were to buy the Vallejo paint sets from the Flames of War website(Quartermaster and North Africa sets) how many infantry figures can I expect to get painted with each set? How many vehicles? I know it probably depends on my skill as a painter and the amount of detail work that I do, but I'm talking just some basic paint jobs with nothing really fancy since I'm a beginner at it.

I suggest either using washes or a dip like army painter on your mini's if you are just starting out to help with shading. It makes the little details on them pop out, and is a lot quicker and easier then traditional shading and highlighting, especially for inexperienced painters.

Well, I've had to effectively shut down my army building for the time being thanks to some unexpected home repairs, but I've still been looking over the books and really been looking at what I should aim for in terms of the actual army composition. I'm definitely going to aim for two 1000 point armies for now, and I've got some preliminary lists I'd like you guys to take a look at and tell me what you think. Keep in mind that I'm trying to get these armies to be as balanced as possible against each other without being direct copies.

British Rifle Company - Tunisia(Confident Trained)
Company HQ – 25
3 squad rifle platoon – 110x3
2 section MG platoon – 120x2
4 2pdr Portee AT – 100
2 section heavy mortar platoon - 135
1 troop 4-gun 25pdr – 165
Total – 995

Grenadier Marschkompanie(Confident Trained)
Company HQ – 35
3 squad Grenadier platoon – 120x3
MG platoon – 100
4 launcher Nebelwerfer platoon - 160
2 StuG F/8 assault gun platoon – 340
Total – 995

I was thinking of swapping the StuGs out for 3 PIII L's in order to let the Germans sling a bit more lead, but I've already got the StuGs from buying the Open Fire box and the less I have to spend the better at this point. My only real worry with these two armies is that the Brits have a slight numbers advantage and they can throw down a lot more smoke cover than the Germans can. And with the Nebelwerfers on the field the Brits could range them in on any turn that they fire thanks to the smoke trails, so it would be pretty easy to knock out the German artilllery support. I was debating replacing the Nebels with a 3-section mortar platoon and putting the Germans at 980 points, but I wanted them to have some real long range support and the Marschkompanie doesn't get any of the regimental support artillery guns and points would limit me to only 2 105mm howitzers from the divisional support. So I'm at a bit of an impasse on that. I can use mortars which will give me more actual guns and better smoke cover at the expense of range, I can use the Nebelwerfers that give me long range, a good number of guns, and decent smoke cover at the expense of being easily spotted and destroyed by enemy artillery, or I can use the howitzers which give me the best range at the expense of mobility and practically no smoke cover. I know that the best answer is probably the mortars, but that longer range is just so tempting.

Well, that's my attempts at army building. Let me know what you guys think and toss your ideas on how to improve them my way.

Unruly wrote:And with the Nebelwerfers on the field the Brits could range them in on any turn that they fire thanks to the smoke trails, so it would be pretty easy to knock out the German artilllery support.

Most players have no issues with artillery bombardments going after the Nebs. It means that the enemy artillery isn't shooting at something more important.

Keep in mind that with a veteran rating, you can have a six inch gap between each Nebelwerfer team, which means that your opponent will only be able to fit one gun team underneath the artillery template. If your opponent does decide to bombard your artillery, then at most he's only going to kill one gun team each turn.

Eumerin wrote:[Keep in mind that with a veteran rating, you can have a six inch gap between each Nebelwerfer team, which means that your opponent will only be able to fit one gun team underneath the artillery template. If your opponent does decide to bombard your artillery, then at most he's only going to kill one gun team each turn.

True, but if the artillery hits, the whole *unit* is pinnned not just the stand under the artillery template. So if you fail your unpinning check, you lost only one gun, but also lost a turn of fire as well.

Skriker

Skriker wrote:

Eumerin wrote:[Keep in mind that with a veteran rating, you can have a six inch gap between each Nebelwerfer team, which means that your opponent will only be able to fit one gun team underneath the artillery template. If your opponent does decide to bombard your artillery, then at most he's only going to kill one gun team each turn.

True, but if the artillery hits, the whole *unit* is pinnned not just the stand under the artillery template. So if you fail your unpinning check, you lost only one gun, but also lost a turn of fire as well.

Then you make your unpin test (50%), and you're good to go.

And the same applies to many of your other units on the table. Further, those units are usually bunched up. So your opponent can potentially hit multiple teams within the platoon that he's blasting. Nebs, from what I've been told by those who use them, aren't particularly threatened by enemy counter-battery fire.


Just to run numbers, the enemy is going to have a 1/3 chance of ranging in on each attempt (Veteran, concealed due to smoke trails being used as the aiming point). At best, they'll have a 50% chance of hitting you - assuming that they range in on the first attempt. And they'll only get one chance to hit because there will only be one team underneath the template. That comes out to a 1/6 chance that he'll score a hit on his first range in attempt. And later attempts get even less likely as it's harder for him to hit if he needs to make a second or third attempt to range in (of course, your Nebs won't have that issue as the To Hit values for a rocket bombardment aren't affected by the number of attempts to range in that you perform).


Sometimes the dice just hate your guts, and there's no way to avoid that. I had an artillery battery (guns, not rockets) get pinned once on the very first turn of the game. And the only time that it unpinned throughout the entire game was just in time to shoot up a charging unit of Lend Lease Stuarts. It promptly got pinned again on the very next turn and didn't unpin for the rest of the game. But if you sit down and examine the statistical probabilities with your Nebs, you'll see that with careful deployment getting your opponent to use his artillery against them will generally work out in your favor.

So in other words it shouldn't really matter all that much if I use the Nebels or mortars and it just comes down to personal preference? But at the same time, the 25pdr that I've been led to believe was one of the best artillery pieces of the war seems less useful in this game than I thought it would be. Well, unless it's in a full 8-gun battery that can really take advantage of the special rules like the murder/stonk stuff.

But outside of the artillery, how does the rest of my starting army look? I'm trying to make sure it's balanced for both sides so that one isn't consistently winning over the other, since for the time being I'm likely to be lending one of these armies to any other new players like me that may be trying to give FoW a shot.

25pdrs are really nice guns, thye have a good direct fire rating, they are cheap, they have smoke bombardement and 5+ Fp is much better than the 6+ Fp of most similar artillery. It won't murder tanks with bombardements or blow apart dug in infantry, but it shouldn't really do that either.

The armies might struggle with attacking, trained infantry is not attack-friendly, especially not with the huge amount of HMG's you've got in both lists. Some tanks would help a lot on both sides, f.ex. some shermans for the brits and some panzer III's for the germans. Making the infantry veterans will also help.

So should I go with a regular Grenadierkompanie rather than a Marschkompanie so that the Germans are Confident Veterans? I'd probably have to cut the HMG platoon out of the army to do that due to increased point costs, which I guess would alleviate some of the issues with the British being on the attack. As for tanks on the German side were you meaning to replace the StuGs with Panzer III's or add the Pz III's along with the StuGs? I don't have the book with me to check and see if the second one is possible right now, but it would definitely involve upping the point limit if it is.

As for the British I think they're all Confident Trained outside of the Commandos. I suppose I could cut one of the HMG platoons out and use the extra points to swap the 2pdr portees out for 6pdr portees instead, but I don't think I'll be able to add armor to them without bumping the point limit up. Adding armor to a Tunisia rifle company is pretty points heavy if I remember right. I think Churchills are the only tanks that they get access to, though Shermans might be available as an optional upgrade or something.

You can use an 8th army list for the brits and a veteran list for the germans = veterans on both sides

What pts level you choose doesn't really matter that much, if everybody get upgraded to vets instead of trained, you may be at 1250 instead of 1000, but the number of models is the same, so who cares

Same with the tanks, say you add some panzer III's and shermans, you may be at 1600pts, but the game won't take any longer, it may actually go faster since you have an actual attacking force in there. The game is also cooler with combined-arms armies IMO

Unruly wrote:So in other words it shouldn't really matter all that much if I use the Nebels or mortars and it just comes down to personal preference?

If you just want cheap smoke, then get 8.1cm mortars. If you want bombardment capability but don't want smoke, then go with 12cm mortars (they're based off of a Soviet design and don't get smoke bombardment capability). If you want both, then go with rockets or guns.

Unruly wrote:So in other words it shouldn't really matter all that much if I use the Nebels or mortars and it just comes down to personal preference? But at the same time, the 25pdr that I've been led to believe was one of the best artillery pieces of the war seems less useful in this game than I thought it would be. Well, unless it's in a full 8-gun battery that can really take advantage of the special rules like the murder/stonk stuff.

That is *why* they were some of the best artillery in the war: The brits had a ton of them *and* they could fire them crazy fast. It wasn't the effectiveness of the shell so much the speed and capability of the gun crews.

Skriker