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I will be collecting Germany and my friends wants Russia, so i was wondering what books i should buy to fully cover everything that FoW have for the eastern front? I know i need the rule book but what else? I want to run a german mechanized panzer platoon i think im not sure though. If you have had any experience with the books that you suggest please leave your thoughts on it, and also feel free to leave your thoughts on gaming in FoW on the eastern front!

Thanks!

Flames of War is broken into three time periods: Early War, Mid-War and Late War. Battlefield doesn't release army books in the traditional (Codex) style, but instead they release books to support all armies in a particular front/region/time period. In my experience, Late War is the most common. The main Late War book is Fortress Europe, which has general lists for US, British, German and Russian armies operating during 1944. I don't know how suitable that these lists are for a specialized army like Mechanized Panzers, but they should at least be able to let you and your friend build up some foundation armies.

As SkaerKrow points out FoW is broken down into three periods. If you want to use an army from the mid war period (42-43) in the Eastern Front then the appropriately titled "Eastern Front" is your book (on top of the rulebook).

If you're looking at late war (44-45) then Fortress Europe will work, though that period has tons of other options in what I call "mini-codexes" that cover a specific battle or a small part of a campaign. These are about half the price of the larger books but usually only contain a handful of lists from one or two nations, though these lists are often pretty unique (e.g. as far as I know, River of Heroes has the only list that allows you to use Hetzers). I'm relatively sure that Battlefront will roll most of the Eastern Front Late War mini-codexes in a manner similar to how they did the D-Day compilation, which rolled up several smaller Western Front books into two HUGE books.

When you say that you want to run a German mechanized Panzer platoon do you mean that you want to run a Panzer company or do you want to run a mechanized infantry company?

hmm okay what about the book Stalin's Europe(or something close to that? I dont know what time period probably mid and late...

@econtutor
Sorry but what is the difference?

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:hmm okay what about the book Stalin's Europe(or something close to that? I dont know what time period probably mid and late...

@econtutor
Sorry but what is the difference?

Stalin's Europe is a late war book and a quick look at BF's website shows that it's got lists for both Panther and Panzer IV/70 companies. If I recall correctly the book is one of the few (if not the only book) that let you field Hungarians. Each book (and every box set) should indicate whether it's Early War, Mid War, or Late War on the front cover or back cover with a big red E,M, or L in a white circle.

As for the difference between a Panzer and Panzergrenadier company... Panzer companies are tank companies, meaning they will always attack against non tank companies and will usually roll off to be the attacker against other tank companies. Mechanized Panzergrenadiers (guys riding around in half-tracks) count as a Mechanized Infantry company, this means that they'll always be the attacker against non-mech infantry companies, always defend against tanks, and will usually roll off for who is the attacker against another mech-inf company. Finally you have motorized Panzergrenadiers, the infantry that ride around in trucks. They count as a regular (non-mech) infantry company and will always be the defender, except against other infantry companies.

The kind of company you can choose limits the choices of what you'll be able to take, most mech-inf companies can take quite a few tanks as support, and tank companies can usually take at least a platoon or two of mechanized infantry for support so you'll still get tanks (or half-tracked infantry) if you want them no matter which company you choose. The most important reason I bring it up is that Eastern Front mechanized Germans tend to be over-priced points-wise. Mech-pzg platoons usually come with all MG stands, which were terribly overpriced, and the half tracks are overpriced (again, points-wise) too.

The Axis D-Day compilation, Earth & Steel, fixed this problem for Western Front Lists but until they do a big book for the Eastern Front all of the German Mech-inf platoons are going to be overcosted compared to their Western Front friends. To give you an example, a seven stand platoon of Fearless Veteran SS-Mechanized Infantry (full name: SS-Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers, what a mouthful) cost 320 in the old Western Front books. In new Earth & Steel these go for 260, a nearly 20% discount with the new edition and a price that most of the people I talk FoW with thinks better reflect their combat abilities.

Sorry about the long post, I hope that helps!

...or buy Blitzkreig Commander...

Rules and all army lists in one book.

Also, unmechanized panzers would be kind of funny, in a "Fred Flintstone Car" kind of way...

(I think the American forces trained like this for WWII... No tanks, so they shoved mock-ups around or something... I may be misremembering things, though.)

@econtutor

wow thanks for the great reply, very helpful

Okay get Fortress Europe and Eastern Front and maybe Stalin's Europe that might be further down the line.

I want to run a panzergrenadier company with a good amount of tanks and mortars for support do the rules allow me to do something like that, is it viable? Whats the difference between the trucks and tracked vehicles besides the obvious armor and machine gun? Why do tracked count as mech and trucks not?

I got Open Fire today so im looking forward to reading the rules and everything!

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:I got Open Fire today so im looking forward to reading the rules and everything!

By coincidence I picked that up myself today on a whim, as starter sets go it looks to be pretty good. I think I'm going to build a couple of very small armies myself so a mate and I can play. Not sure which book I'll use yet, they all seem fairly interesting. Although Africa is the one that grabs me the most at the moment.

I'm really looking forward to painting my stugs and shermans they should offer a different challenge to 40k/fantasy models. From what I've read the rules looks pretty good too.

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:@econtutor

wow thanks for the great reply, very helpful

Okay get Fortress Europe and Eastern Front and maybe Stalin's Europe that might be further down the line.

I want to run a panzergrenadier company with a good amount of tanks and mortars for support do the rules allow me to do something like that, is it viable? Whats the difference between the trucks and tracked vehicles besides the obvious armor and machine gun? Why do tracked count as mech and trucks not?

I got Open Fire today so im looking forward to reading the rules and everything!

The rules would definitely allow you to run something like that! You can definitely take all sorts of goodies like tanks and mortars to support your infantry, I know wouldn't dream of running an infantry company without some sort of indirect fire support! Just for example of the variety of force that an infantry company that you can field: My buddy's SS pzg's run with mortars, Nebelwerfers, an HMG platoon, Pak 40's, a platoon of panzerpioneers (motorized combat engineers), and Stug's in support, and they all function quite well together.

I couldn't tell you why Battlefront decided to make tracked pzg's count as mech and trucked pzg's count as regular infantry. My theory is that it reflects the way the rules are written for the game. Tracked infantry can usually get pretty close to the enemy pretty quickly and not worry about anything but dedicated Anti-tank weapons. Trucks on the other hand have no armor at all, which means that they can be killed pretty easily by small arms and Light MG fire. This tendency to get blown up usually means that trucks are sent to the rear at the beginning of the game to keep them from getting killed, which leaves your motorized infantry no better off than unmounted infantry. That's my $.02 on their thinking...

The open fire box set is great! If you haven't picked up the main rule book already (or if you have and still have your receipt...) the one that comes with Open Fire is all almost all you need. All you'd need to do to complete the rules is to pick up "Das Book' (available at your local FLGS for the low price of $10) for all the other rules that you don't already have. Keep in mind that if your buddy is playing Russians the Shermans that come with Open Fire can be used by them too.

Now just get those StuG's and Sherman's painted up and throw up a battle report!

@ Nick Ellingworth- I'm a big fan of the Africa book. I love the idea of tanks clashing in the open deserts, that and I really like the DAK infantry models.

@nick

Haha nice! I am really impressed with the quality of the sculpts I love the models! I love the change of models from 40k and fantasy to these! And yeah I think I will build up 2 armies too for the same reason.

@econtutor

Thanks for another great response and I'm glad to hear I can pull of my dream army! And your thoughts on trucks makes sense, my next question is why even take them if youe just going to hide?

I agree I love open fire! And thanks for the tip off on das book! Very helpful! And I can't wait to put up a battle report.

One last question with the resin models do I need to wash them in soap and warm water before painting and glue?

It's normally a good idea to wash resin, I've not really done anything with the contents of my open fire box just yet (aside from playing with them and making bang bang noises ) but if the FoW stuff is anything like any other resin I've used (forgeworld, firestorm amada, model railway parts etc) then a wash is almost certainly a good idea.

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:@nick

@econtutor

your thoughts on trucks makes sense, my next question is why even take them if youe just going to hide?

One last question with the resin models do I need to wash them in soap and warm water before painting and glue?

There are a few reasons to take trucks/jeeps/schwimwagens/kubelwagens/etc. for your units eligible to use them:

A) They're usually incredibly cheap, like +5 pts for an entire platoon cheap, so they work as filler
B) Sometimes you just need to get somewhere incredibly quick. FoW is all about claiming objectives and many of the missions run on a timer (e.g. game ends if player x holds an objective at any turn 6 or later). It's worth it to lose a truck and some passengers if it makes the difference between winning and losing.
C) It can be a long walk across the board if you have an infantry platoon come in from reserves across the board. If you're pushing hard on your opponent and have them boxed in they might not have a shot on the trucks until they're ready to drop their infantry
D) They can tow arty and Anti-Tank guns, which means these guns will be able to get across the board and into a better firing position MUCH faster than if you had to have the gun crews move them.

Totally agree with what Mr. Ellingworth said about the resin. I've haven't had a problem with the odd model or two that I forgot to wash but why take the chance that you ruin your paint job?

Nick Ellingworth wrote:It's normally a good idea to wash resin, I've not really done anything with the contents of my open fire box just yet (aside from playing with them and making bang bang noises ) but if the FoW stuff is anything like any other resin I've used (forgeworld, firestorm amada, model railway parts etc) then a wash is almost certainly a good idea.

I dont know about you but I love the models except on my German stugs the armour skirt side things chipped off really easily... bummer

Thanks econtutor
I news to read the rules it sounds like

Thanks for the help on the resin

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:I dont know about you but I love the models except on my German stugs the armour skirt side things chipped off really easily... bummer

Yeah they are really nice models, and the normal (ie non starter set) models look even better. I've got a damaged StuG skirt too. :(

Still call it battle damage and no one will notice.

Haha true true

Nick Ellingworth wrote:

IHEARTLARGEBLASTTEMPLATES wrote:I dont know about you but I love the models except on my German stugs the armour skirt side things chipped off really easily... bummer

Yeah they are really nice models, and the normal (ie non starter set) models look even better. I've got a damaged StuG skirt too. :(

Still call it battle damage and no one will notice.

I tweaked my Open Fire StuGs with blast marks and the like around the chipped off skirt pieces. Helps it look less like package damage.

Skriker