Flames of War v3 Rules Leaks

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**George Spiggott**

I have just heard from my FLGS about V3. This is what the proprietor has to say:

All of this is second hand, and therefore subject to change. The free mini rulebook will be available in February.

1. Aircraft now range in automaticallly on any target in the open. But they only get one chance to range in, not three. Also, only one aircraft model is used, regardless of how may planes are coming.They will be releasing new aircraft as single models. All AA ranges are increased by 6".

2. Gun-teams that are Gone to Ground benefit from a 3+ save instead of the normal 5+ save. This is a dramatic difference for HMG's and Anti-tank Guns.

3. One-man Turret tanks (specifically French tanks) now benefit from being able to move and shoot with a +1 modifier. In V2 they could not move and shoot in the same turn.

4. Teams with with movement classification of Jeep or Motorcylce now move 24" on roads. Remember that in the desert all open terrain is considered hard packed sand (road). So SaS Jeeps move 24".

5. Teams with with movement classification of Wheeled or Half-track now move 18" on roads. Remember that in the desert all open terrain is considered hard packed sand (road). So most British and German armored cars move as Wheeled so they move 18".

6. Tanks assaults can be stopped if 2 or more vehicles are bailed or destroyed by Defensive Fire (this number is increased for Russians using the Quality of Quantity rule).

7. Flame throwers are toned down when used against tanks, preventing defensive fire if they hit, and bailing out tanks if they pass their FP test.

8. NO MORE DAISY CHAINS!

Picked up from the BF forums. Interesting stuff. Apart from the one aircraft model rule I really like the sound of these rules.

**Vertrucio**

Sound like interesting changes.

Not sure what to make of the aircraft changes. Is the procedure the same to see if you get aircraft?

The changes to gun team saves is great! I definitely felt that it could be a bit easy to blow up gun teams like HMGs and some AT guns before they could fire their initial volley, unless there was a mission with the Ambush rule. In real warfare of the time, those AT guns would be very difficult to spot due to them being low profile and the crews could camouflage them with local resources. This change also gives much more use to Recon and all the new Breakthrough Guns on everything 100mm and higher.

Getting rid of things that can't move and shoot its main guns was much, much needed. A friend plays French tanks and one smoke template can invalidate huge chunks of his army. Considering how much a +1 penalty is when you're at RoF 1, that's more than enough.

Also good to see Road movement being made even better, especially for Jeep and Motocycle. It makes strategic use of roads a major consideration. Doubling down a road with these units allows them to rapidly redeploy where they're needed.

Not sure what to make of stopping tank assaults. Will have to see how it plays out.

Flame throwers definitely needed a change against vehicles. It made it too difficult for vehicles to get close enough to infantry in a forest to shoot at them.

**Hordini**

I must be a bit out of the loop. I understand what is meant by all of those rules changes, except the last one. What are daisy chains?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just did a bit of perusing on the BF forums, and I found out what they meant by "daisy chaining": Interlocking platoons for defensive fire purposes.

It looks like the rumored change is that only teams within 8" of an assaulting team gets defensive fire, but any team within 8" of an assaulting team gets to fire, regardless of which platoon it belongs to. This sounds like a good change, as it still makes it useful to mix in AT guns and HMGs and such in defensive positions, but prevents you getting defensive fire on a single assaulting platoon from a huge, interlocked line.

**Vertrucio**

It's not just that though. There was a special, and very cheesy, move that you could do with the Company Command and 2iC.

Basically, you stick one of those within 4" of where a unit will assault another friendly team, they get drawn in. On the moment they get drawn into the fight, you attach them to something another 4" away from the 1iC/2iC, bringing them in and giving you even more defensive fire and if you attach to tanks, forcing infantry to make tank terror tests. The 8" defensive fire rules change basically does the same thing though.

The new change also makes good use of the new gun team rules.

If anything, I'm glad that stuff like the CS tanks and the 105 Sherman now have a stronger use since they have the Breakthrough Gun rule to use against those nasty guns. I do hope that they give some purpose to the Scot variant of the Stuart though.

**ambler**

George Spiggott wrote:The free mini rulebook will be available in February.

1. .... Also, only one aircraft model is used, regardless of how may planes are coming.They will be releasing new aircraft as single models.

Couple of points - the mini rulebook is only "free" if you paid for a Hardback rulebook. Presumably the Open Fire set will replace the v2 one with the new one and mark the box with a sticker "v3". So now you get to pay 20 pounds for a new mini rulebook in the OF starter set or hope to pick one up on ebay in Feb/March at a premium price... (I didn't hear BF announce the mini book will be sold separately.

On point 1. I thought I had read (on this forum at some point) that BF would not be invalidating existing models. Really? Two of your planes will not now be used. Glad I haven't bought any yet.

Generally, I imagine FoW gamers will hold off on any purchases until Feb/March until it is clear what the impact of a rules change are. Bad news to new players who recently bought the hardback book and or plane models!

As an ex -GW game player, is it really that much different to anything GW do? At a time when BF may be suffering a little from sales from competition from plastic models the one thing they have to rely on for some income every X years is their rules IP (Intellectual Property). BTW: not knocking the support BF give on their website or the need at some point to update rules. GW could learn a lot from BF customer support.

If the mini rulebook does become available at a reasonable price then I will have to pick it up. I just don't expect that to happen any differently to v2. BF please take note.

**Vertrucio**

Admittedly, the plane model can still be used.

And let's face it, those planes were just markers anyway. I would be POed if I couldn't use them anymore, but it does speed up the game and those planes overall are seem a bit more useful with the changes mentioned so far.

One thing about purchases though is that I'm not really holding back on purchases since it is still a historical game with historical tactics.

The core game won't change all that much, you've still got infantry working as infantry, and tanks working as tanks. The armies are pretty much set in history.

Another thing is that this 3rd edition isn't just random new edition, there were many aspects of the game that were getting a bit strange, stale, or just didn't work.

**PhantomViper**

ambler wrote:
Couple of points - the mini rulebook is only "free" if you paid for a Hardback rulebook. Presumably the Open Fire set will replace the v2 one with the new one and mark the box with a sticker "v3". So now you get to pay 20 pounds for a new mini rulebook in the OF starter set or hope to pick one up on ebay in Feb/March at a premium price... (I didn't hear BF announce the mini book will be sold separately.

And your point is? That you don't like paying for rules and think they should all be free? Is that it?

BF didn't have to give anything to anyone, game companies come up with new versions of their rules all the time and I've never seen one of them give free rulebooks, complaining that BF "only" does it to their more established customers is at the very least, strange.

ambler wrote:
On point 1. I thought I had read (on this forum at some point) that BF would not be invalidating existing models. Really? Two of your planes will not now be used. Glad I haven't bought any yet.

Yes, now you only use one of the planes instead of 3 of them, that doesn't mean that they are somehow "invalidated".

That is the same thing as saying that the box of 30 dice that you bought has been invalidated because you only need 15 of them...

ambler wrote:
Generally, I imagine FoW gamers will hold off on any purchases until Feb/March until it is clear what the impact of a rules change are. Bad news to new players who recently bought the hardback book and or plane models!

Why would they? The new rulebook won't invalidate any list that was released so far and any new player that bought the Hardback will get a free V3 rulebook for his troubles.

ambler wrote:
As an ex -GW game player, is it really that much different to anything GW do? At a time when BF may be suffering a little from sales from competition from plastic models the one thing they have to rely on for some income every X years is their rules IP (Intellectual Property). BTW: not knocking the support BF give on their website or the need at some point to update rules. GW could learn a lot from BF customer support.

If the mini rulebook does become available at a reasonable price then I will have to pick it up. I just don't expect that to happen any differently to v2. BF please take note.

Giving away free rulebooks now makes BF equal to GW... Making a new version of their rules, 6 years after the last one, also makes them the equal of GW... "Sufering" the competition from plastic models, because you even allow those models in your official tournaments, apparently also makes them equal to GW...

You are right BF == GW! How didn't I notice this before!1oneone!

**Matt Varnish**

Well, 2 of my Stukas will make excellent crashed plane objective markers, so they arent "invalidated" are they

**Shotgun**

Actually, the new aircraft rules will make it easier for me to set up two different versions of my Stukas to have accurate weapons loads rather than using them as "counts as". And then trade the third to someone else for the other German aircraft.

**ArbeitsSchu**

PhantomViper wrote:
ambler wrote:
On point 1. I thought I had read (on this forum at some point) that BF would not be invalidating existing models. Really? Two of your planes will not now be used. Glad I haven't bought any yet.

Yes, now you only use one of the planes instead of 3 of them, that doesn't mean that they are somehow "invalidated".

That is the same thing as saying that the box of 30 dice that you bought has been invalidated because you only need 15 of them...

ambler wrote:
Generally, I imagine FoW gamers will hold off on any purchases until Feb/March until it is clear what the impact of a rules change are. Bad news to new players who recently bought the hardback book and or plane models!

Why would they? The new rulebook won't invalidate any list that was released so far and any new player that bought the Hardback will get a free V3 rulebook for his troubles.

If BF go from 3 planes to one, they deprive two of the aircraft of their usefulness under the previous system. "Invalidated" isn't a bad term to use to describe that. "Made pointless" might also cover it quite well. Changes in list composition have a tendency to do that. Reference the number of BAR players with spare cruisers after THAT change. When money has been invested in a model or unit, its a bit irritating when two thirds of it disappear up their own proverbial, and become dust collectors. And there will be little chance of ebay renumeration, because the market will be flooded with hundreds of tiny planes.

(The GW comparison does fall down there though, because they have a tendency to "validate" whole new squads of men and tanks, changing the lists to 'encourage' the purchase of even more little men. A true GW/BF moment would be BF re-writing the rules so you need NINE planes to field them.)

**olympia**

I'm happy with the aircraft change. My two year old ran off with on of my IL-2s and I haven't been able to put three on the table since.

**ArbeitsSchu**

Personally, I just like painting planes, so I'm not so bothered either way. Hell, I buy planes I can't even field. But I don't buy the gold-plated platinum ones from BF. (I assume they are made of that, because I can't think of any other reason why their planes are so small but so expensive.)

**George Spiggott**

ArbeitsSchu wrote:(The GW comparison does fall down there though, because they have a tendency to "validate" whole new squads of men and tanks, changing the lists to 'encourage' the purchase of even more little men. A true GW/BF moment would be BF re-writing the rules so you need NINE planes to field them.)

Like what they just did with PTRDs and 37mm AA guns in Red Bear?

Personally I think it's a conspiracy to make money for Peter Pig. 'Cause that's where my extra PTRDs are coming from.

**Eumerin**

Vertrucio wrote:It's not just that though. There was a special, and very cheesy, move that you could do with the Company Command and 2iC.

Basically, you stick one of those within 4" of where a unit will assault another friendly team, they get drawn in. On the moment they get drawn into the fight, you attach them to something another 4" away from the 1iC/2iC, bringing them in and giving you even more defensive fire and if you attach to tanks, forcing infantry to make tank terror tests. The 8" defensive fire rules change basically does the same thing though.

That's the unamibitious form of daisy-chaining. The ambitious form of it works something like this -

You have an independent team (let's say the CiC) mixed in with the platoon that's being assaulted. As the CiC is within 4" of the assaulting teams, he is automatically considered to be part of the assault. So you attach him to the Observer team sitting 4" away from the CiC. Then you attach the Observer team to your 2iC, which is sitting an additional 4" away. And then you attach the 2iC to a platoon of Panther tanks sitting off to one side and in the perfect position to fire and break up that assault. Using three independent teams, you have just provided defensive fire from three Panther tanks that are 14" away from the assaulting teams.

**Vertrucio**

My God... it's full of chains...

I wasn't aware you could attach independent teams to independent teams.

But yeah, that was a bit stupid. My version of daisy chaining is so tame, even balanced, compared to what you've written.

I don't have my book on me here at work, but are the new AA ranges reflected in Red Bear and Grey Wolf?

**Eumerin**

Vertrucio wrote:My God... it's full of chains...

I wasn't aware you could attach independent teams to independent teams.

You can. And iirc, two independent teams together qualify as a "platoon" for those rules that specifically prohibit independent teams from doing anything. But the daisy chain that I described would technically work in reverse. i.e. first you would attach the 2iC to the Panthers. Then you would attach the Observer to the Panthers via the 2iC (who is currently a part of the Panther platoon because he's attached). And then you would attach the CiC to the Panthers via the Observer, who as we already know is now a part of the Panther platoon. It's just that we all know which order the player is figuring out the attachments, even if rules-wise they're being done in reverse.

It's quite possibly one of the gamiest elements of V2.

But yeah, that was a bit stupid. My version of daisy chaining is so tame, even balanced, compared to what you've written.

Your version actually makes a bit of sense if it's the CiC or 2iC as the independent teams. They're the bosses, so they're calling in support from a nearby platoon to help beat off the ambush. The logic fails somewhat when the independent team is an observer, though.

I don't have my book on me here at work, but are the new AA ranges reflected in Red Bear and Grey Wolf?

Not that I'm aware of. I'm guessing that, assuming this rumor is accurate, the new rule is 6" above and beyond the listed range of the gun.