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Hey all been intrigued by flames of war and seriously thinking of buying a few models or at least the starter kit and giving it a go. I also recently won a destroyed Sherman tank in a painting comp and am eagerly looking forward to painting it.

That being said, I'd be inclined to deviate substantially from the proscribed historical paint jobs and army colors and come up with something totally different. Like maybe paint my Sherman fire engine red or something else experimental and weird.

What I'm wondering is will there be a high degree of...oh how shall I put this...historical snobbery...amongst gamers?

I mean ultimately if I spend the money to paint my toy soldiers how I want them, that's my business. I just don't know anyone who plays it, and I was wondering what the community is like. There's a store in my city where the game has started to become popular and I've seen a game or two in action and everyone looked very serious and older than me (40-50). Not sure if this game attracts big time history buffs or something like that.

As you'll see if you read these threads, games like FoW attract players who are totally into the historical issues. Some of them will be pedantic to the point of obsessiveness, and will spend the game lecturing you on tiny points of detail (and in some cases will still actually be wrong). So your red tanks will undoubtably attract some criticism. And it is a historical game, even if it plays a bit fast and loose with the details, so it's probably a bit provocative to do something that extreme. I don't think it would be unreasonable to expect FoW models to bear at least some resemblance to what they were meant to represent. If it's just a case of using the wrong shade of green for olive drab, or painting 1944 Panzers grey instead of dark yellow, then I don't think that should be a big deal.

Would sir prefer the pink?

I say go for it - your models your choice and if historical obsessives have a fit ask them to prove there were no red shermans...

Reaver83 wrote:I say go for it - your models your choice and if historical obsessives have a fit ask them to prove there were no red shermans...

This^

There are people who like it was said before will point out every wrong detail, colour, vehicle mark etc etc, these people I like to call TFG. I personally like the historical aspect of these games so I like to research a unit see how it operated, what it's TO&E's are/where, and go from there.

I would say though there are you models do what you want honestly, but don't be suprised if you get a few WTF looks from 'snobby elitests'. I personally find the draw of accuracy one of the plus's but to each there own. =o]

Reaver83 wrote:I say go for it - your models your choice and if historical obsessives have a fit ask them to prove there were no red shermans...

...and be prepared to be asked to prove there were red Shermans.

By definition, its a historical game, thus the models tend to be in there historical colours. My personal view is that as you are recreating a real war, one in which people in living memory died, its no harm to pay a little respect and do things right. But they are your models, so do as you like.

Of course there were pink Spitfires used in WW2 by the photo-recon units in Africa.

I agree with Big P. It is a game based on Histoty not your imationation. Stick to fantasy or sci fi gaming if you want to spread your wings on color selection. Are there paint police that will throw you into the klink for using wrong colors. No, but expect a lot of WTF looks from people. Now if they start gettiong into your grill about it that wrong, they are your models after all, but expect to have your paint job pointed out as wrong on a regular basis.

Or do 1945 German armour, which is historical and can be mostly red. History is satisfied, you get to use the red paint.

My LGS related the story of a local player who painted his tanks pink and fielded the Pink Panthers.

I wouldn't play you.................

Wow.

My colours are correct, but I deviated away from the standard camo pattern on my LW Panthers.

In the end the models are yours. It'd doesn't matter if other gamers like them ,as long as you like them

Devieating from a camo pattern is one thing, in the field lots of camo patterns devieated from "standard". But to totaly devieate from historical reality is another thing all together. I agree they are your models and you are free to paint them how you wish. Just be forewarned that you will face some ridecule and people who wont deal with you at all.

Would I walk away from a game over it? Probably not. Would you be the absolute last person I would play? Most definatly. It showa a lack of knowledge of history and the reasons for the colors chosen in the real world. That leads to a thinking, rightly or wrongly, a lock of knowledge of the game system used to model historical events.

This discussion raised another question in my mind. What about people who just paint poorly? It might be less noticable in WWII historics, but in the fantasy and sci-fi games, I've seen some truely horrible paint jobs. Would you rather play against well painted, but historically inaccurate figures, or against a horrible attempt at historical correctness?

To be frankly honest you might find a few players here and there who'd have a problem with it. A large thing that attracts player's to the game is that it is history, and you'll see alot of history buffs (including myself) creating armies and are quite glad to see their imagination run wild in the miniature battlefield.

However, that being said, FoW is growing in popularity, and quite quickly I might add, and this is happening for many reasons. The main reason however is Games workshop with their,
1. Insane prices
2. Lack of care for Fan base
3. Selling Marinehammer (Opposed to what we thought warhammer 40k was.)
4. Broken rule sets for updated armies (Spam IG and BA need I say more?)

Those four mentioned are the main reasons I got into FoW, and I feel I've been seeing quite a few of 40k players making the switch because of same said reasons, so I think we're going to be seeing a lot of interesting army patterns (hell, modern Russian camo on ww2 Russian (IE the blue and white) would look sick!).

So I say, go at it! Have fun!

I once refused to play one guy who painted the stripes on his aerials too far from the end. Some people just take the piss.

George Spiggott wrote:I once refused to play one guy who painted the stripes on his aerials too far from the end. Some people just take the piss.

Oh my..

Avrik_Shasla wrote:To be frankly honest you might find a few players here and there who'd have a problem with it. A large thing that attracts player's to the game is that it is history, and you'll see alot of history buffs (including myself) creating armies and are quite glad to see their imagination run wild in the miniature battlefield.

However, that being said, FoW is growing in popularity, and quite quickly I might add, and this is happening for many reasons. The main reason however is Games workshop with their,
1. Insane prices
2. Lack of care for Fan base
3. Selling Marinehammer (Opposed to what we thought warhammer 40k was.)
4. Broken rule sets for updated armies (Spam IG and BA need I say more?)

Those four mentioned are the main reasons I got into FoW, and I feel I've been seeing quite a few of 40k players making the switch because of same said reasons, so I think we're going to be seeing a lot of interesting army patterns (hell, modern Russian camo on ww2 Russian (IE the blue and white) would look sick!).

So I say, go at it! Have fun!

These are close to the reasons why I left Warhammer 40k for Flames of War, but I don't think the perfusion of peoples own color chooses for armies will be scene in FoW with this growing player base. I think mainly because there are already pre-determined "right" colors for everything, unlike in fantasy or sci-fi games, which many people will follow.

Personally, I feel it is a sign of respect to those who fought in the war paint the tanks and uniforms in the colors they actually were, and not purple or bright red because the painter thinks it looks cool. Saying this, I would still play someone with an army painted in this manor, but they would likely be my last choose of opponent, as others have said.

I think the painting of an army in colors that are obviously non-historic may give the impression that the painter cares nothing about history to some players.

General Seric wrote:

These are close to the reasons why I left Warhammer 40k for Flames of War, but I don't think the perfusion of peoples own color chooses for armies will be scene in FoW with this growing player base. I think mainly because there are already pre-determined "right" colors for everything, unlike in fantasy or sci-fi games, which many people will follow.

Personally, I feel it is a sign of respect to those who fought in the war paint the tanks and uniforms in the colors they actually were, and not purple or bright red because the painter thinks it looks cool. Saying this, I would still play someone with an army painted in this manor, but they would likely be my last choose of opponent, as others have said.

I think the painting of an army in colors that are obviously non-historic may give the impression that the painter cares nothing about history to some players.

I have to salute you on your reasoning for painting your armies appropriately and that is why my Early war Germans I try to paint as meticulous and correctly as I can. I suppose on that note I would not have the same thought process in my opponent, mainly due to the fact that if I saw a twelve year old or even fourteen year old boy playing Flames of War, I'd be happy just to see that someone of that age is taking interest in WW2 instead of "SPHESS MAHREENS!" Haha

Ifurita wrote:This discussion raised another question in my mind. What about people who just paint poorly? It might be less noticable in WWII historics, but in the fantasy and sci-fi games, I've seen some truely horrible paint jobs. Would you rather play against well painted, but historically inaccurate figures, or against a horrible attempt at historical correctness?

Poor paint jobs that are an attempt at historical accuracy are at least a paint job. Not everyone is Golden Demon quality. Im sure not. I have a hard enough time finding time to get paint on models. But a total disregard for what colors are supposed to be on things, no matter how nicely done, is not an excuse.

Even when I played 40k I did not play or not play based on a poor/exellent paint job. I suppose it may just be my age, but if you are going to claim that I am fighting against a German army during WW2 I expect certian colors to be used. I am not so much a stickler for "correct" time frame. +/- 6 months on date of use is ok with me. I know people who wont play others unles they know month and year and anything outside that time frame is a no-no. I dont want my PzII going against JS3, that is out of bounds, but if my Panther is an A or D vs the same JS3 im ok with that.

Went to a convention recently, there was a FOW comp, saw a German eastern front army vs a Brit desert force.

Takes all sorts I suppose.

If someone turned up at my club and asked to do that, I'd say "No thanks"

Aldramelech wrote:Went to a convention recently, there was a FOW comp, saw a German eastern front army vs a Brit desert force.

Takes all sorts I suppose.

If someone turned up at my club and asked to do that, I'd say "No thanks"

Just out of curiosity, I'm curious what exactly your objection is. I mean, are you opposed to playing out any non-historical matchups? If someone shows up with Late War Americans and wants to play a match against your (hypothetical) Late War Russians, would you say no based solely upon the fact that those forces never faced each other? Or are you unhappy with people taking a bunch of models painted for one theater and using them to represent a force in another theater, for example if I took some US Airborne forces painted for Normandy and used them to play a Mid War game (I mean there were US paratroopers in Mid War battles, they just look slightly different, you even use the same models to represent them in FoW). Just trying to get a handle on the level of accuracy people typically look for.

I have to be honest, I'm with Rooneg on this one. I've never understood going to extremes, at the end of the day it's model soldiers.

Equally I don't understand Historical Re-enactment, watching some 21st fat-boy in an 82nd Airborne uniform isn't only an anathema to me, but it's a gross insult to the fitness and combat prowess, sacrifice and integrity of a unit that had to train damn hard to be awarded their uniforms, rank and insignia. It cheapen's the war and the sacrifice.

I had a long discussion with an American Officer buddy about this whilst I was in Iraq and he agreed. He actually said something odd that has stuck with me for a long time. "Do you think after we are old men and gone, future generations will build Cardboard towers, and fly model planes into them. Then half will be in Middle Eastern Dress, the other half coalition and then they will shoot at each other with blank firing Ak47's and M4".

I laughed so hard I nearly passed kidney.

mwnciboo wrote:I had a long discussion with an American Officer buddy about this whilst I was in Iraq and he agreed. He actually said something odd that has stuck with me for a long time. "Do you think after we are old men and gone, future generations will build Cardboard towers, and fly model planes into them. Then half will be in Middle Eastern Dress, the other half coalition and then they will shoot at each other with blank firing Ak47's and M4".

No it's much more likely that they'll be forgotten entirely. When was the last time you saw Korean war or Spanish Civil war reinactors? There's no joy in that but I believe it will be true.

@ Aldramelech: Are you being ironic?

George Spiggott wrote:

mwnciboo wrote:I had a long discussion with an American Officer buddy about this whilst I was in Iraq and he agreed. He actually said something odd that has stuck with me for a long time. "Do you think after we are old men and gone, future generations will build Cardboard towers, and fly model planes into them. Then half will be in Middle Eastern Dress, the other half coalition and then they will shoot at each other with blank firing Ak47's and M4".

No it's much more likely that they'll be forgotten entirely. When was the last time you saw Korean war or Spanish Civil war reinactors? There's no joy in that but I believe it will be true.

@ Aldramelech: Are you being ironic?

Nope.

Clash of culture I suppose. A lot of you guys are ex GW types and play in shops, you hang around in the shop and if someone comes in with an army and wants a game you play them. Many of you play in comps and quite a few of you are always looking for the perfect list for that, witness the huge amount of "Will this army be competitive" threads here.

This is anathema to me.

I am the product of the good old fashioned Historical Wargames Club. In this environment history is King, games are planed in meticulous detail and have nothing to do with "will this work" but rather "was that there". Now we play "fun" games too, I'm doing armies for SAGA atm and nobody could accuse that of being a serious historical game but when we do play "historical" it had damned well better be right. Flames of war is not the best set of rules for WW2 by any stretch of the imagination, but the basic system is quick to play in an evening and easy to transport, we tend to ignore the lists and points values and play with realistic forces. Balanced? Maybe not from a comp point of view but far more fun and satisfying from our point of view.

To the typical Historical club wargaming is about recreating history and the history is as important as the game, we are not a small group and there are thousands of traditional groups just like us all over the country and after 25 years of historical gaming I can say with some experience that someone with bright red tanks wouldn't be popular at many of them.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

rooneg wrote:

Aldramelech wrote:Went to a convention recently, there was a FOW comp, saw a German eastern front army vs a Brit desert force.

Takes all sorts I suppose.

If someone turned up at my club and asked to do that, I'd say "No thanks"

Just out of curiosity, I'm curious what exactly your objection is. I mean, are you opposed to playing out any non-historical matchups? If someone shows up with Late War Americans and wants to play a match against your (hypothetical) Late War Russians, would you say no based solely upon the fact that those forces never faced each other? Or are you unhappy with people taking a bunch of models painted for one theater and using them to represent a force in another theater, for example if I took some US Airborne forces painted for Normandy and used them to play a Mid War game (I mean there were US paratroopers in Mid War battles, they just look slightly different, you even use the same models to represent them in FoW). Just trying to get a handle on the level of accuracy people typically look for.

No I would not play late war American vs late war Russian, but again we have the culture thing, people do not just turn up with random armies to a club setting, things are far more organised and planed in the club environment. And when I say planned I'm not just talking about the game itself for that night, I'm talking about people sitting down and planning what to buy for a particular period in co-operation with other members of the group, so this wouldn't happen. The group would decide on the period to be played and people would buy the appropriate army's for it.

My group is actually fairly laid back compared to some, try turning up at some clubs with Napoleonic French Hussars with the wrong coloured shako cords

Aldramelech wrote:Nope.

Clash of culture I suppose. A lot of you guys are ex GW types and play in shops, you hang around in the shop and if someone comes in with an army and wants a game you play them. Many of you play in comps and quite a few of you are always looking for the perfect list for that, witness the huge amount of "Will this army be competitive" threads here.

Right, so it's actually FoW's 'pick up game' that is anathema to you. I think you could probably come up with something decent for a 'what if the Western Allies and the Soviet Union fall out over Turkey' scenario that would put the two armies you describe in conflict with each other.

I'm rather a fan of coming up with ad-hoc reasons to fight in Flames of War. It's all part of the fun. I used to do the same thing back when I played 40k. Each to their own.

I guess as long as everyone is in synch regarding expectations, then you're all good.

Ifurita wrote:I guess as long as everyone is in synch regarding expectations, then you're all good.

As with almost everything in life communication is key, make shore everyone involved knows the game plan before hand.

Aldramelech wrote:Went to a convention recently, there was a FOW comp, saw a German eastern front army vs a Brit desert force.

Takes all sorts I suppose.

If someone turned up at my club and asked to do that, I'd say "No thanks"

I probably wouldn't be too bothered with that (maybe the army in the East fought its way down to Egypt?), but I would always prefer something more like a historical match-up. I would anticipate that that sort of thing will increasingly become the norm in FoW if it continues to grow in poularity. And you'll see the same issues that plague WH40k, as people bring the attitudes from that game to FoW. For instance, I bet there is already an imbalance in favour of German armies, and (if it doesn't happen already) you'll see games with the Germans on both sides.

I got into WH40k from historical wargaming, and have always struggled with the things that many players do. The major issue for me has always been the disregard for the background and miniatures that (to me) are the essential reasons for playing a tabletop wargame rather than a boardgame or something more abstract. In the case of FoW, it seems to me that if someone don't care enough about the historical background and appearance of the models to make them look at least vaguely correct, then they're probably playing the wrong game.

I know that World War Two was a real event with real people dying, but some of the attitudes displayed here sound a lot like snobbery to me. In the end this is a game of plastic men and anybody getting worked up over it needs to look themselves in the eye and ask why a grown man/woman or even a teenager is at all upset by how somebody painted a bunch of models. Being a grognard who slaves over exact paint schemes and decals isn't doing anybody any favors.

I was considering getting into this game once college stops draining all my spare cash, but if the community near me has people like Aldramelech I'll pass. I'd much rather not spend money on a hobby that will force me to rub elbows with history snobs.

Just as well then because I'd rather not rub shoulders with people who don't take the hobby seriously. A large part of historical wargaming for the vast majority of historical gamers is, wait for it................ HISTORY.

If history is not your thing, if your not interested in researching your chosen period and getting your miniatures right then I would suggest 40k, Warmachine, Secrets of the Third Reich and the host of many fine games out there that allow your imagination run riot.

I spend alot of money and time on my hobby and so do the people I game with and we expect certain standards at our club.

I don't play against people with unpainted figures either, so now you can call me a painting snob as well if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.