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At long last, the first proper Western Front Flames of War Version 3 source book is here! Additionally, Battlefront finally dives in to the Bulge, moving their Late War timeline further forward. Blood Guts and Glory primarily focuses on Patton's 3rd Army's marauding across the French country side after the Breakout, and the German Feldharnhalle forces thrown together to slow their advance.

Blood, Guts and Glory Review!

Awesome. I'm sure Will's going to have a hell of a time keeping up with the demand for his Panther boxes! I know I'll be buying at least a couple.

When can we expect the first BG&G batrep from you guys, if you don't mind me asking?

infinite_array wrote:Awesome. I'm sure Will's going to have a hell of a time keeping up with the demand for his Panther boxes! I know I'll be buying at least a couple.

When can we expect the first BG&G batrep from you guys, if you don't mind me asking?

This week!

OMG, I must get this if I understand correctly that there is alot of tank love.

Warlord Imp wrote:OMG, I must get this if I understand correctly that there is alot of tank love.

The US Tank Love is off the chain. They get all the cool stuff now -- Easy 8s, Jumbos, the whole nine yards.

DirtyJon wrote:

Warlord Imp wrote:OMG, I must get this if I understand correctly that there is alot of tank love.

The US Tank Love is off the chain. They get all the cool stuff now -- Easy 8s, Jumbos, the whole nine yards.

and reduced points for Shermans!

I will say one thing, these American lists will force me to re-evaluate my non BGG German lists. Previously I was thinking that I might just have the odd IS-2 or maybe Churchhill to deal with. Now, with Americans getting Jumbo armor, and with Jumbos Leading the Way, I'm going to have to factor in something that can handle that level of armor.

I mean, there is no point in taking PaK 40s to shoot Shermans if the first hit from a PaK is going to be discounted by bouncing off the front of a Jumbo. Couple the increased to hit from Vets and now lowly basic Shermans just got much more surviveable.

Tigers and 88s aren't going to do it either, as at 13 at range will do squat. Panthers will barely get it done, unless you are running FHH and have multiple units of them. (Oh, and I think we need a concerted campaign to petition PSC for IV/70s!).

I'm thinking people are going to be seeing alot more jagpanthers, hornise, or single King Tigers from non-BGG lists that can take them. It is at least something people will have to consider. I know I read this and immediately went to my Cassino book to see how I could go about swaping my StuGs from my FJ for Hornisee.

Shotgun wrote:I will say one thing, these American lists will force me to re-evaluate my non BGG German lists. Previously I was thinking that I might just have the odd IS-2 or maybe Churchhill to deal with. Now, with Americans getting Jumbo armor, and with Jumbos Leading the Way, I'm going to have to factor in something that can handle that level of armor.

I mean, there is no point in taking PaK 40s to shoot Shermans if the first hit from a PaK is going to be discounted by bouncing off the front of a Jumbo. Couple the increased to hit from Vets and now lowly basic Shermans just got much more surviveable.

Tigers and 88s aren't going to do it either, as at 13 at range will do squat. Panthers will barely get it done, unless you are running FHH and have multiple units of them. (Oh, and I think we need a concerted campaign to petition PSC for IV/70s!).

I'm thinking people are going to be seeing alot more jagpanthers, hornise, or single King Tigers from non-BGG lists that can take them. It is at least something people will have to consider. I know I read this and immediately went to my Cassino book to see how I could go about swaping my StuGs from my FJ for Hornisee.

I had the same discussion with a buddy of mine just a few minutes ago. He pointed out that while the first hit will go on the Jumbo, the tanks behind it will also still get hit, assuming you have more than 1 hit obviously. You'll likely be breaking the platoon through morale as the other Shermans are still FA 7. I'll find out this weekend when him and I proxy a game with Jumbos and Easy Eights.

Good luck breaking it through shooting though.

Assume 2 ROF 3 88s at greater than 16" range against now Vet Shermans with a Jumbo.

6 shots needing 5s to hit....2 hits.

1 hit on Jumbo. At 16"+ this can't hurt the front. Can't even bail.

The other one needs a 5 to bail, 6 to pen. 3+ firepower and its like a 10% chance that 6 88 shots at 16+ inches will pen -one- Sherman. Yer better off loading the Pioneers with flamethrowers to kill defensive fire and assualting.

In fact, I don't think I will bother shooting at anything Vet with a Jumbo and I'll just throw pioneers at them. Trained I will probably still shoot at.

I assume that you can still pick out the other Shermans with the 'Gun Tank' rule.

I picked up BGG last night and read it through last night and today.
Sold the book today at a loss to someone who wanted it more and used the money to buy the new cobblestone streets.

I had toyed with playing a US Tank force and really think the book is pretty neat.
The problem I have is the increased complexity it introduces having multiple tank types in a single platoon.
Some have higher front armor, some have 76mm guns, some have better engines, some have duckbill treads.
All very cool options but I don't want to have that much variability in a platoon.
I see if leading to difficulty in tracking AND a bunch of arguing within our local group while people try to apply/ignore this or that special effect.

Overall, I think BGG is a swell book with usual high production values and really neat concepts (the mini-campaign was esp. cool).
I just think it would be more pain to play than it would be worth, in my particular pool of players.

Panthers are key, but they're also vulnerable.

Also, remember that you can gun tank any hits onto the 76mm tanks on a 5+.

The Jumbos make Sherman platoons much more survivable, and can make the previously vulnerable Veteran Shermans drastically more survivable. Then the AT 13 is pretty much like having nothing but fireflies shooting at you with full RoF all the time.

Oh, and the CO or 2iC can also take a Jumbo and attach to a platoon that's being shot, meaning he can take a second hit.

However, one turn of above average shooting rolls and gun tanks will still wipe a Sherman Platoon, even these new fangled variants.

One thing is sure though, the Panzer IVs don't cut it anymore, and rely on stormtrooper to get out of LoS entirely.

Got this month's Wargames Illustrated and the book seems pretty interesting. As a LW US player as well certainly seems like some interesting options there.

But, TBH I've found that mid-war seems to be by far the most popular (and perhaps even liked) in my club, to the point that I would rather pick up a new 1500pt Panzergrenadier force using mostly PSC stuff than a list from this book.

George Spiggott wrote:I assume that you can still pick out the other Shermans with the 'Gun Tank' rule.

Not so much. Since the first hits can always be allocated to Jumbos it basically negates the Gun Tank rule.

IDK if Jumbos still have the rule where they are identical to regular shermans for the purposes of the Gun Tank rule like they had in MM. If they do then its basically impossable to pick out the regular shermans and make the platoon run unless you get 5+ hits.

Jumbos Lead the Way only states that they may be allocated hits as though they were weakest armor in the platoon.

The gun tank rule supersedes most other allocation rules, including armor allocation rules.

I'm going to need a few boxes of PSC panzer IV and panthers (and hell might as well get some StuG boxes (StuG G)) so I can field the German armor horde lists. If/when they get around to doing M18s I might run a US tank destroyer company as well! This is kind of making me regret starting FoW with a FJ list... so much infantry to paint ><