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Hi Dakka folks,

Just a quick question if someone has a copy of the Armies of Germany book and is willing to help. I recently got a Flammpanzer half track from Warlord Games (http://store.warlordgames.com/collections/german-army/products/sd-kfz-251-16-flammpanzerwagen).

The kicker is that I didn't order the Armies of Germany rulebook and so I'm short of info about the vehicle. I'm planning to get the book but it won't make it until at least a few weeks after Christmas i suspect.

Is there anyone out there who is willing to help me with some rules so I can get burning during the Christmas season against my buddy's Russians? What I need are the points costs from the army book. I have the stats of the vehicle but can't find the right points values anywhere. I don't want to have a list that's over the limit for games.

If you are willing and able to help, I'd appreciate a PM. If not, I understand and I'll muddle through with an approximate cost until I get the book.

Thanks in advance

Pete :-)

Hi Pete,
i'll have a look for you once i get home and get a look at the book, should be in about an hour or so.

Cheers
Lewis

Thanks Lewis. I really appreciate it.

The Bolt Action community has been really great so far, which is just one more good thing about this game :-)

Pete

OK so I've just got in.
The points values are:
Inexperienced:132points
Regular:165points
Veteran:198points
It has two forward facing flame throwers and a pintle-mounted machine gun covering the forward arc. Its armour value is 7+
And you can add a rear facing machine gun for an additional 15points.

Yeah I've found the community withing the game to be really friendly and helpful.

Lewis

And it's Open Topped (as if infantry are going to get within 100 yards of that beast)...

Sorry, i forgot to put that it was open topped

Idk about other people that have played against this vehicle, but uh... feth it! Feth it long and feth it hard!

I've never played against any vehicle mounted flame throwers, but from reading about them they seem really nasty!
2d6 instant hits at 18inch range and plus 3 penetration is going to seriously ruin somebody's day.

You guys are awesome and I thank you kindly for the info.

I'm looking forward to the burning side of things. I'm sure my gaming buddy will hate to play against it, though he's going to have some Soviet artillery trying to bring it down :-)

Pete

Not a problem Pete glad to help.

Lewis

jonesy92 wrote:I've never played against any vehicle mounted flame throwers, but from reading about them they seem really nasty!
2d6 instant hits at 18inch range and plus 3 penetration is going to seriously ruin somebody's day.

Little Pete wrote:You guys are awesome and I thank you kindly for the info.

I'm looking forward to the burning side of things. I'm sure my gaming buddy will hate to play against it, though he's going to have some Soviet artillery trying to bring it down :-)

Pete

Not to dissaude you from using it, because they are, what I would consider, on the verge of being broken. Several other people don't agree with me on this fact, but they've got a huge leg up on regular old infantry mounted flamethrowers beyond just the extra d6 and penetration.
1) Extra d6 is nasty, especially considering that there are 2 flamethrowers per Flammpanzer, so that's 4d6 to 1 unit, of 2d6 to 2 units. The fact that it auto-hits means that you're not penalized for moving (but that's okay, you are basically just moving up the battlefield throwing out some flame
2) Effective Range of 27 inches because you can move 9 inches with the vehicle and still fire out your full 18 inches
3) Ignores cover. In a game that absolutely needs cover to not make everything just die, flamethrowers can easily be king, and the vehicle mounted version more so because it ignores cover from so much farther away
4) D3+1 Pin Markers are a huge advantage against infantry. I'm not sure how much Bolt Action you've played, but as soon as you get 3-4 pin markers on something, you can pretty much lock it down for an entire game. The pin markers on the VHF are fantastic because of the next point
5) Immediate Morale Check to stay on the board. As soon as you hit (oh yay it's auto hit!), and thus cause pin markers, the unit hit by flamethrower must make a morale check with those new d3+1 pin markers, to stay on the board. If they fail, they are immediately removed from the board and flee in terror. It doesn't matter how many models are wounded/killed by the flamethrower, the rest of the unit sees it and head for the hills.
6) Running out of Fuel: It's very rare that they'll run out of fuel for not just 1 flamethrower, but for both flamethrowers, so even if you happen to be unlucky and run out of fuel for one flamethrower, you've still got a backup and you don't lose any effectiveness for having half the working number of flamethrowers
7) Hard to kill. Because of their range and inability to ignore cover, it's very tough to get something within range to kill the Flammpanzer, with the exception of another tank. Most tanks that are worth their salt are already worth more than your tank, and you have very little reason to anything beyond an Inexperienced tank crew anyways.

Play it against your friend, but ask him what he thought of it, if he thinks it's too powerful, I suggest shelving it with the exception of tournaments.

Seems like an anti tank unit or HMG on ambush could wreck it pretty easily, though?

Haven't played with any flamethrowers yet, just been running 400-600 point demos.

There are a few ways of dealing with it, small arms such as riffles lmg's smg's etc can pin it. Indirect fire weapons are good against it, if you hit you add plus 1 to the penetration value and then plus 1 to the damage result. And then there's just shooting an AT gun at it most are going to penetrate quite easily, once a vehicle is pinned it then needs to take a test as normal however if it fails and it has any visible enemy in the front arc it must make a reverse move backwards and then go down.

Lewis

judgedoug wrote:Seems like an anti tank unit or HMG on ambush could wreck it pretty easily, though?

Haven't played with any flamethrowers yet, just been running 400-600 point demos.

My buddy and I played for a solid few months, we would try new things as we were learning the game, he took an Inexperienced Flammpanzer, Turn 1, he hid it out of range and line of sight of my anti-tank. Turn 2, he drove it 9 inches up the board and hit a unit. I lost everyone but 2 guys, and made my morale roll. Hit it, put a pin marker on it, and missed with my AT (dem's da breaks). Turn 3 he makes his order check, moves forward and wipes out the 2 guys from the previous turn with his machine gun, and then proceeds to wipe out an mmg unit, and another infantry squad (I did fail my roll on that, but the 3 guys left in that unit wouldn't have made it to turn 4). Man mounted flamethrowers aren't bad because the damage is less, you can pick them out with a precise shot, and they are slower. I've got no issue with them.

jonesy92 wrote:There are a few ways of dealing with it, small arms such as riffles lmg's smg's etc can pin it. Indirect fire weapons are good against it, if you hit you add plus 1 to the penetration value and then plus 1 to the damage result. And then there's just shooting an AT gun at it most are going to penetrate quite easily, once a vehicle is pinned it then needs to take a test as normal however if it fails and it has any visible enemy in the front arc it must make a reverse move backwards and then go down.

Lewis

Indirect Fire is great... but you have to roll a 6 to hit. Small arms is a better way to to start pinning them down, and if you can get them down for a few turns, then you might actually start to damage the tank.

Experiences can shape opinions, I, and other people I've talked to, have had issues with vehicle mounted flamethrowers and feel they're too powerful for what they can do, my local play scene doesn't use them, but if any of us go to other stores or tournaments we expect them. Like I said earlier, the OP can play them, but I suggest he ask his buddy how he felt based on their performance of the game. *shrugs* everyone plays their different game differently.

Thanks for the feedback. It does look like it'll be a very powerful unit on the table and I will post up my thoughts once I've had a chance to play it a few times. The Russians will be bringing an SU-76, a Zis-3 76mm gun, a medium mortar and an anti tank rifle to the table along with troops. The germans will have troops, an MMG MG-42, the flame half track and a command half track (20mm or 37mm light AT).

I agree with you that a lot of things with the vehicle flamers are very powerful. In particular their range is high and being able to single out a unit for destruction (no hit roll, no cover, pinning, kills and morale check). Perhaps just dropping the range down to 12" would help them a bit.

My feeling for Bolt Action is that I'd like to bump up the range of all projectile weapons by 6" just to give them a bit more flexibility. I hate that moving into range for submachine guns immediately opens me up to an assault without risk of failure (like in GW games with more random charges). We're going to play a few more games before this but it's my feeling at the moment.

Hi folks,

Well I got in my first game with the Flammpanzerwagen and the report with pictures is on my blog below.

http://ghostnebulae.blogspot.sk/2014/01/flamethrowers-and-tanks-reinforcements.html

For those who want to know how it did with it's first shots of the game...



After that I fluffed a move, leaving me just out of range and it got taken out but had I been a bit closer I think it would have rolled up the Russians. It's powerful but I want a few more games before I make a final judgement on it.

Pete :-)