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I think I decided to run the 11th Armoured Division, so we'll see how that goes. I can definitely see running it in higher points games, because my standard Combat Platoons can take 2 sherman V tanks and 2 Firefly VC tanks.... I can leave half the platoon behind and have some good defensive fire

Any tipps for her fighting me?

Well, first off, she needs to use something that can launch smoke, like just a pair of 8cm mortars (2 tubes only) which is cheap and can effectively negate your semi-indirect fire ability. Secondly, as others have said, the Stormtrooper move is a must for the StuG's as they should be sniping at-range from concealing terrain. This would allow the StuG's some protection from reciprocating fire from your Firefly's.

Thirdly, yes, the gun-tank rule can pick-out those pesky Firefly's (on a 5+) so that they take the weight of fire to nullify them.

Her Beute (looted) assault guns (Italian Semovente 75/34's) may need to be replaced by some medium mortars (8cm's) and some upgrades to the infantry like faust teams if they are not already equipped. HQ may be able to be upgraded for a Panzershreck team or two where it can be combat-attached to an infantry platoon.

The infantry need to dig-in and go GtG (Gone-toGround) near the objective preferably; this makes it harder to hit them at-range and they have bulletproof cover forcing you to make firepower tests to dig them out if a team fails its save. The PaK40 AT guns should also be doing the same thing but supporting the infantry in possible tank-assault situations. This forces you to close-range to accurately hit them, but by doing so, may allow the PaK40's to open-up if need be.

So, the battle-plan for her would be;

Dig-in infantry and ATG's near objectives.
Mortars smoke a threatening tank platoon, forcing it to move or just sit there with a limited 16" range.
StuG's snipe from cover, using their Stormtrooper move to duck back out of LOS.

This forces you to close and try to shift the infantry off the objective but they will be supported by the rest of her forces so you'd have to scrap your way through them.

Just some ideas from looking at the lists you posted earlier....

Always dig in infantry if they aren't going anywhere. If they are holding ground, dig in. Basically if your infantry aren't doing anything "Dig in".

Don't shoot if the chance of you doing damage is less than 50%, because you lose Gone to Ground. This means you might kill one - two stands of enemy but everything can now shoot at you. However if you wait they will be closer, and you take them under more effective fire before you expose yourself.

Lessons in FOW are hard won, and nothing beats playing games. I would recommend finding someone in your area who is a decent player to teach you, because you will find you learn the rules badly if you try and self teach (it is possible but you start bad habits that are difficult to break).

Thanks for the tactics i will tell her what she has to do to improve.

Unfortunately the only way for meeting more experienced FoW players is to play at a store. I dont like that tbh. We have our own private ~20-30 people gaming club and there is no one that played FoW before. But we are quite experienced wargamers nonetheless so i think we will get it on our own (although it will take some time). We had to learn several games from scratch (SoBaH, Dystopian Wars, Warmahordes etc pp.) and most were hard at the beginning but we always wrapped our heads around it

I will try to play at least 1 or 2 games of FoW each week in the near future to get those rules into my head an learn how each unit is used and interacts on the table . At the moment i just try out my units and do things with them i assume no experienced player would do just to see what happens and learn from it. What i can say so far is that FoW has the potential to become my favourite go to game for club nights together with dystopian wars which was my favourite so far.

Yesterday i finished my stuart platoon and so my first 1500pts army is fully painted and ready to kick ass on the battlefield

Here is an action shot of my us paras in a somewhat battle damaged *cough* wood and one pic of a sherman platoon. Unfortunately i didnt take other pictures of the game . Also when i look at the pictures i see that i have to make some objective and dug-in markers for my army ... these cards are awful

Played my first real game last night, it was 1500 points of the 11th armoured division vs a Grenadier company.

It consisted of 2 Grenadier Platoons, a platoon of 88s (big large guns that could shred my tanks), Brombards, a platoon of anti-aircraft trucks 2 small ones and 1 big one, a platoon of these little guns with 16 inch range that could shred tanks as well, 2 machine gun nests, trenches, and barbed wire.

It was a basic 2 objective game (or is it 4 objectives), where we had to defend one of our own objectives while trying to cross the board and prevent him from getting to his objective. After deployment, I had first turn. So I split my firefly off from my 1 Sherman platoon on the board, which moved up with my 1iC and 2iC. The infantry platoon started moving through town, clearing buildings they came across. The firefly and one of my shermans took a pot shot at the big 88s, and failed to do anything. the 1iC and Sherman Platoon Commander shot at those little guns (330s?) and killed the commander and one of the guns. The remaining gun stayed there.

His turn 1 he gets 1 reserves and brings his other infantry platoon on the board and sets them up behind the trenches. takes a shot with his 88 and wrecks a regular sherman.

Turn 2, I get nothing again, though I do get 3 planes to come on the board, I move the tanks forward out of most of line of sight (granting me some cover) and shoot with everything at his big guns again, and fail to do anything. My infantry move forward, clearing buildings. I'm taking it kind of slow and cautious since I don't have anything on the board. The plane shoots its rockets and manages to kill one or two infantry bases.

He rolls for reserve and gets 1 more thing to come on the board, and brings his anti-aircraft trucks on over by my objective (where he has the big guns, an infantry platoon, and his company HQ). He shoots, but fails to kill anything.

Turn 3, I fail my reserves, but get one thing to come on anyways and I get three planes again. I bring on my Stuart Jalopies and zip them forward most of the way across the board, hiding them behind a house, a church, and a train station. I move the infantry forward, they're on his side of the table, and looking to get close to his entrenched company protecting his objective. The tanks move around out into the open, and unload with everything they have onto his big 88s. I score like 5 or 6 hits, and wipe the platoon (yay ). My rifle platoon takes some pot shots at his entrenched infantry, and does nothing but pin them down. My plane comes in and takes out 2 infantry bases on the left (his objective) infantry company.

He brings his Brombars on, and finally has everything on the board (besides what I've killed). He then moves his trucks around, and starts moving some of his panzerschreck teams foward into corn and buildings, leaving the safety of the trenches on the right side. His turn ends without being able to do much (he's low on fire power, and can't get good LoS to my stuff).

Turn 4, I roll for reserves, and get 2 platoons to come on and three more planes (wtf?!) So I bring my other tank platoons on the board giving my fireflies a good line of sight to his brombars. The infantry move into a church and a building nearby, the jalopies move around getting shots on to the left infantry platoon. The tanks move out into the open, and take aim on his trucks. I only manage to kill one of them. The planes, infantry, and jalopies fail to do anything this turn (the planes were all shot out of the sky D.

He moves his brombars around, blowing up the church two of my infantry bases were in, he moves his infantry into the church, keeping some behind in the trenches. The Panzershreck team moves out into the open and kills my 1iC.

Turn 5, I get 3 more planes (my opponent can't believe my dice this game) and place them where they were last time. My opponent said it was lucky that he shot them all down last time. My firefly that hasn't moved all game takes a shot at his brombar that he hid behind a building (but leaving a good quarter of the tank exposed to my firefly) shoots, blows it up. my Shermans move around so they can get shots on some of the other brombars. The firefly in one of them shoots, kills it, leaving my 2iC and the Platoon Commander that's been on the board without much to do, but leaving them in the open ). The jalopies fire on to the church ruins and the trenches and they kill 1 base. the PIAT team takes a shot at a brombar and misses. The planes come in, 1 of them survives the AA fire, and blows up the AA truck.

He moves a brombar in between these two tight, narrow buildings (just big enough for his brombar to sit in). The panzerschreck team fires onto my Sherman Platoon commander and fails to kill him the Brombar fires on my 2iC and bails him out, and the Panzerschreck team fails to hit him. His infantry move up, assault out of the church and into my jalopy. My defensive fire from surrounding units kills 1, but his panzershrecks his way into a blown up jalopy. I make my skill check to continue the fight, and assault him with a tank, my mortar team, 2 rifle teams, the piat team, and a sherman that was involved. Wiping the rest of the platoon.

Turn 6, I don't get any planes this turn, but I move my Stuarts double time around his defenses and come within the 4 inches to claim his objective. The remaining tanks that I have move forward and set up defenses so he can't come within 6 inches of the objective. At this point he calls the game because he can't get defend it, and I would win anyways.

I had fun, I definitely liked the 11th armoured division, but I did learn a few things.
1) Always keep an even number of platoons in your army. This helps with having boots on the ground, and giving some firepower to start the game off with.
2) Always keep even numbers of bases/tanks/what have you in your platoons. That way you won't get screwed on morale checks (another good reason to split that firefly off )
3) Storm trooper is still cheesy, but I can see why they get it.

Really good summary. What would you say was your favourite unit you used in that game and what was your biggest concern in your opponents arsenal?

I played a 1000pt game the other day against a v3 german grenadier list with 2xpak40 1x8.8 some heavy machine guns some tanks (dont remember) and the obligatory infantry. I was slaughtered because i failed to take out his machine gunners in a building and was forced in a defensive position allowing him to surround me and take me out without much i could do against it. The paks and the 8.8 chew like can openers through my armor and the heavy machine gunners forced my infantry to dug in in a suboptimal position.

At the moment i think about switching to the 11th armoured from the v3 forces list. Simply because they are veterans which gives a lot more survivability against these pesky Gun teams.

I learned how hard dug in gone to ground veteran infantry is. Only being able to shoot at them on short range suddenly made me understand how powerful recce platoons can be.

My favorite unit was my tanks, they performed amazingly well, and except for the end of the game, I never presented much of a target for my opponent. My biggest concern in my opponent's arsenal was all of the various big guns that could shred my tanks (his little 330s once I got close, the big 88s, and the brombars). Because without my tanks I had planes jalopies and an infantry platoon, which weren't much even though in the end my infantry and jalopies allowed me to win the game (infantry cleared out his infantry, allowing the jalopies to double time it over to the objective).

The 11th armoured is nice, I definitely like the fact they're vets and could see using them against Germans simply to even the playing field a bit, but we'll see... the v3 forces might not be too bad to run when playing against trained forces.

So with the release of Market Garden, it seems (and I'm sorry that I'm coming a little late to the game on this), my 11th Armoured Division was split off from the Guards Armoured Division...

I liked the abilities that Guards gives me, but the 11th fits in with what I own.

Can someone tell me how do Cromwells compare to Shermans? I'd like it if I didn't have to completely rebuy everything I own just to fit the list... Currently my 1500 point list looks like this:

Armoured Platoon HQ - 2 Shermans = 160
Armooured Platoon - 2 Shermans, 1 Firefly w/.50Cal = 300
Armooured Platoon - 2 Shermans, 1 Firefly w/.50Cal = 300
Armooured Platoon - 2 Shermans, 1 Firefly w/.50Cal = 300
Parachute Rifle Platoon (82nd) - Cmd Rifle/MG team, Bazooka team, M2 60mm mortar, 6 Rifle/MG team =265
Limited Typhoon Support = 170

Total: 1495

I'm looking to add more to this so I can play in larger games... But I'm not sure where I should add more...

Is this a solid list? The last Flames of War game I played was a huge battle where I was told that Shermans are only good when you swarm them, and with 14 some Shermans on the board, I was finding myself incapable of moving well and hiding my tanks and I ended up losing half of them to a few Martyrs...


Edit: I'm apparently blind I must have misclicked when I thought I was clicking Guards Armoured Division... because all my stuff has shermans as an option now.

Hi and welcome

Cromwell tanks are faster than shermans and have protected ammo (reroll bails) but as such more expensive.

If you go for British shermans you would benefit from some recon to help stop any ambush's and I think 2 infantry platoons is excessive. I'd think of...

Hq 2 shermans .5cal
2 shermans and 2 fireflies .5cal
2 shermans and 2 fireflies .5cal
3 shermans and 1 fireflies .5cal
Pioneer platoon
Scout platoon (3 universal carriers)
Typhoon
- though I may consider dropping the typhoon for infantry or artillery imho

The biggest thing I'm looking at is where to go from here...

The list you see in my post uses the models I currently own (Open Fire Brits, 2 Shermans + 1 Firefly, and 1 Typhoon).

I've played Flames of War 5 times, and the fifth time was a royal pain in the butt because I was playing with the WAAC veterans of the store instead of with people that are more to my FoW skill level.

So I'm not sure where to go. I like running my Armoured Platoons with 2 Shermans and 1 Firefly. I can certainly see the appeal of adding a second Firefly to each platoon, but just adding those would cost me about 36.50 (after my flgs's discount). Assuming I don't buy those fireflies, what is my list missing? I'd almost want to drop the Parachute Platoon because of how expensive they are points-wise and pick up a regular rifle platoon.

Definately get a rifle platoon, the Airborne are an allied platoon and are extremely expensive. A PBI platoon would do nearly the same job for 1/2rd of the cost.

The reason why armoured platoons work better in 4s is that you need to cause over 50% casualties to force a morale check, in other words a 4 strong platoon needs to suffer 3 casualties while a 3 strong platoon needs to suffer 2. The extra hull is obviously useful as well, especially if it has a 17 pounder. For the extra Fireflies Ebay and PSC (although be extremely careful with the barrels) should save you some money.

.50 cals are pretty much worthless; if you fire them you become top armour 0 and while it does give you some anti infantry capability its not exactly impressive. They are also unlikely to actually shoot down attacking aircraft. British armour rarely kept the .50 cal in reality and I don't see any real reason to use them in FoW.

Your list really needs some recce; artillery and more tanks would also be useful but its up to you really.

I'm looking at picking up the 5 Stuart IV (or is it VI?) squad for the Guards. I did pick up Market Garden and a unit of Universal Carriers from my FLGS on Friday.

My hesitation on artillery is that it's really expensive pointswise and unless I'm putting lots of artillery into my list, it doesn't really seem "worth it" I have no problem adding more tanks, just gotta find a "cheap" alternative. I will probably go to eBay for those, as I checked out PSC, and I believe that with currency exchange and shipping, Battlefront might actually be cheaper (will check again of course).

I will look (at the moment) to picking up the Stuarts, and filling out my tanks. Granted I want to actually play a few more games before I dive whole hog into this game

Thanks for the help everyone

Got to talk with some of the Battlefront guys at AdeptiCon, bounced some quick ideas off of them. Picked up a Stuart VI platoon to add to my brits.

And since there was a Firefly sprue in the swag bags, I manged to wheel and deal my way into getting the last 3 fireflies I needed. (though 2 Shermans and 2 Fireflies would fill out my combat platoons nicely )

Played a game this weekend with a buddy. 1750 points, no air support, and I ran the following list:

Armoured Squadron HQ (Guards)
2 Sherman V
Combat Platoons
Armoured Platoon (Guards)
1 Sherman V
1 Sherman V with .50 cal AA MG
2 Firefly VC (late)
Armoured Platoon (Guards)
1 Sherman V
1 Sherman V with .50 cal AA MG
2 Firefly VC (late)
Armoured Platoon (Guards)
1 Sherman V
1 Sherman V with .50 cal AA MG
2 Firefly VC (late)
Weapons Platoon
Recce Patrol (Guards)
3 Stuart VI
Column Platoon (Guards)
3 Universal Carriers

The game went pretty well, I can definitely see how swarming my tanks led to a pretty solid result, I did get hammered with some bad placement of my tanks, and ended up losing as my army ran off the board .

Had fun, need to get them more painted and ready to go sorry for lack of details it was a long weekend, and this game was one of the many things that happened.

Thanks for the advice guys! Definitely like what I've got here

Thanks to Dakkanaut, Kanluwen, I now find myself with the pieces of 2 armies instead of just one. After trading my Cygnar to Kan, I'm getting the US Parachute Rifle Company box, 2 Parachute Rifle Platoon blisters and 1 Parachute Mortar Platoon. Any recommendations on what book I should be using for these guys? I mainly play Late War, and I currently only own Market Garden. So, while using Market Garden and the Parachute Rifle Company and supporting Platoon blisters, I find myself with the following army.

Parachute Rifle Company HQ (101st) p.68
2 Cmd Carbine team 30

Combat Platoons
Parachute Rifle Platoon (101st) p.68
1Cmd Rifle/MG team
1 Bazooka team
1 M2 60mm mortar
9 Rifle/MG team 355

Parachute Rifle Platoon (101st) p.68
1Cmd Rifle/MG team
1 Bazooka team
1 M2 60mm mortar
9 Rifle/MG team 355

Parachute Rifle Platoon (101st) p.68
1Cmd Rifle/MG team
1 Bazooka team
1 M2 60mm mortar
9 Rifle/MG team 355

Support Platoons
Armoured Platoon (Guards) Confident Veteran Allied Platoon p.103
2 Sherman V
2 Firefly VC (late) 435

Armoured Platoon (Guards) Confident Veteran Allied Platoon p.103
2 Sherman V
2 Firefly VC (late) 435

Company Points: 1965

I've never played with this many infantry bases. Any tips on running either Americans, or infantry in general? I tried to mostly run Tanks in the game (as my Brits are completely tank based).

Should I avoid the 2 Armoured Platoons for more Americans, or are they a good fit? I currently don't have any of the artillery pieces, etc... that are available to that list. Just have Shermans, Fireflies, Universal Carriers, and Stuart VIs for my Guards Armoured Division.