Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I've been noticing a ton of push back whenever the topic of a battlefront game comes up on here. I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me as to why there seems to be a lot of bad blood with this company. So far I'm pretty pleased with the TY models and game. I don't understand!

They use the GW business model which in the world of Historicals is not looked on very kindly.

 Easy E wrote:
They use the GW business model which in the world of Historicals is not looked on very kindly.

I'm still pretty new to war gaming in general, the GW model seems to be making money hand over fist?

Just the crab-bucket mentality of small scale producers with a captive market.

Nurglitch wrote:
Just the crab-bucket mentality of small scale producers with a captive market.

Can you be more specific as to what the issue is?

I think they are trying to say that they design games specifically so that they work with the models they produce whilst at the same time choosing a scale/features of those models that prevents easy use of models from other companies. Ergo protecting their own model sales through their rules system.

At least that's a sort of guess by "GW business model" and "Crab-bucket mentality".

I would wager that isn't "as" popular as historicals has a lot of garage companies and smaller businesses where there is often a lot of overlap between them and typically less of a brand loyalty at large like there is with Warhammer?

 Overread wrote:
I think they are trying to say that they design games specifically so that they work with the models they produce whilst at the same time choosing a scale/features of those models that prevents easy use of models from other companies. Ergo protecting their own model sales through their rules system.

At least that's a sort of guess by "GW business model" and "Crab-bucket mentality".

I would wager that isn't "as" popular as historicals has a lot of garage companies and smaller businesses where there is often a lot of overlap between them and typically less of a brand loyalty at large like there is with Warhammer?

I don't see a problem with that.

My reference to the crab-bucket mentality is that it's typically the case in Historicals that people cobble together games using rules from A and miniatures from B, and perhaps a whole lot of elbow grease for terrain and whatnot. It's very much DYI, and that means that it's relatively easy for a small operation like casting up metal miniatures in a garbage to enter the market.

The GW model is something of a walled garden, in the sense that you can't make models for that company's games, or rules for use with their models, and it doesn't really encourage fans to venture outside. So it takes what was previously up for grabs and something of a commons and privatizes it.

 Togusa wrote:

 Overread wrote:
I think they are trying to say that they design games specifically so that they work with the models they produce whilst at the same time choosing a scale/features of those models that prevents easy use of models from other companies. Ergo protecting their own model sales through their rules system.

At least that's a sort of guess by "GW business model" and "Crab-bucket mentality".

I would wager that isn't "as" popular as historicals has a lot of garage companies and smaller businesses where there is often a lot of overlap between them and typically less of a brand loyalty at large like there is with Warhammer?

I don't see a problem with that.

It depends on how you get your introduction to tabletops. Whilst people introduced through GW are used to the idea, people introduced through Historicals and others where the rules are produced by a company that has zero model production, the idea of a game being made in a scale incompatible with other manufacturers is ludicrous, especially in a setting like WWII or Napoleonics where there's so many options available at the more popular scales.

Nurglitch wrote:
My reference to the crab-bucket mentality is that it's typically the case in Historicals that people cobble together games using rules from A and miniatures from B, and perhaps a whole lot of elbow grease for terrain and whatnot. It's very much DYI, and that means that it's relatively easy for a small operation like casting up metal miniatures in a garbage to enter the market.

The GW model is something of a walled garden, in the sense that you can't make models for that company's games, or rules for use with their models, and it doesn't really encourage fans to venture outside. So it takes what was previously up for grabs and something of a commons and privatizes it.

Again, I don't see anything wrong with this.

Granted, I'm coming into this from the TY side, which isn't a historical game and I know nothing about the historical community or the ways they like to play. So I cannot speak to the issue of if this is a thorn in their side because they want a more realistic set of rules and models, that the company isn't providing? Either way, seems really petty to me...but I was just curious as I kept noticing a lot of passive aggressive comments with regard to the company on different dakka posts, so thank you all for the information.

For me it's very simple.

It's a historical game, so I'm not beholden to any company for miniatures (which is precisely the appeal of most historical games). At that point I'm looking for the best models, at the best price. If Battlefront provides that...good. If not, equally fine. In the past, Battlefront has produced an extremely "okay" product for a rather high price. Their plastics look good, and cost less, so that's a move in the right direction. However, when I saw an infantry platoon for FoW spike from $15 to $35-38 over time...I just lost interest. (This was metals, and it looks like many have slowly been replaced by plastics which is a good step).


They're often pricing things they produce in a GW fashion (i.e. very high), however unlike GW they exist in a market where there are other options ranging from cheap, to cheaper. So if they aren't competing, I'm not looking at their product.

Nurglitch wrote:

The GW model is something of a walled garden, in the sense that you can't make models for that company's games, or rules for use with their models, and it doesn't really encourage fans to venture outside. So it takes what was previously up for grabs and something of a commons and privatizes it.

Which is rather an odd statement since for the fantasy and sci-fi markets that GW fills GW perhaps has the most (after DnD) alternate sculpts for their army lines out there. Heck there are whole alternate games based on the same distribution of faction types and unit types. Meanwhile the current 40K and AoS rules even have "open play" which encourages fans to invent their own stuff; heck AoS launched with that as the only way to get serious rules at one stage. Plus GW only gets additional enforcement because they've got stores all over the place (esp the UK). I don't think Flames to War have any stores (if they do then its likely a single HQ store); so its not as if they can force anyone to use their rules only.


Honestly I have to agree that I don't see a problem with a company producing rules and miniatures and doing what they can to help their own system loyalty within the system. Not every historical has to be a garage operation. Heck it might actually do that market a world of good to get a GW style company rise up that can not just produce an all in one product; but also market, advertise and generally recruit more gamers (esp, for historicals, anyone under the age of around 50 which seems to be about the going starting age bracket!*)




*yes I'm exaggerating somewhat, but its still true that you're far less likely to get many young generations starting up historicals.

There was also the disaster that was the Dust: Operation Babylon kickstarter where Battlefront was meant to be handling the fulfilment which went badly wrong

with Battlefront pointing the finger at Dust Studios, and Dust Studios blaming Battlefront

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/duststudio/dust-operation-babylon/posts

Yeah Dust sort of burned me out on goodwill towards Battlefront. It was just such a trashpile of accusations FB nonsense and back and forth that left the backers without anything.

That and BF's "codex" mentality of publishing a new book for every specific battle and then a new version so they can release even more books. It got way out of hand and I didn't feel like chasing that particular train anymore.

I haven't seen too much outright HATE for Battlefront or their products, but I can think of a few complaints that I might deem "annoying". TBH, my feelings are a bit sympathetic to them since I get the sense that with many of their issues their hand is forced by either circumstance or the nature of the market they're in

- Their stuff has indeed become more expensive over the last little while. In contrast to GW however, it seems to me that a lot of this is driven by material and cost concerns. Until a year or two ago, the vast majority of their range was metal (or required metal pieces, like the tanks) and the cost of tin was really starting to bite. They've made some big investments into plastic manufacturing but I expect they're keen to see a return on such a big investment.

- They recently released a new edition of Flames of War (their core game) that got a bit of a tepid reception - the new version was based on their Team Yankee ruleset which folks seemed to like, but it appears that older FoW players saw it as a bit of a step too far for the core game.

- They were tied up in the Dust Tactics Kickstarter (ninja'd) that went sideways, with both parties blaming the other - while it's really unclear who did what, regardless I have to imagine that it has tied up a fair chunk of Battlefront's money and time which has distracted from other projects

I do however want to debunk a quick myth that I've seen pop up here - there are absolutely other companies producing miniatures for the same scale and time period. Old Glory has been making 15mm WW2 stuff in metal since forever, and Plastic Soldier and Zvezda have spent like half a decade producing plastics to compete directly with Battlefront (plus several smaller manufacturers selling mostly online). Some may find Battlefront's sculpting style a bit chunky, but there are by no means "no alternatives" when it comes to the miniatures.

My personal feelings towards them right now are just kind of... bored? They're spending the next few years focusing on Flames of War's Late War period, and while it does need rules updates to bring everything in line with the new ruleset, it means that they're spending that time pretty much releasing the same models they've already done before over again. Like, how many more boxes of Panzer IVs could we possibly need? Plus, just some small nitpicks like delays in releasing new models for Tanks (a system I quite like), and the editing in their new Colors of War book was really bad...

 Wasteland wrote:
I haven't seen too much outright HATE for Battlefront or their products, but I can think of a few complaints that I might deem "annoying". TBH, my feelings are a bit sympathetic to them since I get the sense that with many of their issues their hand is forced by either circumstance or the nature of the market they're in

- Their stuff has indeed become more expensive over the last little while. In contrast to GW however, it seems to me that a lot of this is driven by material and cost concerns. Until a year or two ago, the vast majority of their range was metal (or required metal pieces, like the tanks) and the cost of tin was really starting to bite. They've made some big investments into plastic manufacturing but I expect they're keen to see a return on such a big investment.

- They recently released a new edition of Flames of War (their core game) that got a bit of a tepid reception - the new version was based on their Team Yankee ruleset which folks seemed to like, but it appears that older FoW players saw it as a bit of a step too far for the core game.

- They were tied up in the Dust Tactics Kickstarter (ninja'd) that went sideways, with both parties blaming the other - while it's really unclear who did what, regardless I have to imagine that it has tied up a fair chunk of Battlefront's money and time which has distracted from other projects

I do however want to debunk a quick myth that I've seen pop up here - there are absolutely other companies producing miniatures for the same scale and time period. Old Glory has been making 15mm WW2 stuff in metal since forever, and Plastic Soldier and Zvezda have spent like half a decade producing plastics to compete directly with Battlefront (plus several smaller manufacturers selling mostly online). Some may find Battlefront's sculpting style a bit chunky, but there are by no means "no alternatives" when it comes to the miniatures.

My personal feelings towards them right now are just kind of... bored? They're spending the next few years focusing on Flames of War's Late War period, and while it does need rules updates to bring everything in line with the new ruleset, it means that they're spending that time pretty much releasing the same models they've already done before over again. Like, how many more boxes of Panzer IVs could we possibly need? Plus, just some small nitpicks like delays in releasing new models for Tanks (a system I quite like), and the editing in their new Colors of War book was really bad...

This is helpful. I don't know what the other game was, Dust? Never heard of it, but for me I'm coming into the company from the TY side. I'm a bit too obsessed with the 1970s, 80s and 90s style and flair and this game is literally straight up my alley. So far, my experience has been mostly positive with the game and my experience with the company is neutral because outside of buying their products, which seem really reasonably priced to me compared to games workshop (55 dollars for an army starter vs. 95 X 2 for a starter for 40K/AoS).

I didn't bring up the DUST thing because of only hearing it from a variety of forums and friends-of-friends. I remember the whole thing being quite the dumpster fire. None of this really matters unless you, Togusa, have an issue with Battlefront or their prices/practices. If your friends like it or play it, the internet doesn't matter. Do I think there are better games and better model companies? Absolutely....but what impact should that have on what you enjoy?

 Elbows wrote:
I didn't bring up the DUST thing because of only hearing it from a variety of forums and friends-of-friends. I remember the whole thing being quite the dumpster fire. None of this really matters unless you, Togusa, have an issue with Battlefront or their prices/practices. If your friends like it or play it, the internet doesn't matter. Do I think there are better games and better model companies? Absolutely....but what impact should that have on what you enjoy?

It shouldn't. Like I said, I was just curious because I kept encountering a lot of sniping comments when I mentioned the company.

Ultimately, if you like it and are happy it doesn't matter what others think. No matter what you do, there is a line of people ready to tell you you are doing it wrong.

I personally am not a fan of the game system itself as it clearly falls more on the "game" side and less on the history side. It also has a strong bias towards tank combat, which is fine if that is what you are into. I have the 1st edition FOW rulebook but never really got into it after reading the rules.

I was really interested in Fate of a Nation, but could not find buy-in locally for such a niche conflict. I feel the FoW system works better for a conflict of that nature rather than Nam, WWI or WWII.

 Togusa wrote:
I've been noticing a ton of push back whenever the topic of a battlefront game comes up on here. I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me as to why there seems to be a lot of bad blood with this company. So far I'm pretty pleased with the TY models and game. I don't understand!

There's a number of general issues with Battlefront that range from an inability to keep stocks to their stances on history and gaming. For some more detail;

History: Battlefront is run by Wehraboos and Ameraboos. In Flames of War 3rd edition there was probably 7 different sets of special rules for Waffen-SS units, and literally dozens of different special rules for American and British infantry units. It was insane the sheer amount of options one could get, and this is in of itself pretty respectable. Even minor nations like Hungary got a significant degree of attention.

This is because in the Battlefront development team certain members have favourites, willing to offer a massive amount of personal interest and experience in building lists. Sounds great, right?

Well, unless you're a Soviet player, where your troops are cowardly subhumans who have to be corralled into fighting by Commissars - something that didn't happen.

Despite inflicting a majority of casualties upon the German army, and developing some of the most sophisticated tactics and strategies of the entire conflict, Soviet lists have no real customisation or genuine history about them. Special rules like Hen and Chicks and 'Commissar' turn the game from vaguely arcade-y World War 2 stuff into outright anti-Russian/Soviet lies, inspired by Enemy at the Gates (incidentally, a name that Battlefront would adopt). Soviets, despite fighting the most and probably being the most experienced combatant out of all the Allied Powers, did not receive any Fearless Veteran Units except for a smattering as part of the Berlin Rulebook. Phil, one of the Battlefront higher ups, claimed the Soviets had by the end of the war, only reached the same level of experience as the Americans possessed at the start of it.

This is also the case for every Communist or Soviet aligned nation in Team Yankee and the other FoW spin-offs (Israeli lists gained the moniker of 'super-Jews' for the Fate of a Nation Stuff for a reason). Now one might say, well, why don't you just play the Soviets like they functioned IRL? Well you can't because their rules are literally based around these dumb conceptions. Even the National Volksarmee in Team Yankee are thoroughly gak (despite being described as elite). /list] Battlefront's bizarre biases also see stuff like the Sergeant York, a weapon that didn't even work, included whereas the T-80 is absnet.

Awkward Transition from 3rd to 4th: the transition from FoW 3rd ed to 4th ed was staggeringly bad and severely damaged the company from what can be garnered. Not only did Battlefront decide to focus on a sideshow front (the Desert Campaign), but the massively slowed release schedule meant whole sections of the game didn't (and still don't) have rules until sometime in mid to late 2021 (have fun, Axis minors!). Lists became incompatible and large numbers of specialised models simply don't have rules. This alienated a lot of players (myself included).

The Game Itself: FOW and Team Yankee are not historical games, and as such a lot of people with a fondness for actual history do not care much for them (no, it isn't fething 'rivet counting' to ask a game to skim wikipedia to get basic dates correct). Lists reward spam (you can see armies of 30 Valentines) and the game looks like a Napoleonic battle if horses and infantry were replaced by tankes, literally pressed together and moving in awkward blocks. The most powerful Soviet army in Team Yankee has no tanks, and wins by virtue of one person having spent more money than the other.

If you want to play a historical game, there are much better options than Team Yankee or Flames of War.

 blood reaper wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
I've been noticing a ton of push back whenever the topic of a battlefront game comes up on here. I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me as to why there seems to be a lot of bad blood with this company. So far I'm pretty pleased with the TY models and game. I don't understand!

There's a number of general issues with Battlefront that range from an inability to keep stocks to their stances on history and gaming. For some more detail;

History: Battlefront is run by Wehraboos and Ameraboos. In Flames of War 3rd edition there was probably 7 different sets of special rules for Waffen-SS units, and literally dozens of different special rules for American and British infantry units. It was insane the sheer amount of options one could get, and this is in of itself pretty respectable. Even minor nations like Hungary got a significant degree of attention.

This is because in the Battlefront development team certain members have favourites, willing to offer a massive amount of personal interest and experience in building lists. Sounds great, right?

Well, unless you're a Soviet player, where your troops are cowardly subhumans who have to be corralled into fighting by Commissars - something that didn't happen.

Despite inflicting a majority of casualties upon the German army, and developing some of the most sophisticated tactics and strategies of the entire conflict, Soviet lists have no real customisation or genuine history about them. Special rules like Hen and Chicks and 'Commissar' turn the game from vaguely arcade-y World War 2 stuff into outright anti-Russian/Soviet lies, inspired by Enemy at the Gates (incidentally, a name that Battlefront would adopt). Soviets, despite fighting the most and probably being the most experienced combatant out of all the Allied Powers, did not receive any Fearless Veteran Units except for a smattering as part of the Berlin Rulebook. Phil, one of the Battlefront higher ups, claimed the Soviets had by the end of the war, only reached the same level of experience as the Americans possessed at the start of it.

This is also the case for every Communist or Soviet aligned nation in Team Yankee and the other FoW spin-offs (Israeli lists gained the moniker of 'super-Jews' for the Fate of a Nation Stuff for a reason). Now one might say, well, why don't you just play the Soviets like they functioned IRL? Well you can't because their rules are literally based around these dumb conceptions. Even the National Volksarmee in Team Yankee are thoroughly gak (despite being described as elite). /list] Battlefront's bizarre biases also see stuff like the Sergeant York, a weapon that didn't even work, included whereas the T-80 is absnet.

Awkward Transition from 3rd to 4th: the transition from FoW 3rd ed to 4th ed was staggeringly bad and severely damaged the company from what can be garnered. Not only did Battlefront decide to focus on a sideshow front (the Desert Campaign), but the massively slowed release schedule meant whole sections of the game didn't (and still don't) have rules until sometime in mid to late 2021 (have fun, Axis minors!). Lists became incompatible and large numbers of specialised models simply don't have rules. This alienated a lot of players (myself included).

The Game Itself: FOW and Team Yankee are not historical games, and as such a lot of people with a fondness for actual history do not care much for them (no, it isn't fething 'rivet counting' to ask a game to skim wikipedia to get basic dates correct). Lists reward spam (you can see armies of 30 Valentines) and the game looks like a Napoleonic battle if horses and infantry were replaced by tankes, literally pressed together and moving in awkward blocks. The most powerful Soviet army in Team Yankee has no tanks, and wins by virtue of one person having spent more money than the other.

If you want to play a historical game, there are much better options than Team Yankee or Flames of War.

I'm not really into it because of the history, I'm into it because I like the 80s and I like the models.

Oil War is what finally got me to look into playing the game, so I am glad they put some focus there.

As for the rules, our group is the casual group type, there isn't likely to be any waac behavior so I can't see the "I win because I spent $$$" really being an issue for us.

The world of historical gaming is weird. It's sort of the underground. and just like underground music (punk, metal, whatever) there is a sense that everybody should be doing it out of passion, and that money shouldn't be a driving force. Battlefront, almost unique among historical game companies, is both motivated by profit and essentially professional. (Warlord is the other major historical player.)

The problem comes in that Battlefront has basically made everything they need to sell for FoW. They can't just create a new faction, or add new units to the current factions, although they came close with Mid-war monsters. They're shifting resin/metal to plastic, but that's only a temporary fix. They basically need to create new games or keep releasing rules for FoW to bring in cash.

For those wondering, Warlord escapes a lot of this because they generally produce games in 28mm, which is actually not all that popular with historical gamers. WWII was traditionally played at 20mm, and ECW, Napoleons, and ACW were 6mm, 10mm, or maybe 15mm. They also began producing plastics right away, and their models are very affordable while the games are fairly small in scale.

Warlord also have a lot of ties with ex-GW employees, etc. They do a lot of stuff very much in the GW fashion (with Bolt Action often referred to as a sort of Historical Warhammer...in that it's a hollywood style game, etc.). Warlord definitely chases the GW model. They're smart enough though to invest in a variety of periods and they buy a lot of ranges from other sculptors, etc.

 Elbows wrote:
Warlord also have a lot of ties with ex-GW employees, etc. They do a lot of stuff very much in the GW fashion (with Bolt Action often referred to as a sort of Historical Warhammer...in that it's a hollywood style game, etc.). Warlord definitely chases the GW model. They're smart enough though to invest in a variety of periods and they buy a lot of ranges from other sculptors, etc.

the GW model has it's positive side as well, especially with new hobbyists. Being able to buy rules, minis, terrain, tools, and paints from one source makes things easier. GW, and to a lesser extent Battlefront, have leveraged that ease to charge higher prices than competitors. Warlord hasn't done that, more likely because none of their games have achieved the hegemony of WFB, 40k, or FOW.

 Polonius wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Warlord also have a lot of ties with ex-GW employees, etc. They do a lot of stuff very much in the GW fashion (with Bolt Action often referred to as a sort of Historical Warhammer...in that it's a hollywood style game, etc.). Warlord definitely chases the GW model. They're smart enough though to invest in a variety of periods and they buy a lot of ranges from other sculptors, etc.

the GW model has it's positive side as well, especially with new hobbyists. Being able to buy rules, minis, terrain, tools, and paints from one source makes things easier. GW, and to a lesser extent Battlefront, have leveraged that ease to charge higher prices than competitors. Warlord hasn't done that, more likely because none of their games have achieved the hegemony of WFB, 40k, or FOW.

It may just be because I'm coming from 40K, but TY is far cheaper than 40K is. To get all of that stuff I mentioned, cost me 180$ and that includes the two books and the contents of the hammerfall starter I got. I am pretty darn happy with that!

I've been watching a lot of battle reports too, and at most I'm seeing around 20 models per army. Compared to the 90+ I often see for 40K games. (Yikes that price tag!)

 blood reaper wrote:

 Togusa wrote:
I've been noticing a ton of push back whenever the topic of a battlefront game comes up on here. I was wondering if anyone could enlighten me as to why there seems to be a lot of bad blood with this company. So far I'm pretty pleased with the TY models and game. I don't understand!

There's a number of general issues with Battlefront that range from an inability to keep stocks to their stances on history and gaming. For some more detail;

History: Battlefront is run by Wehraboos and Ameraboos. In Flames of War 3rd edition there was probably 7 different sets of special rules for Waffen-SS units, and literally dozens of different special rules for American and British infantry units. It was insane the sheer amount of options one could get, and this is in of itself pretty respectable. Even minor nations like Hungary got a significant degree of attention.

This is because in the Battlefront development team certain members have favourites, willing to offer a massive amount of personal interest and experience in building lists. Sounds great, right?

Well, unless you're a Soviet player, where your troops are cowardly subhumans who have to be corralled into fighting by Commissars - something that didn't happen.

Despite inflicting a majority of casualties upon the German army, and developing some of the most sophisticated tactics and strategies of the entire conflict, Soviet lists have no real customisation or genuine history about them. Special rules like Hen and Chicks and 'Commissar' turn the game from vaguely arcade-y World War 2 stuff into outright anti-Russian/Soviet lies, inspired by Enemy at the Gates (incidentally, a name that Battlefront would adopt). Soviets, despite fighting the most and probably being the most experienced combatant out of all the Allied Powers, did not receive any Fearless Veteran Units except for a smattering as part of the Berlin Rulebook. Phil, one of the Battlefront higher ups, claimed the Soviets had by the end of the war, only reached the same level of experience as the Americans possessed at the start of it.

This is also the case for every Communist or Soviet aligned nation in Team Yankee and the other FoW spin-offs (Israeli lists gained the moniker of 'super-Jews' for the Fate of a Nation Stuff for a reason). Now one might say, well, why don't you just play the Soviets like they functioned IRL? Well you can't because their rules are literally based around these dumb conceptions. Even the National Volksarmee in Team Yankee are thoroughly gak (despite being described as elite). /list] Battlefront's bizarre biases also see stuff like the Sergeant York, a weapon that didn't even work, included whereas the T-80 is absnet.

Awkward Transition from 3rd to 4th: the transition from FoW 3rd ed to 4th ed was staggeringly bad and severely damaged the company from what can be garnered. Not only did Battlefront decide to focus on a sideshow front (the Desert Campaign), but the massively slowed release schedule meant whole sections of the game didn't (and still don't) have rules until sometime in mid to late 2021 (have fun, Axis minors!). Lists became incompatible and large numbers of specialised models simply don't have rules. This alienated a lot of players (myself included).

The Game Itself: FOW and Team Yankee are not historical games, and as such a lot of people with a fondness for actual history do not care much for them (no, it isn't fething 'rivet counting' to ask a game to skim wikipedia to get basic dates correct). Lists reward spam (you can see armies of 30 Valentines) and the game looks like a Napoleonic battle if horses and infantry were replaced by tankes, literally pressed together and moving in awkward blocks. The most powerful Soviet army in Team Yankee has no tanks, and wins by virtue of one person having spent more money than the other.

If you want to play a historical game, there are much better options than Team Yankee or Flames of War.

but that I can only offer a single Exaltation, FoW was never about historical accuracy but it had enough to get you by (excluding some of the Soviet issues you mention, as a Soviet player), but the company basically lost the plot going V3 to V4, and then didn't take kindly to the player base pointing this out

I agree with what everyone has brought up here - I think all the main reasons have been covered. To summarize:

1) They don't own the IP, which:

a) allows competitors to easily compete in 15mm miniatures, and

b) when they make a technical mistake on a model, it gets attention!
The side skirts have four main plates rather than the correct five!

2) Each faction is historically based, so:

a) people will have strong opinions on how core rules (and different faction rules) reflect historical reality,

b) they can't just create a significant / unique new faction for the game (no aliens, no zombies).

3) The V3 to V4 transition (and the slight rules variation between Team Yankee and core FoW) was awkward.

4) Timelines and release schedules are slow and measured in years, which can frustrate some.

FoW has been my favorite miniature game over the last ten years, but I already own everything I'm interested in. I have the complete set of books for the V3 ruleset and have no interest in V4. I've bought some Team Yankee books and models, but that is about it. The company itself has always been great at handling any customer service issues I have had. I wish them the best.

Mez

 Togusa wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

 Elbows wrote:
Warlord also have a lot of ties with ex-GW employees, etc. They do a lot of stuff very much in the GW fashion (with Bolt Action often referred to as a sort of Historical Warhammer...in that it's a hollywood style game, etc.). Warlord definitely chases the GW model. They're smart enough though to invest in a variety of periods and they buy a lot of ranges from other sculptors, etc.

the GW model has it's positive side as well, especially with new hobbyists. Being able to buy rules, minis, terrain, tools, and paints from one source makes things easier. GW, and to a lesser extent Battlefront, have leveraged that ease to charge higher prices than competitors. Warlord hasn't done that, more likely because none of their games have achieved the hegemony of WFB, 40k, or FOW.

It may just be because I'm coming from 40K, but TY is far cheaper than 40K is. To get all of that stuff I mentioned, cost me 180$ and that includes the two books and the contents of the hammerfall starter I got. I am pretty darn happy with that!

I've been watching a lot of battle reports too, and at most I'm seeing around 20 models per army. Compared to the 90+ I often see for 40K games. (Yikes that price tag!)

Oh, depending upon what faction you make & how you can easily exceed 20 models.
My 100pt Soviets #34-38 models (with only 4 of those being infantry bases).
My 100pt Oil Wars Syrians exceed 50 (counting each individual infantry stand. Mid-High 40s if only looking at the vehicles)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 blood reaper wrote:
[Battlefront's bizarre biases also see stuff like the Sergeant York, a weapon that didn't even work, included whereas the T-80 is absent.

Granted, the exclusion of the T-80 is odd.

As for the Sgt. York? In case you missed it, the whole TY concept is a "what if...." scenario. So as we're playing make-believe anyways, I don't see much harm with the York making an appearance.
Hell, maybe that explains why there's no T-80 - in the TY world the Soviets never built it.

But York was built. And it never, ever worked right. If you wanted to have Sgt. York in TY, it should have rules for shooting anything but the enemy based on existing, historical evidence. Yes, the book the game is based on is historical fiction, but it doesn't have made-up vehicles, and the only ostensible deviation from our history is the fact that cold war goes hot at one point.

Anyway, I played FoW in 2nd ed, and stopped playing FoW in 2nd ed, all thank to how bad some formations were balanced. I have no real beef with the game being "game with WW2 paintjob" instead of "game about WW2", but if that's the case, at least make it balanced, since you've already thrown out historical accuracy out of the window.

I think that there are a few reasons for the "hate" that we see towards BF. While it will be hard to surpass Mezmaron's rather balanced analysis (please have an Exalt), I will offer my own thoughts.

Historical wargamers can be very hard to please. I know - I'm one. They can get quite upset if they feel that something is not right in terms of "historical accuracy." You cannot please everybody. We see some of that in some of the responses in this thread. Throw in nationalism/family connections to conflicts in living memory and you can get some passions stirred up. Folks would get mad about the scale (you see this in on-line criticisms of Team Yankee as a tank parking lot) and things like gun/armour comparisons. All that to say, don't read too much in historical wargaming-rage.

On the other hand, BF made some strange decisions over the years. There was a "golden age" in during FOW V2 with Fortress Europe and the D-Day books. The game worked great in its original design frame of Western Desert, and the mid-44 expansion went well enough. As it grew out of that frame problems occured. Early War was a disaster (look up the BAR and BAR-nerf). The transition to the V3 rules-set was well-done, though, and BF has always been good about providing free rules-upgrades as they change editions. The Blood Guts and Glory book, however, brought in some very unbalanced forces that took advantage of the design of the game. Special rules that had added flavour before now dominated in combination with other special rules.

They also saw their lunch-money being taken by other companies like PSC and Zvesda who came out with cheaper plastics. Lacking any IP on WW2 tanks BF was in a tough spot. They tried some controversial rules at BF-events regarding the use of other companies' models which soured parts of the community.

Then we got V4. This was an example of how not to do an edition change. From a design perspective they went to "cards" for their units, perhaps in an effort to have some form of IP. While the rules on the card did allow for more specialization, they combined the concept of datasheets with USRs into a rather confusing mess. You could only get the cards at first by buying the new plastic models. Most grognards already had extensive collections and had no desire to get replacement models just to get the cards. While this eventually changed, bad blood was created. They also cut out units and formations in Mid War as they rolled it out at a glacial pace. The process of mid-war releases for V4 seemed linked to their roll-out of their new plastics. A bit of the "no rules/no models" policy but in a case where they used to have models! As the V4 mid-war books came out most of us were stunned - the lists were a tiny slice of the previous mid-war range. This improved slowly over the ensuing two years, but there were still many specialized things that have disappeared. The rules were disjointed between periods, although in fairness the changes in V4 from V3 were generally good ones. All in all, I think BF had some hubris leading up to V4.

I still play FOW, but not nearly as much as before (I stopped playing FOW for about two years - just started again). I prefer Team Yankee now - perhaps because its a breath of fresh air. I figure that TY is keeping the company afloat. I wish them the best.