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Hello all!

My gamer-friends have shown interest towards historical battles, namely flames of war, and I just might join their bandwagon.
There are a few problems tough.
Firstly, we are hobbyfront pioneers regarding FOW, so there is little to none experience about the game in the collective (one person has the rulebook, which none of us have read ofc. - our most dedicated to-be-general who knows alot of ww2 is leading the way in armybuilding, but he is doing it from a historical point of view rather than regarding rules or any advice from anywhere)
One of our stumbles is the time period - what to choose? early, mid or late. So far I have been reading this forum and been messing about with armybuilder somewhat, and got the idea that the timeperiod is pretty fundamental when it comes to playing.

So far british and german forces have been bought (and our "ww2 specialist" is painting them up for battle) and ive been thinking about giving the soviet tanks a run for their money (or, well, my money tbh)
I have no idea what period they are, but im guessing its a mixed lot since when I asked about what period are we going after first, the answer was "All."

Trying to make sense into things without knowing the rules sometimes gets a bit fustrating, but I managed to formulate an early war 1500pts Soviet Tankovaya Bataljon for myself. I wanted tanks, tanks and more tanks since I really dont feel like painting infantry - atleast not yet.

I tried to make it historically as correct as possible and also valid with the rules ofc, and came up with :

- Battalion HQ, T-34 obr 1941 x2
- Medium Tankovaya Company, T-34 obr 1941 x3
- Light Tankovaya Company, T-26 x6

Old iron from the east.
I was thinking of buying following models :
6x SU002 T-26S obr 1939, T-26 Tankovy Company
5x SU058 T-34 obr 1941, Medium Tankovy Company

Any comments?

Well, your period choice is narrowed down a little bit by the fact that Battlefront hasn't gotten around to doing anything early war, all they have so far is Mid-War or Late War.

Buying models can be intimidating but in my experience pretty much everything is cross-era compatible. For examples, my Mid-War Grenadierkompanie just needs a few tank and gun team swaps to become a Late-War Grenadierkompanie. I'm not sure exactly how well your Tankovy Battalion would transfer to other periods since I don't have Festung Europa handy.

From a game perspective, your list is pretty solid. That much armor can be difficult to take down unless you have a lot of high AT firepower, but if you're facing a pure infantry company you may run into some trouble because tanks have a hell of a time digging out entrenched infantry. You might want to include a Tank Rider Company to help with that.

Mid War is a good starting place, as you will have smaller armies. Things go down in points cost for late war so you have more stuff, but that means buying and painting more models. Early War is a bad place to start right now. There's no books out for it nor specific model support for that time period.

As for your "expert" someone either better stop him or the rest of you need to go get some of the books. The Mid War army lists are divided into two books: Ostfront and Afrika. They let you take equipment and armies that were specific to the Russian front or Afrika Campaign. Ostfront has Germans, Russians, Italians, and the minor powers. Afrika has Germans, Italians, US, and British. Your "expert" may be in for a blow to his ego when he picks up the books and discovers he's wrong or just doesn't like how they make the army lists because they don't fit his vision.

Go to Battlefront's Flames of War website, check out the forums. There is a link to some excel spreadsheets stickied in the Army List forum, you can use them to make up some army lists.

Swordbreaker wrote:Mid War is a good starting place, as you will have smaller armies. Things go down in points cost for late war so you have more stuff, but that means buying and painting more models.

Hmm. I've found it to be just the opposite in my limited experience. Late War tends to have smaller armies with more expensive (points wise) units and Mid War tends to larger armies with less expensive units. Then again, I am playing 3RTR for Late War with a single Armoured Platoon weighing in at 370 points so my POV might be a bit skewed.

Firstly, thank you all for a quick reply!

I thank for your help, it is much apreciated! Ill tell the others what ya fellas told me, and Im guessing that mid-war is what we are going for atleast for now - I was guessing that infantry would be a nasty opponent for me, but Ill stay with tanks (namely t-34s since I allways loved the design) and maybe later on add some form of infantry (or anti-infantry...t-34s with flamers for example?)

Thanks a bunch, and thanks Swordbreaker for the excel-info - my ab is not up to date (I think) and these are great!

I prolly will buy atleast 1 t-34 5-tank box, or maybe 2 - I dont have a clear vision of what kind of tank(s) I would buy for a hq-choice or what kind of lighter tanks would be apropriate, but Im guessing those t-34s are a good start.

A big tip and something to pass onto your fellow gamers... For some of the armies there are major changes in what units they can take between Mid and Late war. If you sit down and plan your armies out beforehand you can make forces where you can use your models in both mid and late war games. Most notably this occurs with tanks/vehicles.

The army lists in FoW are actually very well researched but more importantly they are balanced for gameplay! You really need to keep that in mind when you play, as at first a lot of the big "Historical" gamers had a hard time with that.

There are also cheaper manufacturers to get the miniatures from too and you never have to worry about what "new unit" will be coming out. Not everyone's 15mm models are to scale with the other manufacturers, some are more towards 12mm and others towards 16mm. Old Glory makes some low cost pewter tanks, but the scale is noticeably smaller than Battlefront's. So long as you don't mix makers within a unit it will look alright. Oh and yeah, the Axis and Allies 1943 rescaled miniatures are the right size vehicle for FoW, but because of the "collectible" style of that game, FoW minis are cheaper in the long run.

You mentioned T-34 and T-26!!!

From mid-war that would be a Mixed Tank Battalion. That means early '42. I would personally find out what your friends are thinking of doing... A boat load of light british tanks? Medium german tanks? Infantry?

Stick with the T-34 base but I would suggest T-70s or more T-34. If you stay with FoW minis... they have a lot of T-34 '42 variants so you can stick with most of them. The other cool thing with staying to T-34's is you have a good base for a late war army already built.
You just buy some T-34/85's and done.

I would recommend looking at a recon unit of BT-20's. They are soviets with actual experience and the recon special rule. If one of your buddies goes infantry/AT-gun happy, it is good to know where they are and that is what recon will do.

I have made myself a small SS panzergrenadier army with a single Konigstiger as a support veihicle this is modelled round late war late 44 I think definately part of the force that was defending Coen from Monty

I may expand this to be a army that was defending Berlin from the Russians after a while but the hobby is so dammed expensive soaks up more money then what I spend on WH 40k.

Late war allows for more armour to be fielded than mid war. Late War ('44) is currently the best supported period for Flames of War.

My gaming group recently got into FoW as well. If you are looking for cheap models I cannot recommend warweb.com highly enough. They sell Old Glory minis at a 40% off discount. $11.50 for 3 medium sized tanks and $8.50 for 50 infantry is hard to beat. Also after comparing them to Battlefront minis the difference is not enough to warrant the cost., and most people cannot tell the difference from first glance (I myself prefer the Old Glory minis).

Here is a link to their 15mm ww2 section.


http://www.warweb.com/15mm-miniatures-world-war-c-70_138_1417_413.html

Can i ask a side question here if no one minds?

How many color can i color my FOW German army?

I have grey so far, is white ok?

No! Questions are unacceptable here. It depends upon the period, 1939-43 grey is good, 1943-1945 dark yellow is preferred with rust and olive green as contrasting camouflage colours.

White is perfectly acceptable as winter camouflage for all periods.

What stuff do you own? What period are you playing?

It kind of matters whether your doing inf or tanks. For my tanks I did a dark grey undercoat with dry brushed white on top, leaving some gray more concentrated around the edges gives a weathered feel, then for an even more weathered look you could try very lightly drybrushing bleached bone on top to simulate some dirt along with some devlin mud and other browns to top it off. The infantry is a much simpler matter, if you stick with the winter theme painting those little guys can be as simple as doing all the clothes in stonewall grey(I think it is fortress grey from GW, its very very light) and doing the face with some brown and silver details for equipment (unless you do falchimjagers like me, their camo is annoying to put on. can you imagine pinpricks of lime green inside catachan green? lol)

ooo. im really interested in starting it to!! looks really cool! theres so many models to pick between!

I'd suggest the Open Fire starter box as your first port of call. Regardless of which army you choose most of the models will be useful (3 Shermans, 2 StuGs) and you can always swap them with friends.

I second Spiggot's assessment of the Open Fire box. The little rule book has 99% of what you need to know how the game works and the 5 tanks it comes with are fairly high detail.

However, one thing to note is that it doesn't include the rules for a few things that don't come up that often unless you build your army around it.

I'm thinking Pioneers and fortifications.

Pioneers and Fortificatons as you said Walledin are something rare so i wouldn't bother with them until later, The cheapest and easiest option to start FoW is an infantry army, the boxes are generally cheaper to start with and for game play they are a much more forgiving army to learn with, with the added bounus that you can add tanks later to make it a mechanized infantry force.

Colour wise for Germans - both mid and late war i found Cammo Green with a green ink wash with a dry drush cammo over the top for the infantry give a realisic mid war green with a dark grey (codex grey is best) for the helmets. The tanks look best if given a codex grey under coat black ink wash with fortress grey drybrush.

The open Fire set looks the bawls I may get that as the Stug 3s will come in handy.

My local Hobbycraft store also has Panzers March 5 Tiger's in one box bargain! also may need to get the SS Panzer grenadiers HQ box and half track mounted platoon some 88's for flavour and a artillery battery

Art of War II
(FW051)

We’re pleased to give you the second issue of Art of War: The Wehrmacht Edition! In this issue we’ve tackled some of the great painting and modelling challenges surrounding German companies. The concept behind this issue is to give you everything you need to research how your German army will look, and failing that, point you in the right direction for further research.

This issue includes some more interviews with both staff and hobbyists. They talk about their German armies and reveal some great tips and tricks for your own German force.
There is also an in-depth article covering the ins-and-outs of identifying and painting German uniforms for the various service arms including Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS, and the Luftwaffe. Bruce Oberst also shares how to actually paint the tiny insignias and ranks on your infantry uniforms!

Panzers are also included, as we look at camo schemes throughout the war. The Tank Colour Guide is a helpful resource as it has examples of models painted in various schemes as well as a short history on each. The Divisional Markings article is another helpful resource, showing all the various symbols and numbers used on Panzers and other German vehicles.

We have several technique articles as well, showing how to weather, whitewash, and other such helpful tips. There are also plenty of galleries to help inspire and motivate you to get to work on your Grenadiers and Panzers, and we have even included a section on aircraft markings and camouflage schemes so that your air support will match your theatre.

Equipped with this latest edition of Art Of War, you'll be well prepared to tackle your next big German Flames Of War project!

Be sure to grab the first edition of the Art Of War to learn about a lot of the basics on painting and modelling!