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I'm thinking about starting flames of war, and to be honest, i don't know that much about it.
Me and my friend will be splitting the open fire box (I'll get the stugs), i'm also thinking about getting some other stuff to go along with it. For my infantry i'll get the GBX18 SS-Panzergrenadierkompanie because it also includes some pak 40's, which'll give me some anti-tank fire power. Then for armour i'll get the GBX32 Panzer Kanonen box set so that, in addition to the open fire box, i'll have a stug platoon (3 stugs) and a panther.

Would this be ok for a starter army or do i need to get anything else/get rid of some stuff?
Any comments would be of great help.

I'd but the theater book you want to use first. That said most everything in a company box will be useful and what you have picked are fine additional choices(You can never go wrong with Stugs or Panthers). My experience with the game is that infantry, when played right, is generally what wins the day. The only other thing you might consider would be some sort of artillery like nebelwerfers or panzerwerfers but they can always be added later.

Definitely get one of the theater books. If you're planning on playing Late War, Fortress Europe is a good place to start (unless you already know you want to play a specific unit that has a list in one of the battle books - in that case, get them).

The SS boxed set is a good place to start, as it has infantry, heavy machine guns, and PaK40s, as you said. Also, keep in mind that just because you buy the SS box, doesn't mean you can only play SS lists. Besides the camo patterns, the SS uniforms only had a few differences in cut, and if you painted them in regular German army (Heer) colors, 90% of people won't be able to tell the difference in 15mm anyway, and the few that do, 99% probably won't care. If you find out there's an interesting German army unit that you would rather play, paint them up in Splinter camo and go ahead!

Also, if you're just starting out, the Panzerkanonen boxed set probably isn't worth the money. It's only two vehicles for $30, and as far as I know you can't use a single Panther by itself in the vast majority of lists, if not all of them. You'd be better off buying three StuG blisters and making a full platoon that way, or spending a bit more money and getting the StuG or Panther boxed set. You could also get a StuG and a couple Brummbären. Whatever you do, I wouldn't drop $30 on the Panzerkanonen box starting out, unless you really just like the models.

But yes, the SS company box, along with 5 StuGs or 3 StuGs and a couple Brummbären would be a great starting army. Like beefHeart said, Nebelwerfers or some other kind of artillery (or mortars) would be nice too, but that kind of stuff is gravy if you're only just starting out.

whats the theatre book?
also are the blast templates included in the open fire box?



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How about if instead of the panzer kannoen box i get a single stug (to make a full platoon) and get a GBX26 PaK40 auf RSO Platoon box set?

Da GeneruL wrote:whats the theatre book?
also are the blast templates included in the open fire box?

If you're doing Late War, the main list compilation book is called Fortess Europe. It's probably the best place for you to start.

I don't know if the artillery template is included in the open fire box, but I'm guessing they are not. You'll only need the artillery template if you take mortars, artillery, or air support though.

You don't really need one anyway. It's just a square, and you can easily cut out your own out of paper or cardboard.

How about if instead of the panzer kannoen box i get a single stug (to make a full platoon) and get a GBX26 PaK40 auf RSO Platoon box set?

That would be an excellent option, actually. Much better than the Panzerkanonen box, anyway. You will have a lot of anti-tank firepower. A completely full-strength StuG platoon is actually five vehicles, but you can roll with three - a lot of people, including myself, use under-strength platoons at times, especially when points are at a premium. If you're planning on using the PaK40s mounted on RSOs though, you should get the army book Hammer and Sickle, as it has the army list and rules for PaK40s mounted on RSOs.

Marders would be another good mobile AT option, or again, mortars or some kind of artillery (10.5cm Howitzers or Nebelwerfers are both good options).


It's great to hear that more people around here are getting into Flames of War! If you've got any other questions, don't hesitate to ask!

Thanks for all the help, and on another note, what scale models can i use for terrain, i.e. could i use railway model n or o gauge?
About the anti-tank stuff... my friend is only getting 3 shermans, so he might fid that amount of AT-guns a bit cruel, so should i get more anti-infantry stuff instead?

Da GeneruL wrote:Thanks for all the help, and on another note, what scale models can i use for terrain, i.e. could i use railway model n or o gauge?
About the anti-tank stuff... my friend is only getting 3 shermans, so he might fid that amount of AT-guns a bit cruel, so should i get more anti-infantry stuff instead?

As far as railroad terrain goes, you can use it, but it's not going to fit exactly. O scale will probably be a bit big, while N will be a bit small. Flames of War minis are 15mm, which is approximately 1/100 scale. Gale Force Nine makes some very nice 15mm terrain specifically for Flames of War (although it is a bit expensive, it is very nice). There are also other manufacturers who sell terrain for 15mm wargaming.


As far as other stuff to get, that depends. What other units will your friend have, besides the 3 Shermans? PaK40s and StuGs shouldn't have much problem dealing with 3 Shermans. If he's going to have a load of infantry....well, if you get the SS box, you'll already have heavy machine guns, right? So I'd probably go for mortars and/or artillery. Three Nebelwerfers aren't too expensive, although they can't fire directly like 10.5s can. You could also get some recon. Depending on whether you're running Grenadiers or Panzergrenadiers, you could have scouts just on foot, or a platoon of armored cars or something like that. You really have a ton of options.

Thanks for all the help, its been very enlightening



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I'll get some pics up as soon as i get them painted.

You're welcome, and I'm looking forward to seeing your painted stuff! Do you know what unit you want to do yet, or what paint scheme you're going to do? Are you going to do a certain camo pattern, or just Feldgrau uniforms?

If you want to see some of my FOW stuff, check out my Afrika Korps Gallery in the Dakka Gallery. Feel free to vote on all of it too!

Oh, and when you post pics, upload them to Dakka's Gallery so we can get some more FOW stuff rockin' around here!

Great models my good friend!
As for my own, i will probably do a woodland scheme, i'll have a look through wikipedia and find a fitting scheme and regiment and take it from there.
Also, if i do pick a cirtain regiment, i'll be able to find out their backstory, which always makes games a bit more interesting.

Da GeneruL wrote:Great models my good friend!
As for my own, i will probably do a woodland scheme, i'll have a look through wikipedia and find a fitting scheme and regiment and take it from there.
Also, if i do pick a cirtain regiment, i'll be able to find out their backstory, which always makes games a bit more interesting.

Thanks!

And yeah, it's great to pick a unit and go from there. That's what I did - my DAK are based on the 21. Panzer Division in North Africa.

If you need any help with certain units or proper camouflage patterns and uniform colors, don't hesitate to ask about that either! I'd be glad to help out with whatever I can, or failing that, at least point you in the direction of other people who can.

There are some good German uniform painting guides on the Battlefront website, too, by the way.

I think i'll do my me as the 12th SS Panzer Division, as it fought in western europe.
Also what are thr best colours for the woodland flectarn the ss are so famous for using?
I have the general idea, but what GW colours should i use?

Flecktarn is actually the name of the pattern the modern German military uses - you won't want to use that for your Waffen-SS infantry.

There are a few main patterns the Waffen-SS used, including Oak Leaf and Pea Dot, depending on the time of year. There were different patterns for fall and spring, so what time of year you are planning on basing your force on might have an effect on that.

As far as GW colors go, unfortunately they don't really have a good selection of colors for this kind of thing. If you want to do Waffen-SS and make them look good, I would highly recommend picking up a few of the Vallejo Model Color paints. You wouldn't need that many (probably like four to six would be fine) because some of the GW colors would work for some things.

You can use GW paints if you really want to, but be prepared to do a lot of mixing, because as I said, most of the colors aren't really going to look right if you use them straight out of the pot for this kind of project.

Here are a couple very nice articles from the Battlefront website on how to paint Waffen-SS Pea Dot and Plane Tree and Oak Leaf camouflage. They includes color recommendations for Vallejo Model Color paints, and the Plane Tree and Oak Leaf article has GW paint recommendations too (but you'll have to do a bit of mixing).

But anyway, those articles give you three good patterns to choose from, and I'm sure you can find some of the others if you search around.

I hope this helps!

Very nice. I think i might go for the plane tree scheme, is there any particular camo i have to do my tanks(since they're SS), or is there a bit of leeway?

With tanks there is generally more leeway. At some point, some units started getting vehicles in the Ambush pattern, but that wasn't until pretty late in the war.

For most of Late War, you'll probably just want to use some variation of the three-color pattern. It's a base of Dunkelgelb (a dark yellow color) and then red brown and dark green over top of that. Crews would often paint their own vehicles, so there isn't really a specific "pattern," just some combination of those three colors, with Dunkelgelb being the base color. You could also just paint the tanks Dunkelgelb, or just have them be Dunkelgelb with just green or just red brown. You can really mix it up.

Here's an article with some more info on Dunkelgelb and various ways of achieving it, and here is an article with a good example of the three color scheme, and here is an article on achieving good camo effects using washes, and it has good examples of both two and three color tank camo.

Enjoy!

You could write a book on that paint scheme : Three million ways to paint yellowy brown.
do you think tamia field grey would work as the green?

12th SS is actually in the Cobra book.

Which I luckily have in front of me right now.

And....it doesn't have Stugs. For that, you would have to look at a different SS Division...maybe one of the Eastern Front units or you could use it as 2nd SS...either ss-Gep. Panzergriender, ss-panzergriendier or an ss-panzerpioneer comany.

Western Front SS seem to be pretty light on the Stugs. I know, I have 5 myself and was disapointed when i realized they didn't directly fit into my 2nd panzerkompanie.

Drop me a PM if you want and I can point you into some 12-SS or 2nd-SS choices.

Da GeneruL wrote:You could write a book on that paint scheme : Three million ways to paint yellowy brown.
do you think tamia field grey would work as the green?

I've never used Tamiya Field Grey so I honestly can't say. By the sound of it, I would say no, as I think most Field Gray would probably be a bit too dark for that, but I've never actually seen Tamiya's version, so give it a try if you like. Your best bet is just to eyeball it, and if it looks pretty close to the colors they use in the BF articles, then you should be good. You could always do some mixing too, if you needed to lighten it up.

And yeah, Shotgun is right, the 12. Waffen-SS list is in the Cobra book. If you do 12., you can't take any PaK40 auf RSO either - as far as I know that's only in the Hammer and Sickle lists. Just something else to keep in mind...

Yeah, by all means, don't start buying things you can't use! *kicks Stugs and NoAf-Tiger*

I suppose I could use the Stugs eventually...but this NA-Tiger is just damn useless.

You could paint the North Africa Tiger in a different paint scheme and use it. What is the big difference, the air filters or something? Most people probably wouldn't notice if you painted it 3-color camo and used it in non-NA games.

2.- SS didn't have Tigers, only 12. now, I do get jagdpanthers for big uglies, but the 12 yr old in me didn't want to wait to see what I should buy before I started pulling blisters off the rack.

It was just "WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Tigers! Peew Peew Bang!"

Ah, I gotcha. What's stopping you from running a 12. SS list if you have the minis though? I mean just to switch it up from time to time?

And besides, it's only a Tiger. Most gamers tend to amass tons of minis they never actually use. If I only had one Tiger I wasn't using, I'd be doing pretty good!

From what ive read here, i think i'll read the army list before i buy any minitures.

Da GeneruL wrote:From what ive read here, i think i'll read the army list before i buy any minitures.

That's probably the best policy, in general. While there's a lot of interchangeability for a lot of units between lists, there are a few pieces of equipment that were used only by a few pretty specific units, and it would be a shame for you to set your sights on a certain thing, and then find out it didn't fit with everything else in your list. The good news is, once you figure out the basics, you can change out a lot of stuff to make some pretty interesting alternate lists.

I'm having the same problem with the call of the sturmtiger

Haha, yeah. I haven't gotten a Jagdpanther yet, either. It's going to happen eventually though, I can feel it calling.

I loves me some Brummbären and some Hetzer too.


Strangely enough, I'm probably one of the few German players who doesn't own a single Tiger or King Tiger. It's not really purposeful, but I don't know. I've just found myself always swaying towards more well-rounded equipment, I guess. I'd rather have a Jagdpanther anyway.

Hordini wrote:Ah, I gotcha. What's stopping you from running a 12. SS list if you have the minis though? I mean just to switch it up from time to time?

And besides, it's only a Tiger. Most gamers tend to amass tons of minis they never actually use. If I only had one Tiger I wasn't using, I'd be doing pretty good!

I could. But then the fallshirmjager and the Pak 43 from my 2. SS box set go by the way side. It was the judgement of one det aside unit or two set aside units. 2. SS won that arguement.......until I started seeing that my 5 StugG were tits on a mule as well. CURSE YOU HISTORICAL ACCURACY!!! CURSE YOU FOR KILLING MY INNER 12 YR OLD!!!

Sturmtiger doesn't bother me. That is a whole different front!

Now, what I can't figure out is the Hetzer. What frackin book is that thing out of? I mean its one thing to buy a model you can't use in your current list, its another to buy a model you can't use in any apparent list!

Shotgun wrote:Now, what I can't figure out is the Hetzer. What frackin book is that thing out of? I mean its one thing to buy a model you can't use in your current list, its another to buy a model you can't use in any apparent list!

According to the Hetzer Spotlight article, the rules for the Hetzer are in Hammer and Sickle. You can use them in Veteran Tank Hunter Platoons.

Yup 175 points for 2, rof 2, AT 11, fp 3+ for the Hetzer in hammer and sickle as part of the heavy tank company or reserve pioneer company. I have to say hammer and sickle and river of heroes have been the best books yet by far in my opinion and I cant wait for market garden.

Best books in what way? Just in general, or power level of the army lists, or best selection of units, or what?

I don't have any of the Bagration books yet, but I would like to get at least a couple of them! I might try to run my Soviet Battalion as Motostrelkovy from Hammer and Sickle or something, but I haven't decided yet.

Any recommendations?