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I have recently aquired the Flames of War rulebook. I want to begin collecting a German and an American Army. However, I see that there are several different books covering the three different eras of the war (Early, Mid, Late). So I have a couple questions:

1. Considering the U.S didn't show till the middle of the war, I'm assuming my choices are either Mid or Late. For the occasional game with the only goal in mind is fun, which era is best?

2. Can you mix and match eras and units from different books?

3. Which books are best for German vs U.S?

1. It depends. Are you doing this to play with others in the area near you? If so, ask around and see if anyone plays, and which era.

If you're looking to play with just friends, or even with your own armies, then it's up to you. If you want the stereotypical 'WWII' game, I'd say Late War. And if the only goal is fun, then you shouldn't have to worry about having your Americans face off against a Panther or Tiger company.

2. Kinda, but it's really not worth it. A Late War force will utterly crush a Early/Mid war army. The books are actually meant to be internally balanced.

3. My recommendation is the D-Day compilation books, Earth & Steel (German) and Turning Tides (British, Canadian, and US). If there's a part of WWII that's familiar to people with even a passing knowledge of the war, it's the 1944 D-Day campaign.

As always, I'd recommend you set up an account with Easy Army. It's a fantastic and ridiculously cheap army building site for FoW - you can pick up all of the lists from the D-Day books for $2!

Thanks that's a lot if help. Ill stick with late and look for the d day books.

Why are only the internal books meant to be fair and balanced? why not make a main rule book, and then three other books i.e africa, eastern front, western front. and in those have seperate sections for the the different eras?

Spartan-Kun wrote:Why are only the internal books meant to be fair and balanced? why not make a main rule book, and then three other books i.e africa, eastern front, western front. and in those have seperate sections for the the different eras?

I guess by 'internal books' you mean each book separately?

I guess I meant that from a competitive perspective. Some, like the D-Day compilation books and Monty's Meatgrinder can be used together, since they're both around the D-Day campaign.

The thing about WWII is that it's a conflict where technology progressed at an astounding rate - a simple comparison between tanks in 1939-1940 to those in 1945 is evidence of that fact. 3 books would simply be either too large or not enough to cover WWII. Thus, it's why we'll see a 'Battle of the Bulge' book, instead of just a 'Allies Invade France and go to Germany' book.

Plus, it means more profit for Battlefront!

ya i meant the intel handbooks lol oops

That makes sense, i guess i've been playing 40k for too long lol

Of course money is involved lo

Most lists regardless of front or battle are balanced. However, it's mainly the more extreme lists that were still historical that can throw things off.

On the Eastern front, for example, things got crazy with the escalation there.

I've never played FoW but I've been thinking of getting into it. How historically accurate are the armies that get fielded (to the very limited extent that's possible)?

Is there an equivalent to 40k's melta-spam? If so, how common is it?

The army lists available usually represent what that particular company had access to and actually saw combat.

So you'll see stuff that's way more common than in history because at some point that unit had access to things and saw combat with them, but might not have had all those things at the same time.

It's best to remember that FoW is a game first, if you want pure historical, seek elsewhere.

However, the game is balanced with history and reasonable tactics in mind, and most missions help to balance things out, especially then determining who is attacking and defending.

Ok, I just wanted to make sure that it's "Historical-ish" versus, well, melta-spam.

Thanks!

From what I've seen, I'd say FoW is sort of a 'Gritty War Movie' level of realism and accuracy.

You can get more realistic if you're playing a scenario and bypass the normal point rules, but in general lists from the same book will be plausible as opposition, even though you might not actually ever find a real-world task force with that exact unit mix.

But if it's fun, isn't that worth something?

Oh for sure. I'm not looking for Napoleonic accuracy or something!

Doctor Optimal wrote:I've never played FoW but I've been thinking of getting into it. How historically accurate are the armies that get fielded (to the very limited extent that's possible)?

Is there an equivalent to 40k's melta-spam? If so, how common is it?

The game is roughly historically accurate, but not completely historically accurate. Some names have been changed to the protect the game balance.

Most things are pretty balanced, but you really need to take care when combining LW eastern front force lists with LW Italian and western front forces on the table. The power escalation scale on the Russian front was incredibly insane and the british and US lists from the Western front just can't keep up with a lot of the heavies that were present on the eastern front in those numbers. Sticking to the D-Day books for LW US and german lists is a good plan.

As for melta-spam, the only thing that annoys me as much in FoW as meltas in 40k is the german 88. They are available for the germans from EW all the way through LW and only the russians every get heavy enough stuff to the 88 not to be an instant kill weapon on a hit. The only bonus in 40k is that meltas generally have a much shorter range while an 88 can light you up across most of the length of the table. Ultimately, though, you can use smoke round support from artillery or mortars to keep the 88s from getting a chance to fire at your force when it is vulnerable. Nothing is more amusing than seeing the frustration on the german player's face when once again their 88s can't shoot at the enemy tanks sitting out in the open.

Skriker

Yup - the 88 may be powerful, but it can be easily deflected. Mortars or Artillery with smoke can easily range in and then drop a smoke template over the gun each turn, rendering them near-useless and vulnerable to assaults.

infinite_array wrote:Yup - the 88 may be powerful, but it can be easily deflected. Mortars or Artillery with smoke can easily range in and then drop a smoke template over the gun each turn, rendering them near-useless and vulnerable to assaults.

And *this* is one of the many reasons I really like Flames of War.

The only thing that is really hard to deal with in FoW is a russian tank company when all the rolls go the russian player's way; Those rare occasions where all of the limitations put on the russians disappear to good die rolling. Those are painful battles. Luckily it doesn't happen all the time.

Skriker