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Steven at Battlefront wrote:Hi guys, obviously there is some misinformation going around here. I will take the opportunity to clear this up right now.

First of all, I will point out that a few people in this thread whipping up the froth are Rangers. Rumour mongering from Rangers is quite disappointing.

So here are the facts:
Red Bear had just about sold through, and was due for a reprint. Note- all books go through reprints, to keep stock levels up and the like. At the time that Red Bear was going to print, Desperate Measures was underway. As you all have noticed by now, in Desperate Measures we had a good long look at Hen & Chicks. After listening to player feedback, we've come to agree that Soviet tanks affected by Hen & Chicks were indeed over costed. Thus, we took the opportunity to modify Red Bear before the reprint, considering that Soviet armour (at the moment) is only represented in Red Bear and (the forthcoming) Desperate Measures for late war V3, and both books were being worked on at almost the same time.

Thus, Red Bear features a few repointed options and a few tweaks to company diagrams. Now, we aren't making these tweaks to try to squeeze one more book out of our customers. We're gamers too! Instead, we decided we couldn't pass up the opportunity to fix up some things in one fell swoop.

Thus, you can expect a PDF detailing the changes made to the army lists. to repeat: current owners of Red Bear will be able to download a PDF to bring their book up to the revised edition. We feel this is the best solution to bring LW Soviet armour back to a competetive state with as little impact as possible.

As for Easy Army, we have no plans to "kill" it! We love Greg, and we love Easy Army. We think he does great work, and wish to continue to work closely with him. We provide him with many of the tools and information to keep it going. Of course, we would make no secret of the fact that we would love to have an in-house solution to army building, but that is a ways down the road.

Time to dust off my Soviets?

I'm kind of annoyed with this RANGERS thing, it's starting to feel like I am a second class customer because I'm not one, and everything seems to be dedicated to them?

I might be feeling this somewhat irrationally but I feel this RANGERS thing is divisive and needlessly silly.

 mwnciboo wrote:
I'm kind of annoyed with this RANGERS thing, it's starting to feel like I am a second class customer because I'm not one, and everything seems to be dedicated to them?

I might be feeling this somewhat irrationally but I feel this RANGERS thing is divisive and needlessly silly.

*shrug* Just as silly as any other "Special Customer" program really, except Rangers actually are supposed to go out and do demonstrations and other things to help the company.

On topic, depending on how the rule is re-written, I may dust off my PSC T-34's again...

 mwnciboo wrote:
I'm kind of annoyed with this RANGERS thing, it's starting to feel like I am a second class customer because I'm not one, and everything seems to be dedicated to them?

I might be feeling this somewhat irrationally but I feel this RANGERS thing is divisive and needlessly silly.

I don't understand where this is coming from at all... the rangers got a mild slap on the wrist from "Steven at Battlefront" apparently because they "should know better" and you're feeling jealous?

In what way does this make you feel a "second class customer". AFAIK occasionally they get a t-shirt or something occasionally for signing a restrictive agreement to promote Battlefront but I've never seen anything that could be interpreted as favouritism.

I don't understand where this is coming from at all... the rangers got a mild slap on the wrist from "Steven at Battlefront" apparently because they "should know better" and you're feeling jealous?

In what way does this make you feel a "second class customer". AFAIK occasionally they get a t-shirt or something occasionally for signing a restrictive agreement to promote Battlefront but I've never seen anything that could be interpreted as favouritism.

It's nothing to do with Mild slap of the wrist, It's the fact I do not give a **** about Ranger Stuff and I've had it rammed down my throat from the Website and WG Illustrated. It's precisely because of the Ranger stuff, I#m growing increasingly concern about BF's leadership - The miniatures and Game is becoming secondary - They are chasing this Ranger crap and no one where I play care (we have 20-30 FOW Players but aren't going to play BF events because they are BF miniatures only and most of our members have PSC, and other models in their collections). So you begin to feel like the unwanted customer base, because all they focus on is "Their Core Loyal Fanbase" and the rest of the customers aren't real customers because they don't engage in our RANGER events.

This isn't like GW owning the 40k universe IP here......No one can own the IP to World War II Miniature models in 1/100 or 15mm. So BF are looking to lock in it's fanbase.

I have had to endure an awful lot of crap on their website, which caters to Tournaments alot, of which I care little. I despise Manufacturer endorse tournaments because they become "OUR MINIATURES ONLY" affairs which really quite frankly is insulting we buy the product not them, I can do what I like with them. You don't like it tough...Then people get all defensive "Well you don't have to play at Rangers" exactly "I don't" and equally "I don't want to know about them" if you do then you should seek that information out on the website and we shouldn't all have to suffer the endless, mindless marketing.

What I would prefer is that the game and it's miniatures take centre stage and not competitions or tournaments. It should be there, but not front and centre as it has been for months. Having tournament play rammed down my throat continuously for months does begin to grate.

Why not add a Tab to the Website, with all the tournament details there and maybe the odd reference to it.....I remember an update a few months back on the Flames of War website Frontpage which had nothing but Rangers all over it.....No miniatures, no hobby related stuff but 100% Ranger Events.

Everything in moderation...Instead we get overload of flavour of the month. Unfortunately RANGERS seems to have been flavour of the year.

They are chasing this Ranger crap and no one where I play care (we have 20-30 FOW Players but aren't going to play BF events because they are BF miniatures only and most of our members have PSC, and other models in their collections).

I think you're conflating two separate things here.. The ban on non Battlefront miniatures applies to some official sponsored tournaments, not Rangers events and even then I think BF have backed off a complete ban so you need to give them credit for that. No point in companies being responsive like that if their customers keep on complaining anyway, that's one way of ensuring that BF ditch their own customer relation model for the GW standard.

Neither of my rangers are banning PSC stuff at there events and I've never heard of any others doing so. In fact they both PSC stuff. So maybe it's just your individual ranger who's confused about this and something you may want to take up with him.

I know a couple of Rangers, it is overated they really do not get that many benefits.
also with WWpd Steven taking over on somethings i think here, in due time things will get better.
Also Tournaments i think are overated.The companies should pay more attention to us GArage gamers,Because overall i think we spend more money than the Tourney people.

Mwncibo I think you need to take a breath and step away from the computer for a sec. My ranger has never mentioned BF models only at events, and on top of that, half his events are demos to get people into the game. Plus I'm pretty sure that "ban" on 3rd party was lifted a while back. I'm sure Battlefront don't like it but I haven't heard of anyone getting kicked out for Zvezda or PSC tanks at a BF event.

Forgive my ignorance, but what is Hen and Chicks? Is this some strategy/tactic/rule involving 1 'lead' tank/unit and a bunch of smaller tanks/units?

 Alfndrate wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but what is Hen and Chicks? Is this some strategy/tactic/rule involving 1 'lead' tank/unit and a bunch of smaller tanks/units?

It's a rule that Soviet T-34's got updated in 3rd Edition that pretty much made Soviet Tank armies terrible (or at least really hard to play). Like, no tanks can move unless the command tank moves and if the command tank does move the rest of your tanks HAVE to move (if he dies? Your WHOLE PLATOON can't move for the rest of the game). And you add +1 to the score needed to hit when shooting if they move (which is probably a yes early game)

If this wasn't bad enough, they didn't adjust points to account for the fact the rule made them much worse so they are also very overcosted.

I think the costs were reduced a bit with Red Bear?

I like it, it's a rule that ties into the historical elements, and adds character. Certainly, you have to really think when you use them, and tactics for both sides are important. It's just that it's possibly not as well implemented as it could be (reducing points cost should hopefully remedy that somewhat).

I think that hopefully this should balance the current infantry heavy lists at a lot of tournaments. You'll hopefully need to start taking high AT again to deal with the soviet tanks, and I also think that in turn they will struggle against some veteran medium armour which can smoke them and then force them to move to get a hit.

 Alfndrate wrote:
Forgive my ignorance, but what is Hen and Chicks? Is this some strategy/tactic/rule involving 1 'lead' tank/unit and a bunch of smaller tanks/units?

you ever play Halo? and some blue dude shoots a red dude then proceeds to bounce up and down on the dead guys face..I think they call it tea baggin.
In Flames of War...Soviets are the red guy thats dead the blue guy is Phil from Battlefront..and the Tea Baggin..thats hen's and chicks.

if all they've done is made non guards tanks abit cheaper then soviets are still a mess. Most games have a description for a faction that summarizes their play style..Soviets should say" Horde army that needs sixes to hit..you'll die alot..you'll miss alot..get use to it"

but i digress..I'm sure its all gonna be ponies and rainbows

Some info pulled from WI313 (apparently).

The Tankovy reduce in points 10 x T-34 Obr 42 drop 100 pts and 10 x T-34/85 drop 85 pts. Katyusha can 'shoot and scoot' by rolling to remove the smoke trails and also drop in points 8 cost 45 pts less and 2 20pt. The heavy version drops from 640pts to 305 pts for an eight vehicle battery. Su85, 85M 100 and M-10 get to re-roll misses at long range.

The points drop is nice, but still not sure it makes them viable.

I don't think I have ever seen a Katy unit on any table, and I don't think this will change that.

I assume this re-roll is along with not moving? Might have to look at some 85Ms.

It's the same as 'semi- indirect fire' that British tanks have.

It's official! Here are the .pdfs: http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&art_id=4182

As far as I can see it's all good so far. I'm keen to try out the changes.

the stick in pdf has a ton of errors, used old point values etc..they re-posted it..in case you got a copy before then.
only bad thing is a few things have gone up in price and they nerfed L Ratt and made his roll to zigzag for his platoon a 6 only ,cuz someone thought the 5+ was to good I guess
I'm not sure he'll be worth the points now those honestly..but I guess it keeps the soviets consistent to the theme of needing 6's to succeed

I'm sort of ambivalent about this. I will just write mostly on the things that concern me, and allow you guys to comment.

1) Hen and Chicks - dropping points costs isn't really a solution. The Soviets in late war are already hard to collect (real-money wise) and this just makes you get more. Additionally, it in some ways exacerbates the problem with H&C by crowding the table and forcing the units into even more inflexible bricks or else they would foul eachother's maneuvering. In my opinion, the 2nd Edition Hen and Chicks was brutal enough!

2) The new Guards Heavy Tank Company: I am thankful for these changes, and they do fix the list rather nicely. However, I personally would have changed it in a different manner: by addressing the combat platoons. In the original iteration of the list, the emphasis was on the heavy tanks the big, mobile brutes. Now, even more than before, more and more of the work falls on the support elements as other armies get better (AT13 Shermans? wut).
To improve the combat platoons (thusly removing the need for the extra support options), make the IS-2 obr 1943 into the IS-2 obr 1944 (seriously, why wasn't this an option) for a slight front armor improvement (11 or 12, perhaps), and maybe allow for mixing of IS types, i.e. IS-85s, IS-2 obr 1943, and IS-2 obr 1944s in the same army.

At any rate, this isn't meant to be a direct criticism of Battlefront. The update is needed and welcome. It's merely some comments on the two points that bother me the most - mainly just proposing alternatives. There's nothing inherently wrong with what Battlefront did.