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Finally had a normal 1 vs. 1 1500 point game tonight. Actually two, because it only took an hour for the first, and about an hour and a half for the second. Lost the first, won the second. Good fun, playing against my opponent, who wasn't the owner, and didn't get bogged down in arguing about the rules and "how we've been doing it for the past six years." No, the owner had to do that after my opponent and I finished our second game and were trying to clean up. I tried to nip things in the bud with "I'll do some research, and look it up tonight on the forums," but, nope, we needed to figure this out right now! And besides, unless the answer comes from Phil from Battlefront it doesn't count. Because nobody else knows how to play this game, not even tournament organizers or judges. Thankfully another player helped to convince him to not implement his stupid house rule. And the owner did apologize. But still, great way to create a welcoming environment. Sorry for the double post. One of the regulars is looking to ship out for boot camp in early August; when he leaves I'm gonna try to find a new group. Oh, and the rule in question? Took me five minutes to find the Lessons from the Front pdf and read the answer. So I'm actually contributing more than gamer angst to this thread, here is WWPD's 4-part preview of FoW Great War in case anyone missed it: Pt. 1: Overview Pt. 2: Army Lists Pt. 3: Tanks Pt. 4: Missions Sounds exciting, but with a bit of salt, as WWPD seems to be in BF's pocket half the time anyways. CovfefeCatCafe fucked around with this message at 03:35 on Jul 20, 2014 |
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Jul 20, 2014 03:27
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YF19pilot posted:Three, but I think the big issue was, for an armored fest, depending on your group you could either never win or never lose with the Israelis (usually never lose), and the Jordanians were just a non-starter. The other was that to buy an Arab army required a staggering investment in models that could only be used (a few could be used in Vietnam sure, if you were one of the few people playing Nationalists) in what amounts to a side project for BF. That and your average war-gamer tends to be an Israeli fan-boys (a hahaganaboo?) so in my group which has about a dozen regulars and probably another 30 or so floating around the area, I was the only one that expressed any interest in playing not-Israeli's. I dropped that idea quick when I started pricing out some armies and discovered that Jordanians were unplayable. YF19pilot posted:Finally had a normal 1 vs. 1 1500 point game tonight. Actually two, because it only took an hour for the first, and about an hour and a half for the second. Lost the first, won the second. Good fun, playing against my opponent, who wasn't the owner, and didn't get bogged down in arguing about the rules and "how we've been doing it for the past six years." WWPD is 100% a shill for BF. Their forum is slightly more useful than BF's because you can be slightly more frank about problems regarding BF and the FoW ruleset on it and not get banned. Wait until your store owner "discovers" that he can gun-tank Jumbo's, or more specifically, gun-tank regular Sherman instead of the Jumbo. The rules state that you can only gun-tank one tank over another based on amoung the obvious things (different type of tank, etc...) "major fitting" like bulldozer blades. There is a camp that maintains that the extra armor of the jumbo causes it to fall into this catigory and thus can be gun-tanked. Phil (and players who aren't poo poo-heels) says that it is not. BUT PHIL REFUSES TO PUT THIS IN LESSONS FROM THE FRONT because he's an idiot, also because he feels its so obvious that he doesn't have to.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:31
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Numlock posted:The other was that to buy an Arab army required a staggering investment in models that could only be used (a few could be used in Vietnam sure, if you were one of the few people playing Nationalists) in what amounts to a side project for BF. That and your average war-gamer tends to be an Israeli fan-boys (a hahaganaboo?) so in my group which has about a dozen regulars and probably another 30 or so floating around the area, I was the only one that expressed any interest in playing not-Israeli's. I dropped that idea quick when I started pricing out some armies and discovered that Jordanians were unplayable. Yeah, one of the problems I noticed from the side projects is that one side is a large scale horde army that requires a huge buy-in and has a bunch of rules that make them not terrifically fun to play. Also, BF has this maddening british wargamer complex where they absolutely refuse to make rulings because that would take away their british wargaming cred where you just throw dice at each other and treat the game like D&D or something.
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Jul 20, 2014 04:57
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Panzeh posted:Yeah, one of the problems I noticed from the side projects is that one side is a large scale horde army that requires a huge buy-in and has a bunch of rules that make them not terrifically fun to play anything_vaguely_soviet_in_wargames.txt
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Jul 20, 2014 05:02
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Numlock posted:The other was that to buy an Arab army required a staggering investment in models that could only be used (a few could be used in Vietnam sure, if you were one of the few people playing Nationalists) in what amounts to a side project for BF. That and your average war-gamer tends to be an Israeli fan-boys (a hahaganaboo?) so in my group which has about a dozen regulars and probably another 30 or so floating around the area, I was the only one that expressed any interest in playing not-Israeli's. I dropped that idea quick when I started pricing out some armies and discovered that Jordanians were unplayable. But wait, if an M4A1 and an M4A3 count as indistinguishable per the Gun Tank examples, how does the Jumbo not count as indistinguishable from the M4A3?  The extra armor's not that noticeable.Edit: Between this and that ridiculous tactic where people would shoot MGs at Jumbos and try to claim it invalidated Jumbos Lead the Way, I get the feeling that some people just can't handle an extremely expensive tank that you can get max 4 of in a single army.
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Jul 20, 2014 05:17
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Here's a fix to Gun Tank: if it has a separate Armoury entry you can Gun Tank it. Jumbos Lead The Way overrides this, allowing the player controlling the Jumbo to override the normal hit allocation sequence including the Gun Tank rule and place a hit on the JUmbo first.
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Jul 20, 2014 05:24
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Forums Terrorist posted:Here's a fix to Gun Tank: if it has a separate Armoury entry you can Gun Tank it. Jumbos Lead The Way overrides this, allowing the player controlling the Jumbo to override the normal hit allocation sequence including the Gun Tank rule and place a hit on the JUmbo first. That kind of gets away from the point of Gun Tanks, though, which is supposed to indicate the crew recognizing that a certain vehicle is a particular threat. Comparing an M4A3 and an M4, which have similar hull shapes and the same gun, for example, wouldn't be an easy task to perform at range or in combat. Comparing them against an Easy 8, however, which has a noticeably larger gun, would be a bit easier, and certainly more important for the crew. I don't think there's really a problem with the rule as it is, some people are just trying to stretch it past its stated intentions.
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Jul 20, 2014 05:32
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Counterpoint that's "forging the narrative" horseshit that leads to stupid rules arguments. Wargames in general should be built under the assumption that both players are the groggiest motherfuckers imaginable (because they usually are). Leave ambiguity and interpretive differences to games with GMs.
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Jul 20, 2014 05:38
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hell if we're going for "combat is confusing" then you shouldn't be able to gun tank period given that us troops sometimes shot at cromwells thinking they were tigers
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Jul 20, 2014 05:40
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Forums Terrorist posted:Counterpoint that's "forging the narrative" horseshit that leads to stupid rules arguments. Wargames in general should be built under the assumption that both players are the groggiest motherfuckers imaginable (because they usually are). Leave ambiguity and interpretive differences to games with GMs. Again, though, the rule is pretty clear as is-if you want to use Gun Tanks, it has to have a different gun, a different chassis, or have something stupidly obvious bolted to it. Period. This isn't particularly subjective, and I've certainly never gotten into an argument over it. I mean hell, one of the examples listed in the book is that a KT with a Henschel turret is functionally indistinguishable from a KT with a Porsche turret-if you've seen pictures of those tanks, you'd know how different the turret shapes are, and how the rule is meant to function. Anyone arguing the extra armor on a Jumbo makes it distinguishable from other Shermans is wrong, period. Also, ironically, your solution of having Jumbos Lead the Way override Gun Tanks is pretty much the polar opposite of how the rule is supposed to perform-Jumbos Lead the Way is intended to represent Jumbo Shermans driving at the front of a column, absorbing all the shots, and Gun Tanks is supposed to represent the gun crews seeing the big tank in front and deliberately ignoring it to shoot at the scarier tank with the bigger gun in the back. It's also the best way to get around Jumbos to hit the more vulnerable and dangerous 76mm Shermans, so allowing JLTW to override Gun Tanks would be an unimaginable buff to US tank armies. Forums Terrorist posted:hell if we're going for "combat is confusing" then you shouldn't be able to gun tank period given that us troops sometimes shot at cromwells thinking they were tigers It's supposed to represent even the dumbest of gun crews recognizing that, say, a 75mm Sherman is less dangerous than the clearly much better armed and much scarier Firefly, and shooting at it directly. It's something that happened in the War itself fairly frequently, and tank crews would often try to disguise the longer barrels of 76mm Shermans or Fireflies so the Germans wouldn't focus on them-this being a prime example: 
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Jul 20, 2014 05:50
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The Jumbo is not Gun-Tankable (in regards to singling it out against the M4). Phil has been clear about this and its also obvious from reading the rules of the Jumbo. Only somebody willfully trying to be stupid or break the rules in their favor would try to agure it the other way. But the Rules have that stupid "major fittings" clause that has a few listed examples but otherwise leaves it open to interpretation. Phil is aware of the issue and refuses to officially clarify it. He will gladly repeat over and over on the official forums that it isn't, but he has also made it clear that anything he posts in the forums is unofficial and the only official errata for FoW is Lessons from the Front. So getting back to my original post, its defacto up to tournament TO's and player agreements as to whether the Jumbo is gun-tankable. Most TO's and players are aware of it but the question comes up once a week when a newish player sees the two rules and asks for clarification.
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Jul 20, 2014 06:20
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Forums Terrorist posted:Counterpoint that's "forging the narrative" horseshit that leads to stupid rules arguments. Wargames in general should be built under the assumption that both players are the groggiest motherfuckers imaginable (because they usually are). Leave ambiguity and interpretive differences to games with GMs. Honestly I think BF is a bit out of touch with who their players are and what their players want. Its understandable though since they probably have tons of idiots screaming at them about inane poo poo. But it means that when there is a glaringly obvious rules fuckup (See Pre-Revised RB Soviets, the V2 USTD rules, the original V3 USTD rules, the original BAR, and finally Naval Gunfire support) you have to drag them, kicking and screaming all the way, to recognize a problem. Back when it was becoming clear that soviets needed a fix phil himself came on the forums and stated (with the air of finality) that there was no problem with soviets, everything was working as intended and there would be no adjustments what-so-ever. From his and other BF staffer posts it was clear that they felt it was a "Learn to play" issue. I strongly suspect that the only reason BF is rolling out a fix for Naval gunfire support is that all the Major tournaments were going to start banning it and/or the lists that could select it as an option. Its kind of crazy because other than era and possibly theater restrictions (IE this is a mid-war east front tournament) having any sort of restrictions on what players could use is extremely unusual for FoW.
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Jul 20, 2014 06:47
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Forums Terrorist posted:anything_vaguely_soviet_in_wargames.txt This is why I play Morskaya. You get the fun of full infantry Soviets without really needing to care about their stupid rules.
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Jul 20, 2014 08:18
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Yeah, we've been playing that you can gun-tank a shot off a Jumbo regardless of the composition of the platoon he's in. Gonna have to bring that one up, as that's what won me the second game last night (Panther, shooting at M4A3(late) platoon with attached Jumbo 2iC, only one tank in the platoon, made one hit, gun tank to M4A3(late), kill the A3, two dead platoons, one alive, Reluctant Vet US Armor fails company morale). We're apparently going to have a Total War game in about two weeks as a send off for the one player going into the army. 3,000 points a person was the number being tossed around last night.
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Jul 20, 2014 14:07
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YF19pilot posted:Yeah, we've been playing that you can gun-tank a shot off a Jumbo regardless of the composition of the platoon he's in. Gonna have to bring that one up, as that's what won me the second game last night (Panther, shooting at M4A3(late) platoon with attached Jumbo 2iC, only one tank in the platoon, made one hit, gun tank to M4A3(late), kill the A3, two dead platoons, one alive, Reluctant Vet US Armor fails company morale). Considering that the only real noticeable difference between a late A3 and an A3E2 is the turret shape, which is specifically called out under the Gun Tank rule as indistinguishable for the purposes of using the rule (The example being the difference between a KT with a Henschel turret and a Porsche turret), so I'd definitely argue against being able to distinguish between the two. As to Total War, I've never played a game of it but it's always seemed interesting. The idea of one person handling all the support assets seems pretty neat, but does it really work out in-game?
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Jul 20, 2014 14:58
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YF19pilot posted:Yeah, we've been playing that you can gun-tank a shot off a Jumbo regardless of the composition of the platoon he's in. I should have guessed. Did you guys notice how if you were able to gun tank jumbos there is no point in taking a jumbo? I don't know how you are going to convince your store manager of this as its not in LFtF.
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Jul 20, 2014 16:27
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Numlock posted:I should have guessed. Well, if Phil at Battlefront has said that's not how it's played, hopefully that'll bring some weight since apparently he's the only one that matters. I'll definitely let our Jumbo players know, but the owner pulled some bullshit last night about how I have to bring everything up before we start the game, not when the rule itself comes up in the game. So if the owner is running late and we're pushing to start and I forget to tell him specifically that gun-tank doesn't work that way any more, he'll probably go "you didn't tell me we were playing that way at the start of the game/that's not how we've been doing it" cue 15 minutes of him doing childish antics trying to prove his point. So if anyone has links to Phil stating that on the forums, would be much appreciated. e: VVV Cool, thanks. Just needed it from the horse's mouth. CovfefeCatCafe fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jul 20, 2014 |
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Jul 20, 2014 16:54
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http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=126&afv=search&aff=3&q=Jumbo There are dozens of them.
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Jul 20, 2014 23:04
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Crossposting: A package arrived!  I don't recall ordering anything from IKEA, but let's open it up anyways!  Little tiny mans, and tiny buildings, and Malaco brand Gott & Blandat! Favorit Mix! And this awesome post card:  Got the bits to start my own 6mm Samurai army. Until they're up to strength, I hope to use my totally in scale and period correct M24 Chaffee and M1 90mm AA gun.  Thanks lilljonas, you're awesome!
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Jul 21, 2014 20:06
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I'm going to preface this by stating that I do enjoy Flames of War, especially as a transition from Warhammer in to historicals. I like the minis, the rules are generally pretty solid, and as long as you play at the right size, I don't think they're terribly unbalanced. As some of you know, I also do historical reenactments. I started with middle ages, then moved on to the American War for Independence. The last year and half or so I've also been doing WW2, which started with a British impression, and now I've begun a Red Army impression. I've been a big fan of the Red Army in WW2 for a long time, even modeling my Imperial Guard armies after them (which isn't that hard, since GW used a lot of their doctine in the rules anyway) As far back as FoW 1st Edition, I was running masses of Soviet infantry. Unfortunately, as I've started doing more and more research, I'm coming to realize that Flames of War is a game that uses history as a background, but they enjoy pushing popular myths, probably because that's what their players expect. Specifically, this came about because I've been researching commissars. When I started doing the research, I believed like everyone else that commissars performed summary executions on retreating soldiers. I've dug around, read some pretty common as well as obscure documentation, and I'm really coming to the conclusion this rarely ever happened, if it happened at all (I can expound on this more if you'd like). And so flipping through the rules again this evening, I realized that FoW pushes the myth. Not only that, they have the same rules late in the war, at a time when commissars were subordinate to army officers. I know I'm spergin' out here (that's not the proper role for Commissars in the Red Army of 1944!), but it does sort of annoy me that this myth still gets pushed. I suppose I could paint commissars up as NKVD troops, because they certainly were bastards and may very well have shot people on the spot (but I haven't dug that far in to that yet). Anyway, that's my rant!
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Jul 22, 2014 00:03
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I think this is a thing which is well known with most people who play the game and have more than a passing knowledge of history/WWII. There are quite a number of things which are patently false, handled ways most people feel is incorrect, ignored out right, or are based on common myths, old wives tales, or "friend of a friend" stories. That's why a lot of people call Flames of War "The game based on the movie based on WWII." It's also a problem with a lot of games made by people from the 'West' (Kiwi-stan is a Commonwealth nation), that there will be a Western bent, with much of the Eastern side being based on anecdotes and fables, even from our enemies. I believe there is even common thought that German/Nazi records are considered more accurate and valuable than those from Soviet sources. Heck, "Hen and Chicks" is a term that comes from the Germans. Basically, if a German second line soldier in Italy told you that his buddy knew a guy in the Panzerkorps who fought on the Eastern Front, saw a "commissar tank" blow up his own T34s that were retreating, it'd probably be a rule somewhere in Flames of War.
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Jul 22, 2014 00:17
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"The Game Based on the Movie..." is an awesome way to put that. E: Does Bolt Action have that rule too? I don't own the Soviet Armies book (yet), but looking at some battle reports it seems like they do. Then again, that's also a game based on the movie based on the war, I suppose. 3 Action Economist fucked around with this message at 01:29 on Jul 22, 2014 |
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Jul 22, 2014 00:27
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I'm not adverse to commissars because honestly it's fun to shoot your own men but I'd like Veteran Soviets and more tanks without Hen And Chicks to be a thing. Or at least smoke for Hero armies.
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Jul 22, 2014 02:13
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I'm not opposed to commissars boosting morale and causing the troops to soldier on, that's what they did. They didn't execute people.
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Jul 22, 2014 02:15
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Change commissars to be historical, but then I want a Grigory Kulik warrior who can execute soldiers. JAIL OR MEDAL
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Jul 22, 2014 02:23
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I'm sure that they could have under the most exceptional of circumstances, just like everyone else does in war. People are always trying to write that bit of fiction into wargames. It's quite tedious. Too Fat Lardies are good about sticking to the history, but I've already seen fan rules turning commissars back into warhammer coward-execution machines. From what I've read, much of our understanding of Soviet tactics came from debriefing German POWs after the war. Their opinions came from a heady blend of propaganda, folktales, and the demoralizing shock of having lost to the Soviets. Of course they took Berlin - they're cornfed farmboys, with no regard for their own lives (they shoot their own people!), and there are one million of them. Even the women fight!
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Jul 22, 2014 02:33
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Soldiers were definitely shot by their own sides on the eastern front, be it for desertion or just plain refusing to do what you were told even if it was clearly a dumb idea. It was mostly a case of the chain of command going if you don't shoot so and so we are going to shoot you. I don't think it was specific task left only to the commissars. I know I keep shilling Dan Carlin's hardcore history; but if you can spare 5 bux go buy and listen to "Ghosts of the Ostfront", it really opened my eyes to how brutal that conflict was and how fanatical the Russians actually were  .
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Jul 22, 2014 03:01
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Man, this is why I sometimes get frustrated about historicals in the US. Really want in on that new By Fire & Sword book, but the shipping is £28 on top of £35 for the new book and £30 for the rule book, meaning about $160 total shipped out the door. If I want to buy just the rule book, there are only two online stores in the US, and the one that isn't completely incomprehensible to navigate wants $90 just for the rulebook. If all I wanted were the rule book, it'd be cheaper for me to order it from WaylandGames.co.uk and add in something small to have it shipped for free, but it's still £35 for the rule book, and I'll still have to pay £35 + £28 for the supplement if I want in on that, so it ends up costing more that route if I want the whole shebang. Oy, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm between jobs until September, I'd jump on it right away. I still want to jump on it now, but don't like the idea of having to crack into my savings to do it.moths posted:From what I've read, much of our understanding of Soviet tactics came from debriefing German POWs after the war. Their opinions came from a heady blend of propaganda, folktales, and the demoralizing shock of having lost to the Soviets. Of course they took Berlin - they're cornfed farmboys, with no regard for their own lives (they shoot their own people!), and there are one million of them. Even the women fight! That's part of what I was saying, too; and the German field reports are held to a much higher standard than any Soviet reports. Granted, a lot of this comes from the suppression of a lot of information because of the Iron Curtain, our only sources were the German POWs, but with that lifted, there's quite a bit more information going around.
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Jul 22, 2014 03:01
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No Pun Intended posted:Soldiers were definitely shot by their own sides on the eastern front, be it for desertion or just plain refusing to do what you were told even if it was clearly a dumb idea. It was mostly a case of the chain of command going if you don't shoot so and so we are going to shoot you. I don't think it was specific task left only to the commissars. And yet you never see Feldgendarmerie represented as much. Funny that.
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Jul 22, 2014 03:07
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It looks like the whole package is flat shipping, so you might be able to piggyback additional copies with someone else's... if you don't mind waiting longer and taking your chances with US media mail.
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Jul 22, 2014 03:14
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moths posted:It looks like the whole package is flat shipping, so you might be able to piggyback additional copies with someone else's... if you don't mind waiting longer and taking your chances with US media mail. Reading the comments looks like they're going to update the add-ons, or some kind of update coming in the next day or two. If they allow multiple copies of The Deluge, that looks like that could be a possibility. I wonder if they use some kind of drop-ship service, only thing I could think of why the post fees would be that way. e: not sure if I can convince anyone in my area to go in on something; I'm the only Pollock at my LGS.
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Jul 22, 2014 03:29
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YF19pilot posted:That's why a lot of people call Flames of War "The game based on the movie based on WWII." It's also a problem with a lot of games made by people from the 'West' (Kiwi-stan is a Commonwealth nation), that there will be a Western bent, with much of the Eastern side being based on anecdotes and fables, even from our enemies. It's more than that, its a game based on whatever bullshit BF wants to make up that day. They don't have anybody on their staff with more than a passing knowledge of WWII outside of the western front and even within that area there is a consistent and pervasive bias in favor of the American and British. Most if not all of the special rules are based on stupid poo poo they saw in movies and then went out and found supporting citations they can take out of context to justify them. This has been pointed out to them and they don't give a gently caress. They will lock threads on throw out bans on people talking about these issues.
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Jul 22, 2014 03:47
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If you're gonna take anything from FoW and the old nickname of "Warhammer 1944" then what you've gotta take from it is the same thing you take from any GW game: play the game as it is, not as it would be if the company were good at writing games.
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Jul 22, 2014 04:45
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Forums Terrorist posted:Change commissars to be historical, but then I want a Grigory Kulik warrior who can execute soldiers. JAIL OR MEDAL The only good reason to have a little Kulik figure is if you can have him dial a little Voroshilov figure and make completely retarded technical decisions together. With silly accents.
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Jul 22, 2014 05:32
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Speaking of Battlefront, what is the deal with the lack of the USMC? I understand not getting to the PTO yet, but Vietnam? Really? What did one of the guys at BF loose his girl, or get his rear end kicked by a Marine?
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Jul 22, 2014 07:13
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The Russians shot a lot of deserters and such, it was just rarely done by regimental commissars, they had a whole group of armed regiments in the NKVD basically devoted to rooting out deserters, traitors and foreign spies/nationals/partisans (the secret police stop really being secret when they can field hundreds of soldiers it would seem).
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Jul 22, 2014 07:21
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Looking for some rules for some Great Northern War action, as I just re-read"Poltava" and it got me itching to finally dip into slightly deeper fields of tiny men. Any suggestions? I've had someone recommend Gå På, but I cannot find the drat rules (or even the guy who recommended it - just a vague memory from a couple years ago). Any suggestions for tiny mans would also be appreciated, as I'm totally new to historicals and would like to try building a pair of sides for some small-scale gaming. Also just thought I'd say the 6mm Saga is pretty awesome, and I'll be building a little travel table for it.
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Jul 22, 2014 07:37
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No Pun Intended posted:Soldiers were definitely shot by their own sides on the eastern front, be it for desertion or just plain refusing to do what you were told even if it was clearly a dumb idea. It was mostly a case of the chain of command going if you don't shoot so and so we are going to shoot you. I don't think it was specific task left only to the commissars. I'll check out those sources, but I'm skeptical. Everything I've seen says that executions were done after the battles, and after court martials, other than some occurrences by the NKVD and their blocking battalions (which didn't last long). There are, in fact, plenty of records of commissars themselves being tried and sent to gulags or penal battalions for concurring with a commander's decision to retreat. And yes, pretty much every modern army, even today, shoots deserters if they're deserting in the middle of combat and causing a panic. El Estrago Bonito posted:The Russians shot a lot of deserters and such, it was just rarely done by regimental commissars, they had a whole group of armed regiments in the NKVD basically devoted to rooting out deserters, traitors and foreign spies/nationals/partisans (the secret police stop really being secret when they can field hundreds of soldiers it would seem). Even SMERSH generally just arrested deserters and tried them later. I just read a statistic in Antony Beevor's "The Fall of Berlin" which said the NKVD reporte to Beria after the war that they had detained something like (I can get the actual numbers later) 650,000 "deserters", arrested 25,000, and sent all but 10,000 back to the front.
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Jul 22, 2014 08:25
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Battlefront would hardly be alone in promoting the myth of Good Guy Uber Fritz, Uncle Sam the Lord and Saviour and Ivan the Incompetent Butcher (and his 4000 assistants)
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Jul 22, 2014 08:51
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Yeah, certainly not. It seems a very common thing in WW2 wargaming. I'll wait for our resident Grognard to weigh in, though.
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Jul 22, 2014 09:12
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