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Colonial Air Force posted:I'd like one that didn't have bullshit commissar rules, too. No idea if CoC does or not. CoC doesn't have bullshit comissar rules. Honestly the comissars are what make Soviet infantry blobs work and Romanian/Italians not because they can avoid the pinning death spiral on infantry platoons that cost north of 300 points. 450 point Romanian blobs(because they have a 1/3 chance of being vets) are a joke.
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Sep 21, 2015 00:13
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Colonial Air Force posted:I'd like one that didn't have bullshit commissar rules, too. No idea if CoC does or not. CoC does not. It's honestly all rather good. It even notes that late-war germany isn't a fearless and well-drilled crack troop because all their fearless and well etc etc got slaughtered on the eastern meatgrinder years ago and now it's "EVEEEERRYYYYOOOOONE" time. dtkozl posted:I was fine with it in early war since it was simulating the lack of radios in soviet tanks and their doctrine of always going into the attack buttoned up and it did an ok job. The problem I have is they didn't really get rid of it for late war when they had radios. High tank numbers are marginally more okay since there actually was a huge amount more soviet tanks than nazi ones. That said, similar logic should be in play for the US/UK forces under that remit, I guess...
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Sep 21, 2015 00:19
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TBH balancing things out with the Soviets in FoW is really super hard due to how the pendulum of craptank swung between one side and the other regularly on the Eastern Front, and Battlefront have decided that in tournament situations a-historical matchups are fine to prevent the obvious "everyone brought nazis, no game" problems.lilljonas posted:At least the document I watched recently claimed that Hitler wanted to switch the Pz. IIIs off from the inadequate 5cm gun pretty early, but that his orders were not followed and that the Soviet tank advantage against the Pz. III was prolonged because of that. But I'm far from an expert. Depends what you mean by "they" really. Most, if not all, books in my FLGS are 3rd edition. I think North Africa might be 2nd, possibly. VVVV Arquinsiel fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Sep 21, 2015 |
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Sep 21, 2015 00:34
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Incidentally what FoW books are actually 3rd edition? They appear to still be selling 2nd edition books and it's really very confusing.
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Sep 21, 2015 01:15
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lilljonas posted:At least the document I watched recently claimed that Hitler wanted to switch the Pz. IIIs off from the inadequate 5cm gun pretty early, but that his orders were not followed and that the Soviet tank advantage against the Pz. III was prolonged because of that. But I'm far from an expert. The 5 cm KwK L/60 could penetrate the T-34 frontally only by using APCR. The Soviets reacted to this intelligence by making T-34s with 60 mm front plates, but production was cancelled after only about 150 were made because the Germans were desperately short on tungsten and could afford very few APCR shells.
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Sep 21, 2015 01:39
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spectralent posted:CoC does not. It's honestly all rather good. It even notes that late-war germany isn't a fearless and well-drilled crack troop because all their fearless and well etc etc got slaughtered on the eastern meatgrinder years ago and now it's "EVEEEERRYYYYOOOOONE" time. spectralent posted:High tank numbers are marginally more okay since there actually was a huge amount more soviet tanks than nazi ones. That said, similar logic should be in play for the US/UK forces under that remit, I guess... They were never just fearless well drilled crack troops, they were always all different types and it was the same in all armies. Different proportions at different times sure, but to just make a blanket statement like that on a national force is silly. The germans still had vet formations until the end of the war. The soviets had them at the start. High tank numbers only make sense in an operational sense. On your average battlefield the side the tended to win was the one that tended to bring more stuff to the party than the other. Games like bolt action and fow are just a loose ww2 tactical game. In the real war with those type of scenarios you would tend to see a rough parity in assets. On your average attack, TOE wise, you would see roughly the same amount of tanks in the german army as in the soviet army. Taking things from the operational level and applying them to the tactical level is just not a good idea because it distorts reality. It is your typical post hoc ergo proctor hoc thing. The tank stuff you guys were talking about is the perfect example. If the soviets could have fought like they did at the end of the war at the beginning they would have won with the bt 7 and the t 26 just like the germans won with the panzer II. The panzer 2 had very little impact on the 1941 campaign. The German ability to mass their armor, to bring it to the needed sector when they needed it, and the soviet inability to do that is what made barbarossa possible. That sort of thing is outside the scope of your ww2 miniatures game and in my opinion should be avoided at all cost.
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Sep 21, 2015 01:59
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Ensign Expendable posted:The 5 cm KwK L/60 could penetrate the T-34 frontally only by using APCR. The Soviets reacted to this intelligence by making T-34s with 60 mm front plates, but production was cancelled after only about 150 were made because the Germans were desperately short on tungsten and could afford very few APCR shells. Normal AP rounds could penetrate the turret of a t34 in 1942. They were actually pretty well matched, both needed to be around 500 meters and under to get a reliable kill on the other.
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Sep 21, 2015 02:02
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spectralent posted:Incidentally what FoW books are actually 3rd edition? They appear to still be selling 2nd edition books and it's really very confusing. Early War: -Barbarossa -Rising Sun Late War: -Atlantik Wall -Berlin -Blood, Guts, and Glory -Bridge at Remagen -Bridge by Bridge -Desperate Measures -Devil's Charge -Fortress Italy -Grey Wolf (Revised) -Market Garden -Nachtjager -Nuts! -Overlord -Red Bear (Revised) -Road to Rome Pretty much all of the 2nd Edition Late War books were re-done for 3rd Edition, IIRC. The only books still around that are being used are all for Early War and Mid War, though it's doubtful Battlefront will be releasing anything else for those periods anytime soon. As to the problem with Battlefront's treatment of Soviets, I think the biggest problem is that instead of focusing on the actions of specific units and basing their lists and rules on that (Like they do with every other army), with Soviets every list has to fit into a generic Red Army/Guards template. The most likely reason is probably just because whoever is in charge of writing lists is just too loving lazy to do the research, since they still write poo poo like Soviet troops are "still plagued by incompetent leadership and an influx of poorly trained or ill-prepared replacements" as an excuse not to make Soviet troops actual Veterans. It doesn't help either that they're frankly delusional on how effective the lists they do make for Soviets are, as evidenced by this amazing article on using the absolutely terrible IS-2 list in Berlin.
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Sep 21, 2015 03:12
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In a weird way, somehow I find that the special rules that supposedly hamstring the Soviets do absolutely nothing to bother me when using them. My mid-war Mixed Tankovy has more than enough guns to deal with pretty much anything, AND has enough bodies in a single infantry platoon to put most of my German armies to shame. Then when looking at a friend's various Soviet armies they always seem to not only have better stuff, but more of it and to such a degree that minor things like "being really easy to hit" pale when the armour and firepower values come into play. It's really strange that when playing against his Soviets with my anything I struggle, yet when I play my Soviets against his anything it's a cakewalk, tablewipes being common. But then any other matchup of our forces tends to work out reasonably balanced and it often comes down to one turn to either take and hold or clear off an objective in the end with both forces still having a few units that could change the tide "if they were just an inch that way". I have honestly got no idea of how to fix that problem at all.
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Sep 21, 2015 03:42
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Arquinsiel posted:In a weird way, somehow I find that the special rules that supposedly hamstring the Soviets do absolutely nothing to bother me when using them. My mid-war Mixed Tankovy has more than enough guns to deal with pretty much anything, AND has enough bodies in a single infantry platoon to put most of my German armies to shame. Then when looking at a friend's various Soviet armies they always seem to not only have better stuff, but more of it and to such a degree that minor things like "being really easy to hit" pale when the armour and firepower values come into play. It's really strange that when playing against his Soviets with my anything I struggle, yet when I play my Soviets against his anything it's a cakewalk, tablewipes being common. But then any other matchup of our forces tends to work out reasonably balanced and it often comes down to one turn to either take and hold or clear off an objective in the end with both forces still having a few units that could change the tide "if they were just an inch that way". The Soviets are a weird and matchup-dependent faction, and for what it's worth, I think the mid war Soviets are the best-implemented of the bunch, because the kind of toys they have works out a lot better in mid war and yeah to be quite honest, for the Soviets, Fearless Conscript infantry is probably better than Confident Trained(aside from scenarios where they can just sit on an objective and do nothing the whole game). I've had so much frustration with my Romanians being reluctant with the infantry and watching a blob stay pinned forever really sucks. The great thing about mid war for them is that their tanks can still assault infantry that's not loaded with AT teams quite yet and in general there's less of the stuff that utterly laughs at Soviet medium tanks. I don't think I could ever play the militia battalion though. Honestly, despite all their writing for late war, mid war is probably still the most interesting period gameplay wise.
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Sep 21, 2015 03:52
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I've been playing mostly Early War of late, so it's weird to stick down maybe 15 German tanks and watch as multiple units of around 10 T-26s go down and tear my tanks apart by being roughly comparable in everything except speed and crew skill. Of course my British tanks are basically immune to the 45mm guns, so that's a weird matchup. It's starting to feel like Early War is very Rock Paper Scissors, and if you try go with balanced you end up with an origami scissors with only one blade and a handful of pebbles.
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Sep 21, 2015 04:27
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Playing in an EW escalation league for FoW. My Polish, infantry got chewed up by a Divisional Cavalry Squadron. A dozen Scout Carriers ain't noting to gently caress with when you have all of two ATR teams and 3 AT guns, and the ability to roll lower than statistical average.
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Sep 21, 2015 07:43
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Looking at getting into Saga, and didn't realize that only 4 points of something can range in price between £20-30 for one force. Just wondering, is there a range of 15mm Norman/Viking/Dane era figures out there, or is it just Gripping Beast that have the main hold on that era?
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Sep 21, 2015 10:27
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Playing soviets late-war the two biggest issues I have are not having enough room to physically move (usually terrain forces me heavily bunched up and there's at least one bottleneck) and that against concealed vets H&C means you can't hit period until you're parked.
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Sep 21, 2015 11:35
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krushgroove posted:Looking at getting into Saga, and didn't realize that only 4 points of something can range in price between £20-30 for one force. Dice Bag Lady breaks up the GB plastic box into more affordable starters, and I believe Old Glory has a pretty good Dark Ages line. The Wargames Factory stuff is fairly cheap, but they're one of their earliest lines and takes a lot to get looking nice. E: http://www.oldglory25s.com/index.php?cat_id=204&catname=%27Dark%20Ages%27 The Old Glory stuff says 25mm but I've found it to be more 28mm. Unfortunately they come in 30 man $36USD bags that aren't terribly skirmish friendly. moths fucked around with this message at 12:11 on Sep 21, 2015 |
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Sep 21, 2015 12:07
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moths posted:Dice Bag Lady breaks up the GB plastic box into more affordable starters, and I believe Old Glory has a pretty good Dark Ages line. The Wargames Factory stuff is fairly cheap, but they're one of their earliest lines and takes a lot to get looking nice. Fireforge has some Crusaders who could be Normans in a pinch, too. I don't think it's hard or expensive at all to find a 6 point SAGA force.
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Sep 21, 2015 12:08
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krushgroove posted:Looking at getting into Saga, and didn't realize that only 4 points of something can range in price between £20-30 for one force. Just wondering, is there a range of 15mm Norman/Viking/Dane era figures out there, or is it just Gripping Beast that have the main hold on that era? Forged in Battle has 15mm Celts, Gauls and Early Germans that might work. The Early Germans look norse, fierce and beardy, just depends how strongly you feel about having historically accurate shield shapes. NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 12:14 on Sep 21, 2015 |
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Sep 21, 2015 12:11
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moths posted:Dice Bag Lady breaks up the GB plastic box into more affordable starters, and I believe Old Glory has a pretty good Dark Ages line. The Wargames Factory stuff is fairly cheap, but they're one of their earliest lines and takes a lot to get looking nice. Panzeh posted:Fireforge has some Crusaders who could be Normans in a pinch, too. I don't think it's hard or expensive at all to find a 6 point SAGA force. Cool, I have been talking with Dice Bag Lady via email about picking up some stuff from here, I guess all the Gripping Beast stuff is metal so it's a bit more expensive than I'd hoped. I thought 15mm Viking clashes would be cool to do (we usually play 40K and other 28mm games) and would take up less space than our usual games but for the small battles that Saga seems oriented at I suppose 28mm is fine anyway. Plus that size terrain can double up for D&D nights and Frostgrave - sorry to mention those in this thread! e: took too long to reply, just saw your post NTRabbit - those are even more expensive than the 28mm 25 figure sets from Gripping Beast, and you get fewer 15mm guys in a pack! e2: wait, their product description/pictures led me to think you only get like 8 guys on horses for £77, but there's probably over 100 guys in a set krushgroove fucked around with this message at 12:24 on Sep 21, 2015 |
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Sep 21, 2015 12:16
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Metal is expensive stuff I guess, I always figured £24 guys for 10 pounds was ok e: The £78 Early German starter army has 144 infantry and 24 cavalry in it NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Sep 21, 2015 |
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Sep 21, 2015 12:23
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Groping Beast also makes plastics, those are the ones DBL splits into starters. E: http://thedicebaglady.net/skint-saga/
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Sep 21, 2015 12:38
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krushgroove posted:Looking at getting into Saga, and didn't realize that only 4 points of something can range in price between £20-30 for one force. Just wondering, is there a range of 15mm Norman/Viking/Dane era figures out there, or is it just Gripping Beast that have the main hold on that era?
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Sep 21, 2015 13:21
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NTRabbit posted:e: The £78 Early German starter army has 144 infantry and 24 cavalry in it Arquinsiel posted:These guys do Norse and Hiberno-Norse: http://www.dreamsstudio.com/baueda/hostis_vik.html Oh man now I'm rethinking whether I should do 15mm or 28mm... 15mm is much cheaper, takes up less space and is a little quicker to paint but there's slightly less choice of models (we're not historical geeks so the shapes of the shields and helmets etc., won't matter much) 28mm has much more choice, terrain can do double or triple duty and it costs a lot more Thanks for the 15mm links guys, I think right now I'll start with 28mm, use/make generic fantasy terrain to battle around and make specific terrain (longhouses, etc.) as needed. I just have hardly any 15mm terrain - what I do have is WW2 specific. Then maybe see how it goes, if we want big battles try it with 15mm but I get the sense that Saga is more about smaller battles...?
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Sep 21, 2015 13:32
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Someone here did up a saga board and figures in 6mm, I believe. It looked really cool and portable. Although it's a small skirmish focused game nothing stopping you from running it in a different scale to make it more convenient.
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Sep 21, 2015 15:02
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So I just received a couple hundred 10mm byzantine and Saracen cavalry from old glory and totally forgot you need to supply your own lances. Any recommendations on either where to buy lances for this scale or what gauge wire I should use to make my own.
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Sep 22, 2015 00:02
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I've seen guys use bristles from a stiff broom before. It looked ok to me, but maybe I'm not picturing the right scale in my head.
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Sep 22, 2015 01:42
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:I've seen guys use bristles from a stiff broom before. It looked ok to me, but maybe I'm not picturing the right scale in my head. I"ve done that with 15mm greeks and it looked good; I'd imagine that for 10mm all you really need to worry about is the length which is easily adjusted.
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Sep 22, 2015 02:20
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You could also do SAGA in 1/72 for cheap. Usually around ~12 bucks for 40-50 guys. Zvezda does some really good Dark Ages 1/72 but a lot of other companies do stuff in that period as well.
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Sep 22, 2015 04:21
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6mm Saga is a thing. My friends may be the only ones doing it, but it exists.
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Sep 22, 2015 15:15
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I keep thinking about getting into tiny-scale skirmish gaming, but I always end up deciding that I don't want to get thirty dudes with Dane axes when I only need like four. 
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Sep 22, 2015 15:49
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Siivola posted:I keep thinking about getting into tiny-scale skirmish gaming, but I always end up deciding that I don't want to get thirty dudes with Dane axes when I only need like four. That's why we went in on a group buy and split up the tiny little soldiers. I think my Normans and Vikings combined were around $55 for maxed out lists.
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Sep 22, 2015 15:57
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Army Group North Miniatures in Cana[/timg]da is really awesome - they are a huge sponsor of our Bolt Action Back to the Front Tournament at the Michigan GT, providing customized objective markers for each player at the GT. Check them out - agnminiatures.com     
muggins fucked around with this message at 16:55 on Sep 22, 2015 |
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Sep 22, 2015 16:53
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Michigan? Where abouts in Michigan? I've been itching to get into historicals but well, I'm in the middle of nowhere.
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Sep 22, 2015 17:46
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Yooper posted:Michigan? Where abouts in Michigan? The GT is in Lansing but I'm in Flint
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Sep 22, 2015 18:17
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Bummer, thats about a 7 hour drive for me.
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Sep 22, 2015 18:33
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Weird question maybe, but have people's clubs got a notable issue with WW2 games where there's an allies bias in players? I've not been to my club long enough to see, but there's only a few notable axis powers, versus a larger smattering of allies to pick from. Does this tilt things towards lots of blue-on-blue, or is the lure of wehraboodom strong enough to mean more people play the fewer axis powers?
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Sep 22, 2015 19:53
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German armies tend to be small because "outnumbered elite invincible panzers!!!!!" so it's really easy to just sort of end up with one when people have a few bits and bobs going spare.
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Sep 22, 2015 20:13
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spectralent posted:Weird question maybe, but have people's clubs got a notable issue with WW2 games where there's an allies bias in players? I've not been to my club long enough to see, but there's only a few notable axis powers, versus a larger smattering of allies to pick from. Does this tilt things towards lots of blue-on-blue, or is the lure of wehraboodom strong enough to mean more people play the fewer axis powers? I think that could be an anglo-saxon thing. At our club, we have tons of german and soviet minis, a growing chunk of italians, and just a few ideas about maybe getting brits and finnish in the future.
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Sep 22, 2015 21:16
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lilljonas posted:I think that could be an anglo-saxon thing. At our club, we have tons of german and soviet minis, a growing chunk of italians, and just a few ideas about maybe getting brits and finnish in the future. The Soviets were allies.
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Sep 22, 2015 21:25
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Yeah, I mean I took Soviets as my first army (an infantry company sized amount of stands being one effective platoon says that might've been a mistake) but I've just realised there's a lot of options for allies and less for axis, and wondered if that biased things.
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Sep 22, 2015 21:25
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Well, there's probably some stigma against playing the Axis, but then there ought to be. Mostly it means that a lot of the dudes who plays Nazis are actually Nazis (just like in reenacting).
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Sep 22, 2015 21:59
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