Flames of War- Game Vault 1500 Mid-War Tournament Recap

by Eric "Tarzan" Lauterbach

Some days you just get lucky as a tournament organizer - this was one of those days. First we had an even amount of players, then we had equal amounts of Axis and Allied armies with no effort at all. So with those two things happening before we got started it was shaping up to be a easy day for me.

The tournament was a local Virginia, DC, and Maryland player affair at the Game Vault in Fredericksburg.  The store owner had set the theme as open mid-war armies 1500 points. Missions played were one each of the three basic randomly selected by the players at the table. We had Soviets, Brits, US, Germans, and a Hungarian player so the mix of armies was pretty good.

The allies started out strong but the Germans were on the offensive this day!

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Team Yankee : A Bedtime Story

By Brian Sherry

Ah, the 1980s.  The time of my youth.  Who can forget Red Dawn, Rambo, The Day After, Reagan, Andropov (who?) and Star Wars (both kinds)?  Well, I can't and having had a father in the National Guard and an unhealthy (and continuing!) obsession with military topics, I was fascinated by the prospect of WWIII and a war with the Soviet Union.

 My father set the tone by telling me in the early 80s that, if they so chose, the Soviets could be in France and on the English channel in 3 days.  He told me his 13F MOS (Forward Observer) had a very short life expectancy if the balloon went up.  I was terrified and fascinated by the Soviet war machine and its weapons like the Hind-D, as well as our own wonder weapons like the AH-64 Apache and the Stinger missile. 

  

Fast forward approximately 30 years approximately 30 years later and one of my favorite games, Flames of War, has reincarnated into a new version called Team Yankee. 

 Based on the book by Harold Coyle, Team Yankee is a miniatures game of the mid-80s Cold War gone hot.  Seeing the fantastic models and reading the rulebook (filled of course with gorgeous pictures of said models on great gaming tables) I was hooked.  I quickly obtained starter-sized armies for both sides (okay maybe a bit bigger than starter-sized) and got painting in a frenzy. 

Due to family and other demands, I don't get to game as often as I would like these days.  Luckily I do have a rather agreeable game room and a good supply of 15mm terrain.  I was able to play a small game with a buddy but that was before I had painted anything.  So, in order to get my teeth into the Team Yankee system with all my shiny new toys, I decided to play a decent-sized solo game. 

The scenario I chose was "Dust Up" which consists of a meeting engagement between the two forces, with reserves potentially arriving from Turn 3.  Each side had two objectives in their deployment zones, and the zones were diagonally opposite halves of the board along the long table edge.  The combatants can achieve victory if either side suffers a morale failure, or seizes control of an objective in their opponent's deployment zone. 

  

To keep the game reasonably short, as I was playing later in the evening, I made two approximately 75-point forces.  I am still learning the game, so I apologize for any rules errors in advance.

USA:

1x M1 Command tank

2x 2 M1 platoon
2x 2 M1 platoon
2x Mech Inf Platoon with M113, 8 teams per platoon with law and dragon
2x VADS M113
2x ITV M113
2x Cobra Helicopter
2x A-10 Warthog flight

USSR:

1x Command T-72
7x T-72 Company
6x T-72 Company
1x BMP Command w Ak47 team
4x BMP with 4 AK 47 team and 3 RPG-7 team
2x Gopher SA-13
2x Mi-24 Hind Helicopter

Setup: 

Each side had to hold half their units in delayed reserve.  The Soviets deployed their larger T-72 company and the Hinds, along with the force commander tank. 

Across town, the M1s set up behind buildings, and the VADS deploy to cover them from air threats.

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Late War Fighting Withdrawal - Germans vs. USSR

by "Dirty" Jon 

Tarzan and I decided to play a Late War game of Flames of War before recording the podcast.  We wanted to do something weird, so we jacked up the points and both picked lists that are not great. I wanted to get the old Panzer IV/70s on the board - which I love.

I went with an entire company of CT PzIV/70s, some Nebs, Ostwinds, a little Infantry, a CV King Tiger and Rudel.

Eric made up a hero IS-2 list and we went at it. His list had three platoons of two IS-2s with the FA 11 upgrade.  He also had a unit of T-34/85s, some arty, two Assault Guns (I think ISU...something) and air.

We rolled up a random mission and got Fighting Withdrawal.  I won the game roll (by rolling low) and got to Defend - yay! 

Zee Germans take the lower half of this board.

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Cool Pants Armored Rifles vs. Tarzan Mixed Tankovey

 By Eric Lauterbach and Luke Melia

In anticipation of Guns of August, our favorite little convention in Williamsburg, VA (ed: it's over now, and it was great!) much Flames of War list machinations for the 1650 mid-war tournament were discussed on the podcast.

This immediately lead to the "this list is better than that one" talk that gamers always do. So, instead of letting the speculation lie Luke and I decided to get in some practice and test some theories out. The game saw his US Armored Rifles vs. my Soviet Tankovy duking it out in a good old fashioned Free for All.

Luke's list was made up of 5 Lees, 4 M10s, 2 Armored Rifle platoons, Recon, Mortars, and the special American higher command team General Harmon just for good measure.

My Soviet list looked like 10 T26s, 4 KVs with Tankos (tank riders for those of you not familiar with the nomenclature), 5 T26s, 5 BA10s, Rota in M3s, Air with rockets and 10 BA 10s to six platoons.  Luke had the first turn. We both had no illusions as to how this was going to go down -- a  bloody 4-3 to one way or the other was inveitable so we were all in turn one.

Soviet Recon move with 15 BA10s moving out.

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Review: The New KV-1e KV-1 and the KV-2

 By Eric Lauterbach

Battlefront has updated their KV series of models and I wanted to see how they compare to the old sculpts.

I love the KV tank in the game. The Kliment Voroshilov, named after the Soviet Defense minster, first made its appearance in the Winter War versus the Finns.

The performance, with its almost impervious armor, made it superior to almost everything on the battlefield. Battlefront updated the KV-1 obr 1939/1940 and the KV-1e plus while they were at it the super heavy and somewhat silly KV-2.

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AAR: Soviet Hero Tankovy vs. German Panzerkampfgruppe from DM

By "Dirty" Jon Baber

Andy was nice enough to come over and help me test my list I put together for the WWPD4Vets event - I really try not to take a list I have never played to an event! I created something fairly silly, but maybe effective if I catch the correct list.

Andy brought Russians - which I won't face in the tournament - but I thought I had a pretty good chance. This list will should do well against lots of tanks. We rolled randomly and got Fighting Withdrawal and I was deemed the Defender, as Andy's list Always Attacks.


The Lists:

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Franken-tankin': Two SU for the Price of One

by Donald Acker

When I first saw Battlefront's plastic Su-85/Su-100, I was a little surprised. With two hulls, many guns, and piles of additional pieces, the sprues really looked like they made two tanks. Close inspection revealed that this was not so: there was only one set of tracks, one lower hull, and one set of exhausts. I might have forgotten about this, but the same day, a new box of PSC T-34s arrived, and a bright little sticker caught my eye: Includes One Piece Track Option!

Now I always liked PSC's multi-part tracks with their detailed treads. But this seemed like the perfect coincidence: could one use the treads to make a whole new assault gun out of a Su-100's leftovers?

As it turns out, yes!

There are two major steps. First, we need to make the tracks and lower hull. Then the exhaust pipes and covers. I used spare parts for the Su-85, but you might want to do it the other way, see below.

For this conversion, we will absolutely need side cutters, a pin vise, plastic glue, and super glue. We will also use both the angular sprue from the PSC tracks and the round sprue from the Battlefront kit.

PSC's tracks are slightly smaller than battlefront's: in total maybe 2mm shorter. But the difference will hardly be noticeable.

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AAR: Russians vs. Finns in Fighting Withdrawal Infantry Battle

Steven and I continued our "Get Jon's Stuff on the Board" series, where I play things I have painted, but have not yet played.  I started the Finns a long time ago, but have not got them on the table at all, as I was slowly building up the force so that it can fight from Early War to Late War.

We played the same day we recorded a Know the Mission for Fighting Withdrawal, so we went ahead and played that mission.  We rolled a die, and I got to be the defender.  We decided it was snowing, so we basically treated everything as Slow-Going.

Jon's List:

I am pretty limited in my choices of platoons - due to what I own - so I basically put a list together with all my Early War appropriate models.  Steven put together some Strelkovy.

Steven's List:

I deployed this infantry unit in the woods on top of my right-most objective.  I was going to have to count on this unit to hold off the horde.  I put the two attached HMGs on the edge of the wood (on is behind the tree) to give me to option to shoot the blob as it got closer.

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GenCon Rerun! Throck's Favorite Reviews

What's Hapening!! GEN CON! That's what!

By Throckmorton

We're at GenCon! How cool is that?

We're taking it easy, gaming and being awesome. Heck, maybe we'll even see some of you today.

Well, in the spirit of not being here, we've decided to post up a bunch of our favorite re-runs this week (see image, left). We're bringing back some posts that we've done in the past that really stuck with us, or... something.

And guess what? Today's my turn. As a primarily hobbying type of fellow I picked out three of my favorite reviews from the last year to share again with you, our dear readers.

First up I thought I'd take a saunter over to the Six Day war with my Review of the M-51 Isherman. One of the first times I really tried to use chipping and weathering powders.

Head on over to the review and check it out!

Next, I take us back in time to early war with a review of the Russian T-28, where I tried color modding (though not with an airbrush) for the first time and had fun with streaking. But not that kind of streaking.

And finally, I'll go back a whole year to my first article at WWPD. The review and build of the PSC Cromwells. Where I have fun with green stuff, chunky weathering and do a bit of a tutorial on how to get those decals looking great.

Have a great week everybody!

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Desperate Measures Hero Motostrelkovy vs Panzergrenadiers (Cauldron)

By Steven MacLauchlan

Sean and I wanted to get a follow up to our 1942 desert battle, and opted for a Desperate Measures era scrape. I put together two interesting late war Flames of War lists, and we rolled to see who ran what. The mission we rolled for was Cauldron. Sean wound up running the Germans, and I the Motostrelk. The Soviets are on the attack!

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Historicon Mid-War Doubles!

By Eric Lauterbach

Luke having out of control fun!!!

 Another great year at Historicon! The WWPD crew joined in the fun with 70 players in the doubles tournament.  The Mid-War event had each two man team playing roughly 1000 point companies, joined up to make 2000 points on the table.  The doubles event is always a good time.  Playing with a friend takes some of the hard work off you. If you have never tried one of these tournaments, I would recommend it greatly.  This year I allowed each team to pick a team nickname and I was not disappointed with what they came up with!  Probably have to keep that for next year.

"Throck of War" fighting the hordes of team "Lots of Dead Guys"

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Plastic Soldier Company IS-2 Review

Will at The Plastic Soldier Company was nice enough to send us a review box of the new IS-2 Tank.  PSC has been cranking out some bang-up stuff for the last several years, so we were anxious to get our hands on this latest offering.  Let's take a look!

The standard content on the box.  I did notice that the PSC's Battlegroup and paint lines are now advertised on the box - smart move.  I dove right in to the box, so let's move on.

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Bang for the Buck Pt II

In Part One, I took my Flames of War Russian tank hunters up to the gloss phase.  Now it's time to do the oil wash, which is really what gives them depth!

Where we last left the tank hunters

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My New Painting Technique- "Bang for the Buck" Pt I

A recent IS-2 I finished.

I wanted to call this post "Learn these weird tricks to make painting easier- professional painters HATE him" but decided against it.

Alright, so as a few of you may have noticed, my painting style has changed quite a bit since moving here, thanks to being surrounded by a ton of great painters.  Now, make no mistake- my techniques will never win awards.  What they'll do, however, is get your models on the table without embarrassing you!  See my previous technique here: DAK Panzer IVs.

I've found that most model painting tutorials err on the two extremes: painting tips to make your toys look amazing, and those that get them painted as quickly as possible.  With the technique I will illustrate below, you'll find that I aim for value.  I want my tanks to as good as I can in as little time as possible.  Queue Eric Riha, I'm sure there's some formula explaining this!

I have broken it down into every single tiny step, and while it may seem exhausting, most of the steps take mere minutes.  My normal rule of thumb is that I should be able to take a company of tanks (say 10 or so) from box to tabletop in one week.

Another quick example

To illustrate my technique I'll be using a boat load of Soviet Tank Hunters.  When I first arrived here, I hoarded a few boxes of the old metal and resin kits (which mercifully had the new T-34 plastic tracks!).  When I started this build, I also grabbed a plastic box giving me 10 Soviet SU-100s, and 6 SU-85Ms.  With the leftovers, I decided to do 3 German SU-85s, and 1 German SU-100 out of Desperate Measures.

Anyhow, without further ado:

Note: My technique does use an Airbrush, but there's no reason you couldn't do this without!

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Desperate Measures AAR - German Tanks vs. Soviet Infantry in Breakthrough

By Dirty Jon

Tom "The Crotch" DeMayo and I got together for a pre-Muster throwdown. I wanted to test out my new tournament list, so Tom made up a list to match up well against me.

Ut oh.  KV-85s come in from Reserves.  This might get ugly.

Jon's List:

Tom's List:

We rolled randomly and got Breakthrough. This was pretty tricky, and Tom decided to start with his SU-85Ms and both infantry units on the board. I put out the Jagdpanthers, Nebs, Luchs and the Ostwinds; the Hetzers and StuGs in Delayed Reserves.

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BatRep: EW Japanese vs Russian Heavy Tanks in Breakthrough

By Jeff "SonBae" Flint


My buddy Michael (Link2Edition on the WWPD Forums) and I have been dying to get in another game of Flames of War Early War….this time with my Japanese and his Russian Heavy Tankovy.  Both lists are from the Rising Sun book.

I went with a Fearless Veteran Hohei Chutai backed up by AT Guns and Artillery.  The Type 38 75mm Artillery piece is a great AT gun for this period as well.  AT 8 and Firepower 3+ range 24…YES, Please!

I swapped out 1 Rifle team in each Infantry squad for a Nikihaku team and combat attached 2 HMGs from the HMG platoon to each Infantry platoon.  I have to give these guys some firepower against that infantry blob I see coming my way.  I had to proxy Brit Para 17lbers for the Type 38 Artillery pieces…fair swap, one deadly gun for another.

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T-26 Review

by Luke Melia

T-26 obr 1933 Light Tank Company

I was given a box of T-26 obr 1933 Light Tanks from Battlefront for review.  I had a little difficulty initially, as one of the tanks was missing a barrel.  I contacted customer support and promptly got a replacement.  I have to admit, these fell to the bottom of my painting queue during the wait and over the Holidays I put them off to the side. 

With the release of Desperate Measures, my interest in Soviets has been rejuvenated and I pulled out these guys again to brush up on my Soviet painting skills.  The box of five tanks retails for $52.00USD.  This is about the common price from Battlefront for tanks of this size.



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AAR: Panzer Kampfgruppe vs. Light SP Artillery Regiment

"At daybreak on the third day, look to the west"
 Wait... That's not right...

By Throckmorton

 Yay for the Holidays! Now is the time when, across the nation, nerds come together to play many games, throw handfuls of dice and generally cavort to have a good time in holiday cheer.

Of course, for we Flames of War types, this means getting down into the trenches and fighting it out over the old 6x4.

In my case, I'm playing around with the Panzer Kampfgruppe list from the newest supplement for Flames of War, Desperate Measures. This book covers armored battles in the very latest parts of the war on the Eastern Front as Russia moves, inexorably, towards Berlin and the end of the war.

Today, we bring you a 1750 point battle between the latest, Panzer IV/70 (V) heavy, version of my Panzer Kampfgruppe list versus Ben's IS-2 and SU-122 toting Light Self Propelled Artillery list from Red Bear in a knock down drag out armor on armor slug fest.

Mission: Encounter (Fair Fight, Meeting Engagement Delayed & Scattered Reserves)
Attacker: Ze Germans
Defender: Mother Russia



THE LISTS!

THE BOARD!

Terrain brought to you by Battlefront, Conflix, 4Ground, Luke, Throckmorton and Kerr & King

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Soviet Paratroopers in WWII

by Eric Lauterbach

Back in 2007 the I95Gamers decided to put on a big scenario game for Cold Wars with three tables of action. The battle we chose was based on the game "Black Sea Black Death" which is the battle for Novorossiysk  and we needed a ton of Soviet Naval Infantry and Soviet Paratroopers. Thus began my journey into the land of Soviet Airborne. I thought I would share some of the things I have run across, as the Soviet Paratroopers did far more in the war than most people think. 

The Soviets were early innovators in airborne operations with men like Mikhal Tukhachevsky. His theories on Soviet Deep Battle saw airborne as a key component to combined operations. Either through striking deep in to the enemy's rear area to disrupt logistics and re-enforcements, or seizing key terrain and even as a diversion to main attack. Soviet large scale airborne training drops of the 1930 put the world on notice of the new way of war. It is sad to say Stalin's purges put Mikhal Tukhachevsky and Soviet Deep Battle doctrine into the ground and the tactics were forbidden to be talked about. In 1941, the German attack struck like thunder and Soviets had not yet recovered from the purges so they had no real doctrine at all.

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Battlefront Plastic T-34 Review (SBX30)

by Dirty Jon

I got my hands on some of the T-34s from the new all-plastic T-34 Tankovy Company from Battlefront today.  Since I don't play Russians, I figured I would do something different and make some captured tanks....that everyone seems to be doing these days.  Let's take a look!

This box has everything you need to make 5 complete tanks with BOTH the T-34 and the T-34/85 turrets.

There is even an option to make the flame tank!  Included are 15 magnets to make sure that your turrets stay on tight.  There are even decals for making Soviet tanks, but of course, we are going captured today.

The box art -- neat!

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