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The Church of Games Workshop: Why the Games Workshop hobby stands apart from other tabletop hobbies.

          Games Workshop has established itself as the start and end of the conversation for many hobbyists. Those wishing to get into the hobby of tabletop wargaming are usually presented with GW as an easy way in. You can get the game, the models, the lore, the paint, the brushes, the sprue clippers, the dice, the water pot, the files, the hobby knives, the model holders, and so much more all from GW. I suspect it is rare that someone just looking to get into the hobby will go to their local GW store and walk out with all these things in one shot but there is a good chance they will pick up the “necessities.” Maybe they’ve played some of the video games, maybe they have seen the memes, or hours long lore videos on Youtube. Maybe they have a friend who is part of the hobby and has some notions of what being in the hobby means. By any of these means they are already exposed to the Church of Games Workshop and with such investment, how could they leave?          The rest of the tabl
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Late War US vs Heavy Tanks, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AT 12

The Americans in Late-War have a perceived weakness in their D-day book: only having one unit with an anti-tank rating above 12. This means a few things, American players can struggle against heavy tanks, and they need a different answer to the heavy tank problem than say Germany or the British. Both of them have the luxury of having ample high anti-tank capability where the difficulty is lining up the shot. This is also the case with the M12 155mm SPG but it’s an unreliable and ultimately unnecessary solution. Only 4 shots per turn is a problem, on 4’s and 5’s to hit I am personally skeptical of its performance. It can work and prove a nasty surprise but I do not think American players should simply have the M12 in their list and feel safe from heavy armour. The answers for american forces are a little more nuanced so we’ll explore these answers in general and move onto some particulars.  Heavy tanks essentially pose two threats, one: difficult to remove high end AT, and two: assault
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My Take on 109 Point American lists

It’s been a while, but it’s time again to dig into some Flames of War list building. This time it’s for 109 points. Just like last time it’s thanks to an upcoming tournament. The Canadian Tabletop Championships are less than a month away and I need to prepare a list. At 109 big cats are going to be much more common, especially now that Ghost Panzer and Red Banner are out. After seeing all the hordes of Italian tanks at the 71 point Canadian nationals, I can’t imagine how many there’ll be at 109. So what’s a yank to do? Well at 109 a lot of American toys become The List so Far more viable. The big difference between my 109 and 71 lists is giving my infantry halftracks and tons of bazookas. Other than that I’ll still be relying on Lees, T30’s, Stuarts and recon patrols. So i’ll have no AT above 10, but there’ll be a lot of At 10. I could take M10’s but i’m still unconvinced that they’re worth it. AT 12 is not stellar on an 8 point vehicle especially given their shorter range
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Road to Nationals Part Seven: End of the Road

It's been over a month and I finally have time to write up my Canadian Nationals experience. I want to thank the tournament organizers and staff for their hard work and an excellent job. If you want to check out my list you can find it here: http://taskchairgeneral.blogspot.com/2018/08/road-to-nationals-part-six-finalizing.html My list worked mostly as intended with my T30's and recon patrols being the stars of the show. Most of the missions allowed me to use the double spearhead to great effect and the constant artillery pressure from the T30's was instrumental in a lot of games, whether is was from smoke barrages or from blasting support weapons. My P-40 warhawks proved very effective but not in the way I expected. In some games they did do their original job of blasting marders however what they really accomplished was killing guns which were not dug in. The infantry worked as intended, once major resistance was dealt with they moved in, mopped up and held their groun
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Road to Nationals Part Six: Finalizing the List

Having come out the other side of the July Tunisia Firestorm campaign as the highest scoring allied player, I'm quite confident in my Rifle/Lee list. The one major change from that list is that I can take a flight of P-40 Warhawks. In our firestorm, we couldn't have aircraft since aircraft were one of the firestorm units and it wouldn't make sense if someone had ended up with 2 flights of planes. The Mortars have gotten the ax to make way for a second recon patrol and a second battery of T30 assault guns. I really fear 2 things from my opponents, heavy tanks and Marders. I wont have AT above 10 so FA 9 monstrosities could be a real problem. Marders can quickly and easily wipe out my armour and hinder my ability to maneuver much more than 88's and such given my artillery and smoke. luckily I doubt heavy tanks and Marders will be combined. Despite these two threats the list I've built should be able to handle most comers. Most of my list is highly mobile and Le
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Road to Nationals Part Five: Lessons Learned

It's been a while since I've updated but since my last post I've played a decent amount of games. Some of my assumptions have proven legitimate but others, I was totally off base. This was a proxy game, those Marders are actually Semoventes The Sherman is disappointing for its cost. In the games I've used them they have never been close to cost effective. The best they've done is kill a crusader troop. In other games they were ambushed by Semovente's, destroyed by artillery (after rolling 4 1's), or just hid from Marders. It's anecdotal as hell but so far they've been nothing but 8 point bullet magnets that can't actually take that heat. Even in tank vs tank match ups the American Sherman's still need mass. I'm sure the Sherman works fine if you're committed to them but as support to an infantry list they are simply too expensive. Instead I'm planning on using Lee's going forward. In 100 point lists the Sherman will prob
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Road to Nationals Part Four: The Most Interesting Card in the Game

Flames of war suffers from the same problem that most tactical games suffer from, the lack of interaction with the operational layer. In missions with reserves, 40% of one's force is for the most part out of your hands, even more so if you use aircraft. In V3 the only influence you had over those all important 5+ rolls was your platoon count. Hit that 9+ platoon sweet spot and put your awkward filler platoons in the reserve box, maybe see them on the board, maybe not. V4 is still very much the same in this respect but the new command cards give players some bearing on the reserves system. There are 2 basic flavours of such card thus far: cards that let you re-roll aircraft or reserves and cards which stop your opponent from rolling for reserves or aircraft. The Italians, always the outlier, have a card which nullifies cards which would stop them from rolling for reserves or aircraft.  This is the most interesting card in the game. Now that more direct means of influencing reserve
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