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Road to Nationals Part One: State of the Game


Canadian Nationals in September. My first time going to Nationals and only my second real 
tournament. The ground is shifting under the feet of most flames of war players these days. 
Version 4 and a return to midwar has rendered a lot of armies and lists unplayable, both literally 
and in the moaning, hyperbolic sense. I was left relatively unscathed, late war Germans and 
early war french weren’t hurt that bad but my opponents came out stronger than ever. There’s a 
nasty trend in our club, a slow power creep in tanks. When we first started, my most common 
match up was taking my StuGs and grenadiers up against British infantry and shermans. Now all 
I fight is IS-2’s and churchills.

 Panzer 4’s and StuGs just don't cut it face to face with those monstrosities, now nebelwerfers and
fausts made it work in the past but no more. I’ll admit the invincible 10 point panzerfausts were a
little silly and nebs were arguably the most cost effective thing in the game but without constant 
smoke bombardments and one of my most important anti-tank assets I have no chance. It's not 
like they're gone but I refuse to pay 70 points on each platoon to ensure i have panzerfausts and 
with only one smoke bombardment a game, it's hardly a reliable anti-tank solution. The other 
option is to have my list consist of 3 panthers and pretend I'm playing Tanks! Oh sure I can dig up 
some silly reluctant veteran list and cram as much front armour as I can into the damn thing, but 
that's not my jam. 
Think I'll just play Mid War, thanks.

 So with an early and a late army, Nationals felt like a good excuse to try midwar: Flames of War 
on Phil Yates' terms. Version 4 with no messy conversion books, no team rebates, and some 
honest to god inter-book balance. Or so the theory goes. For me, Nationals will be the stress 
test; let’s see how it all shakes out at the highest caliber of play in the land. Will Flames turn 
out to be a game where swarms of tanks blast at each other in closed ranks? Or, will it prove 
to be a game that incentivises proper combined arms tactics and balanced lists?

 I’m hoping for the latter and based on the few games I've played, this seems to be the case. 
I have therefore opted to get into Americans from Fighting First, a force which brings all major 
parts of the combined arms triangle (infantry, artillery, armour) in spades, get a wide sample 
size by bringing a lot of each.

Comments

  1. Matt Varnish6 March 2018 at 07:32

    71pts is just not enough for some armies to take a combined-arms approach (cough)DAK(cough) but some forces will do well, I think Italians will do great. By Sept, Armoured Fist will be out so we will see Churchills and Shermns and Valentines, so perhaps the 'meta' will change where you need more high-AT to compete. Will be good to see you there!

    Dennis

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Morgbot7 March 2018 at 10:14

      We'll see, I'll be doing more number crunching on the other forces out there but fitting in Panzer III's and IV's in quantity will be difficult for sure. They do have some very cost efficient options for recon and anti-tank though, so I expect that they'll still be competitive. In the few games I've played against Germans (at 71 points) they've certainly put up a good fight. Shame I missed the Bagration campaign.

      Delete

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