Task Chair General

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...

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...

Jerry's missing out 71 points is not very much and will force players to make tough list decisions. I haven't spent much time building lists that aren't from fighting first but the impression I get is that DAK lists will struggle to achieve my sacred combined arms ideal. For them, Italian allies will be the best way to get infantry of any real substance. Their artillery is scant and expensive with no decent mid tier artillery. They can take the afrika rifles with single mortars and/or take the Lorraine Schleppers. The 105 battery seems incredibly inefficient next to these options, being the most expensive yet middling performance. Unlike the Schleppers they can be pinned down and are much more susceptible to counter battery. These'll have to do Contrast with the Americans, who have artillery picks at each echelon, DAK sorely lacks arty. The rifle company can take all the artillery it needs and has the observers to make it work. Even if the Germans could get su...

I settled on Americans early on, and once fighting first came out, I was in love. Green, confused, and cheap but with lots of cool toys, the Americans are an interesting contrast to the three other forces in Mid War at the moment. They are the only ones who don't get 4+ to hit ratings, they are almost universally conscript rated with most units having 5+ skill but at least get 4+ morale, with their infantry unpinning on a 3+. At the time of writing Americans currently have arguably the strongest tank, the sherman (I'm ignoring the Tiger.) It makes me a bit uneasy since I dedicated over half of my last post in this series to my dislike of heavy tanks and I intend to use at least 3 of them. Call me a hypocrite but I take solace from the fact that most panzer variants have a decent chance against them and my old nemesis, the churchill will soon hit the desert. Even the Germans are jealous. Before getting too deep into the tank question, I think the real power in Fighting Fi...

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 t...

The Carleton Tabletop Gaming Club, in partnership with Sword and Board in downtown Toronto who graciously allowed us to use their space over 2 days put on our first Napoleonic event. The event was called Lasalle at Leipzig both because it involves a game event using the Lasalle rules for the Leipzig campaign, but also, importantly, because this scenario is ahistorical, including an alternate history where Lasalle himself survived and the British stalled and withdrew from Spain. This allowed us both to include British lists, Bavarians loyal to Napoleon, and write a more open range of possibilities for the results of the campaign. The scenario assumes that Napoleon's primary chance to win the battle was historically lost when Murat’s charge failed to fully rout the Coalition units, south of Leipzig on the first day. It seemed to us that the most suitable use of the Lasalle ruleset was to represent this action alone, rather than attempting to cover the wider events of the 3 day...