Flames of War - British vs. Germans Late War 1515ps

Jon and Jake play a 1515 point game of late war. Jake's British AirLanding Company backed up by Recon and Comet tanks take on Jon and a German Panzer company!

[@apropercuppa8612]

"I didn't blitz because I didn't want to fail" Jake's confidence in that outcome is a pain I know all too well.

[@sixtwentyeight8620]

Your battle comment are some of the most enjoyable to watch on youtube. Very interesting and dynamic. @33.58 isn't your angle for shooting a bit extreme?

[@gliderreserve9544]

This is very helpful. The historical descriptions are cool.

[@afetbinttuzani]

Excellent batrep. Very helpful in terms of understanding the rules as they apply to settings with bocage. A comment on the sound quality. The initial discussion segment was quite muted, with a loss of treble. But going forward the voice quality drastically improved.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

Thanks, We are working on improving the sound quality. The next tech purchase was going to be some camera stabilization but I think some additional mics need to be moved to the top of the list.

[@artygun5340]

I appreciate your videos. As a fairly new FoW gamer I learn and confirm my understanding of the rules and how to play.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

glad to help! And we will have more FOW. Some games are scheduled to be filmed in June.

[@e-4airman124]

Good job Jake you fought to the last great strategy poor dice.

[@FingonNZ]

E-4 Airman Yeah his dice were poor at crucial moments.

[@thekameleon9785]

How does it work when a infantry stand includes both smg rifles panzerfausts or MG?

[@joshbarton3936]

Nice batrep, thank you :)

[@onomatopoeia7505]

Yes, great batrep once again! A very enjoyable watch, mostly because of the unique map. I do have a question 'tho. In German turn one, your halftracks didn't shoot with their AA MGs as well, giving you 4 shots per halftrack instead of 3. Was that deliberate? And why did the Brits only use the Piat in defensive fire? The side armor of halftracks is 0, so there's always the chance you can bail enough to stop the assault.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

Good point. I am not a German player at heart so wasn't too familiar with German equipment, it wasn't until later in the game I noticed they had AA MGs as well. I'm not sure why jake didn't shoot his rifles but cosmically I'm sure those two things balanced out :-)

[@ijdundas]

I think he also forgot to shoot the half-tracks with the MGs on his many Jeeps (including some .50cals) and the Comets. I was having to bite my tongue to stop myself from saying, "Fire the machine guns! The machine guns, Jake! The machine guns!" ;) (I watch at my desk on my lunch break, so not a good spot to be talking back to a FoW Battle Report. ;) (Oh, and I also want to check the rules on Formation Commanders dying. I think that if another team from the HQ Unit is close enough, you don't have to roll at all, meaning Jake's Air Landing Commander could have switched to the 2i/c without rolling. I think it's only when switching to a team from another Unit that you have to make the roll. Although I could be thinking of something from Team Yankee that's slightly different in FoW version 4.) I'm only 22 minutes in, so I hope he pulls out the win despite that. (I always root for 11th Armoured Division (the Comets) and for the Tau, so I seem to be always cheering for Jake.)

[@ijdundas]

And the 2i/c died 30 seconds after I continued watching. ;)

[@DIRTYYETTI]

Great content guys! Wondering what battle mat you’re using? Is that the giant mouse pad style or vinyl?

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

It's a Frontline Gaming mat called Bocage. It is mousepad material.

[@joebulmanski9037]

I might be wrong but I believe that in version four you can not continue an assault ifis you have less then 3 infantry teams. Like I said I might be wrong.

[@sasmo12]

Haven't finished watching yet, but I noticed that during assaults you are assigning hits to defending teams that the assaulting teams are not in contact with. Is that correct? Btw, Great batreps. Like the bocage map.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

Thanks for watching. I really like the bocage mat as well. Regarding hits, we tried to watch this but some V3 bias may have slipped in. Also we did have to fudge "Contact" a little bit with the bocage map making placement tricky in some spots.

[@chadpugh82]

Great Batrep again. I always enjoy your games but I am curious as to what happened to x-wing and dropzone commander. X wing sort of faded away from your channel and drop zone commander was on twice years ago.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

Hi Chad - I love Dropzone but we've put it off for a while when we covered some other games, then the Dropfleet hype hit and then the sale of Hawk Wargames. As a result we were kind of holding off until DZC v2 hits. X-Wing - Ah - I love X -Wing but a as group we just weren't enamored with the direction of the game. Somewhere along the line it started to feel less like a epic space dogfight and more like a card game with space ship markers. That plus the last few waves have not been very exciting for me. I'd like to get some more coverage in but don't have any immediate plans.

[@kurukblackflame]

GG-I think the Brits needed more anti-tank (since the Germans were mostly armour). Tanks seem better in assault vs infantry than they should be perhaps (since tanks are generally seen as vulnerable to being attacked by infantry in this way). It seems a bit wonky that the tanks are killing infantry teams on a 3+ while they have to roll 1s to take any damage in return. I guess this was because they were heavily armoured-But then, Elefants say hi ;) Not sure how I feel about Flames of War-Some of the rules seem a bit odd. Needing a 5+ to hit a Panther that's right in front of a veteran team of paras. Hmm....

[@onomatopoeia7505]

Peter Anckorn Trust me, if you read the rules it all makes sense. In your example, the Brits tried to use a piat anti-tank rifle on a Panther. The Panther has Veteran skill, meaning it is hit on a 4+ without modifiers. The piat is very unwieldy when firing on the move, resulting in a +1 To hit penalty/modifier.

[@matttheyak]

Yes, to hit is not based on the firing targets skill, rather it is determined by the skill of the defending team at dodging the round (re: the PIAT shooting)

[@pierceruppel1688]

In Italy it is very easy to get 17 and 6 pounders Also in 3rd edition the tali ho rule let’s you shoot at full rate of fire when moving I think

[@mx3mx3freak]

so nice thx for that!!!!!!!!

[@afetbinttuzani]

Watching this one a second time, and trying to get a handle on bocage and line-of-sight. Could you reference the V.4 rules that refer to allowing you to shoot through bocage from within 2" rather than touching? If I wish to see and fire at target on the far side of bocage (but within 2" of the far side) do I have to be within two inches of the bocage as well, or do you only have to be within 6" to see them and fire at them, as with regular tall terrain? I hope that wasn´t too confusing.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

Hi, Page 29 of the late war rulebook section "Line of sight through Tall Terrain". Implementing this rule on our table as set up was challenging and ultimately we decided to revert the V3 Bocage rules regarding LOS.

[@afetbinttuzani]

Fair enough. As I read it, the rules and illustration on p. 29 (EW/LW Rulebook) indicate that if one draws a line of sight through the bocage (tall terrain) between two teams and the distance is 6” or less, regardless of how close either team is to the bocage, they can see each other. However, if team 1 is within 2” of the bocage (tall terrain) and team 2 is on the other side of the bocage and further than 2” from the bocage, but still within 6”, team 1 is concealed from team 2, but team 2 is not concealed from team 1. On the other hand, if team 1 is within 2” of the bocage and team 2 is on the other side of the bocage and more than 6” from team 1, then team 1 can see team 2, but team 2 cannot see (does not have line of sight to) team 1. Also, if both teams are within 2” of the bocage but more than 6” apart, as at 21:49 in the video, they do not have line of sight. I could be wrong, of course.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

that sounds right, however I don't think you can have a situation where one unit can shoot another and still not be seen by the target.

[@Steve-ps6qw]

When your halftracks bailed out, don't the troops inside have to get out? Also, I thought after the first round of close combat they had to dismount anyway, are those changes from V3?

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

In assault, the troops stay in the bailed out halftrack and share it's fate if it's destroyed. It was a weird interaction that was clarified in the FOW FAQ

[@teddynp]

Remember that the british counterattack with a -1 modifer, (british Bulldog) And im pretty sure, that you must be in full contact to hit in assault, the 2"(5cm) is in v3 Great video btw

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

Ah, British Bulldog! Jake needs to remember that! True on assault. We tried to watch this. We did fudge the placement of teams on the Bocage hedgerows a little bit but may have still made a mistake. Rolling and assigning hits should have been on a team by team basis, thanks for pointing it out.

[@Datruth330]

That would be a good question because the rules say you have to be in full contact but you must be as close as you can. If no bocage was there would the infantry have enough movement to reach? Would terrain protect you from an assault like that? In other words if you have enough movement but have no place to put the infantry can you still assault?

[@afetbinttuzani]

At 34:03 you indicate that "you don't get cover" for tanks that are in front of other tanks in the line of fire. Could you point to the rule on this? Wrecks clearly provide concealment as short terrain. I can't find reference to whether your own (non-destroyed) tanks provide concealment.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

Good question. There are a couple of places. On p28 of the Late War rulebook In the LOS section it only calls out Tall terrain and Friendly Tanks as LOS blockers. P. 30 in the Concealment section it calls out that you need Terrain of some form to be concealed. An active tank unit is not Terrain p.40 basically established that a tank becomes a wreck when it is destroyed. At that point it "Becomes" short terrain. This rule is intended to cut down on shenanigans because if you could use Friends to hide behind you could end up with some weird abuse. (hid infantry behind tanks so MGs can't shot them, etc, etc. )

[@slimjim7411]

@@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall in short enemy units never block line of sight or provide cover to enemy units. IE You can park a Panther in Front of a Panzer IV and if your opponent wishes to shoot at the Panzer IV he can with no penalty for the Panther in front. It's mainly to prevent v1 shenanigans such as using T-60's as a magic bumper to bumper wall the protect the flanks of KV's and such. In short the rules say nothing about enemy team giving cover or blocking line of sight to enemy teams...because they don't. Wrecks however give cover because it's a static burning wreck with it's own rules.

[@slimjim7411]

Side note this is not up for debate this question was recently answered by Phil Yates and is not in any way "my interpretation" it's strait from the horses mouth.

[@yoanntribouillois6835]

Cool the map is good.Where did you find this carpet?ty

[@elbretto6062]

This is it: store.frontlinegaming.org/frontline-gaming-flg-mats-15mm-bocage-6x4.html

[@noahkoz6873]

Can you guys play a game in Italy? If you do make it a Polish vs German game . I’m currently building a Polish army

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

I'll see if I can make this happen. Sam does have a Polish late war army but he's out of state. Next time he is in I'll try to break him away from his Orks and get a game in

[@noahkoz6873]

Yes Dla Polski (For Poland)

shouldn't the panzer iv's get a Schürzen check in assault? I might be wrong but that may of changed the game

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

I think, dont have the rulebook handy, that the side armor gets increased to 5 if the weapon has a FP of 5+ or worse. We probably forgot it in either case though it probably didn't matter. It would only come into play for the Piat and only if you shoot it in assault, rather than going against top armor.

[@thomasgrimes6664]

unless you playing V3, you still only roll one dice for mounted assault, the score needed simply goes down by one, for every team. other than that great report. Keep the good work up

[@barryslemmings31]

I don't know if anyone else mentioned this but the Comet was NOT used in the Normandy bocage. It arrived very late, in 1945. 11th Armoured were being issued with them at the time of the December 1944 Battle of the Bulge but the division re-equipped with its old Shermans and Cromwells as it was felt that there was insufficient experience with the new tank. As far as I can establish the Comet did not see action until Jan/February 1945 and then into Germany. By that time German defences were poor and there was little tank v tank action, the Comets were mostly dealing with infantry and dug-in a/tank guns or self-propelled guns. As for the game itself, I saw far too few infantry and too many tanks to be realistic. I am also disturbed by the lack of any realistic morale rules in FoW as tanks were a morale weapon and most infantry would normally never consider assaulting tanks just for that reason. The infantry would either evade or lie low. Conversely tanks could rarely see let alone attack infantry which were close to them. Even on modern tanks the vision ports are far from effective.

[@jaketorsney2461]

Yeah mate so as they stated in the video they acknowledge that the game they are playing isn't historically accurate, but just for some fun which is the purpose of any type of game isn't it? I don't think any miniatures game will come close to replicating real war so not a lot of point getting twisted about it. Certain things could be more accurate sure but there are heaps of systems out there some designed specifically for simulation. Battlefront has clearly said that FOW is meant to be a mix of history and fun, it shouldn't be taken to seriously but you can recreate similar real events with the system if desired. So its not like they have claimed it is the most accurate thing out there.While you are in no way wrong, I don't think what you had to say was warranted. The guys specifically stated they are well aware the game they are playing is not historically accurate and Battlefront have made similar claims about the FOW system. So there is no need to hound them about it really.

[@KayRayz86]

Sometimes I see battlegroup rules much better and realistic. But battlegroup also has it pro and con. If FOW tank formation not that awkward and sight it realistic then its better. But I also still play both. FOW and BG

[@e-4airman124]

Lets do a train game.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

I wish, I sold my polish train last year, as I didn't have a Polish Army to go with it. Would be fun though

[@noahkoz6873]

Nachtjäger is German for Night Fighter

[@goatlord1179]

night hunter

[@tonylamorte7247]

Awful lot of NRA adds!!!, hmmmm.

[@AllMiniaturesGreatandSmall]

I believe the ads are based on your viewing history, not mine, but thanks for watching!