Category: Iron Cross

Hauptmann Lonnie of the Panzer Korps

with Lonnie Mullins

I’ve always wanted to paint up a German army for WWII but never really got around to it until Iron Cross hit my desk.  I wanted something with a lot of units, not too many infantry, and the ability to kill off any Soviets that came my way.  Going through both Iron Cross and Enemy at the Gates, I gambled that in most 75 to 100-point games I probably wouldn’t run into too many KV tanks (larger games would make me rethink this) and I banked on my opponents showing up with loads of T-34 and/or Valentines, or hordes of infantry. So I decided to build my army around the Panzer III.

Units
My first unit consists of 1 up-armored company HQ (2 tanks) giving me the ability to at least penetrate both the Valentines and T-34s I was sure my opponents would field and even affect KV-1s tanks to a lesser degree.  KV-1 tanks were still a concern though.

For units 2 and 3 I went with mixed platoons of 4 short and 1 long up-armored tanks.  I figured I could use the Mistaken Target rule to keep my longs in the game as long as possible and my bulked up numbers (5 tanks in each platoon) ensures that I don’t go running off the board if a tank or three brew up.

My next unit is a sacrificial platoon of 4 Panzer II tanks.  While all but useless as an offensive element unless my opponent brings Stuarts, I figured they’d be good at screening, sucking up damage for a turn or two but, most importantly, giving me a spearhead and allow deeper deployment of my other units.

My fifth unit is a small (2-vehicle) platoon of light AA.  Honestly I don’t think that most opponents will take any aircraft in a 75 to 100-point game but one never knows.  But, having the ability to throw 3-dice each against light armor and infantry made them a must for me to have.

The sixth and last unit in my army is my Artillery Battery and Panzer II OP (I had to do something with that last Panzer II).  I chose the 10.5cm artillery for its range, firepower and ability to lay down a smoke screen.  In my past battles I’ve used smoke to great effect in keeping the enemy from engaging and keeping my own force alive.

Painting
Painting was dead easy.  After a black primer on everything, I did a quick (and thick) drybrush of Panzer grey over all of the vehicles.  Normally I keep my treads separate from the hulls of my plastic tanks for ease of painting and this was no exception.  A quick gunmetal drybrush did the trick and, after taking the masking tape off so I could glue the treads to the hulls, my Panzer III’s were ready for a light drybrush of dust to pick out the details even more.  My 12 Panzer III’s it took me just 2 hours to completely paint.  I spent another hour with the Panzer II’s and the AA with very pleasing results.

I’ve yet to start my artillery but I’ll give them a similar treatment while I’m on my 1-week holiday (between time with my son at the water park and visiting historical sites in Williamsburg).  I should be fully up and running by launch day.

Eastern Front on the Flames Of War Website

with Chris Townley

Over the past few weeks it might seem like that we have been bombarding you on the Flames Of War website with a lot of Eastern Front content. In case you haven’t been able to keep up I thought I would put a quick summary up of the content thus far…

Stalingrad is our new Starter Set, designed to help new players get straight in to Flames Of War. It contains:

  • five tanks,
  • dice,
  • cardboard terrain,
  • a complete mini rulebook, and to really help new players get started,
  • an intro guide that will help people assemble their models and play their first few games.

Veteran Flames Of War players might think that a Starter or Intro Set isn’t really for them, but if you are coming back to Flames Of War after a break this might be a great way to get straight back into the action without having to read the whole rulebook before putting some models on the table.
Battle of Stalingrad: War on the Eastern Front…

Mike Haught (the author of Iron Cross) has put together his notes on what you can expect to find in the book. If you are looking for some in-depth information then this is a great place to start.
Iron Cross Spotlight…

Phil Yates (you guessed it, he wrote Enemy at the Gates) has shared his extensive thoughts on the book in this article.
Enemy at the Gates Spotlight…

Command Cards allow Flames Of War generals to field iconic warriors, build new types of units, field new types of equipment, enhance your commander’s capabilities, and bring new tactics and stratagems to the battlefield.

Reading through some of the staff army articles during the Live Launch you might have spotted a few of the guys mentioning Command Cards. Andrew has written a pair of preview articles (one for each pack) to help introduce you to Command Cards and show off a few specific ones.
Iron Cross Command Cards…
Enemy at the Gates Command Cards…

For a limited time only boxes of Unit Cards will be available for each Flames Of War Mid War book. The packs will contain one of each Unit Card that relates to their book. The packs have been designed to assist existing players that have already bought our miniatures and built their armies under previous editions and want cards to help transition to V4.

Enemy at the Gates and Iron Cross come with a complete new range of releases. From the new KV tank and Katyusha Rocket Launcher for the Soviets, to the Tiger tank and Nebelwerfer for the Germans, there is plenty of great new plastic models to get your hands on.

There is also some outstanding new terrain being added to the Battlefield in a Box range that will help you really capture the flavour of fighting on the Eastern Front.
Enemy at the Gates and Iron Cross Pre-orders…

Don’t forget to head down to your local gaming store this weekend to check out the new books in person…

~Chris

Casey’s Eastern Front Table

with Casey Davies

I’ve made a lot of terrain for Battlefront in my time here, but over the past 3-4 years I’ve been building a terrain table for myself as a slow burn project. Since a lot of my armies are Eastern Front themed I decided to make it represent the steppes of the Eastern Front.

I liked the idea of doing a winter table but didn’t want to make a completely white table, as it would make the table too specific, so decided to make it in a transition period, either autumn or early spring, so quite arid but with a scattering of snow.

As it so happens every year on the way to Panzerschreck we travel via the Central Plateau which is as close to the Russian steppes as we get in NZ, so I’ve been using that as an example. In the sample photos here there is no snow, however in previous years there has been a light scattering of snow that has collected in small drifts around the bases of the tall grasses. Originally, I was going to populate the hills and railways with more tufts and snow, but decided not too as a compromise to make it slightly easier to photograph and play on.

I wanted the hills to represent undulating terrain, rather than slab sided hills, so when I was designing them I started with quite large pieces of MDF, glued some polystyrene to it and then shaped it so that the highest point wasn’t much taller that a large tank. Since they are representing undulating terrain I also decided to build forests/woods onto the hills to make them more dynamic, and because I don’t think area terrain should only be one thing.

I want to add 50% more terrain, but most of that will just be enhancing pre-painted Battlefield in a Box Terrain, so it won’t take that long to finish it off. When the city mat comes out I’m going to get one and cut a section out of it to put under my buildings. I’m also going to paint up a third building to finish off the city corner. The other thing I’m going to do is flock up a whole lot of fields and fences to add in a bit more concealing terrain. Eventually I want to be able to make an 8’ x 4’ table.

Click on the images below for larger versions…

~Casey

Firestorm: Stalingrad Preview

with Chris Townley

Last year we ran two tremendously fun Firestorm Campaigns for Team Yankee. This year we have one planned for Flames Of War players. Welcome to Firestorm: Stalingrad!Firestorm: Stalingrad recreates the fighting in and around the city of Stalingrad where the Germans and Soviets fight over every factory, building, and city block, whilst outside the city the Soviet attackers drive
to encircle the city, forever cutting off the German Army.

The Campaign pack will be available shortly and is designed (much like the previous Team Yankee versions) to be played over the course of a day as a single event, or over a series of nights or club days.

The campaign consists of a series of Flames Of War games in which players attempt to capture areas from the enemy or recover those lost in earlier games.

Each time a player attacks they place a marker on the map, once all the markers have been used the campaign is over and the side with the most victory points wins.

Unlike previous campaigns the winner is not solely determined by taking sectors, or areas. This time players will need to be mindful of what is happening inside Stalingrad itself!

By capturing the city, a defeated side may be able to swing the final result, potentially turning a defeat into victory!

There is no point breaking the German 6th Army if the remaining troops inside the city have turned it into Fortress Stalingrad, dug in and prepared to hold off any attacking Soviet force…

Stay tuned for more information on the Flames Of War website about how your club or store can get a copy of Firestorm: Stalingrad, or…

Download a copy of the rules now (Right Click, Save As)…

~Chris

 

Two Armies, One Week

Welcome, Battlefront UK. Your mission should you choose to accept it (and you will – no choice) is to provide two complete armies for our upcoming appearance on Beasts Of War. These will showcase the core of the new Iron Cross and Enemy At The Gates books, and allow your agent to showcase the new Soviet and German armies, as well as the brand new Stalingrad Two-player starter set. You have one week from today to accomplish your mission. This message will sit in your inbox until you comply.

Okay; so maybe the order to assemble and paint two new armies didn’t come in as dramatic a fashion as described above, but it was certainly a task worthy of Ethan Hunt and the rest of the IMF team. We were already each building and painting new armies for the Eastern Front launch, and now we had to put those aside and crack on with these. Worse still, we were two men down: Matt and Tim were both off living the dream in Croatia at the ETC (check out this photo album for all the action).

Not one to balk at a challenge we divided everything between us with Gordon and Gareth concentrating on the infantry and Jonathan, Chris and Seb painting even more tanks. In just a few days we had two new armies completed. Here they are:

These are now over at the Beasts Of War studio where they will meet our roving reporter, Simon (aka ‘Freddy‘). He’ll be exploring the new books, new armies and new starter set Stalingrad on their website this weekend.

~Jonathan

The Block: Stalingrad. The War Starts Here…

The Block is a local New Zealand and Australian TV series where contestants spend 12 (or so) weeks completely renovating a series of houses competing to see which house will sell for the most at the end of the season…

With the impending release of the Stalingrad plastic buildings it felt like a great time to launch a little in-Studio challenge where v0lunteers each take a set of the plastics to see what they could come up with. Unlike the competitors in the TV version we won’t be winning piles of cash, but rather the respect of our peers.

To make it more interesting we will pick a start and finish date (to ensure that nobody gets a head start) and then over the course of a few weeks complete a sample building. Once the allocated time period is up we will invite the Flames Of War community to pick a winner. Best of all, someone in the community can win some of these great new plastics just for voting (bonus prize for voting for me – Chris).

Time to meet the contestants
Casey
As quite a keen amateur builder Casey is no stranger to a hammer and nails, of course he is also yet to meet a gaming miniature that couldn’t be airbrushed. He also has a leg up on the rest of the contestants as he painted the buildings shown in the two books.

Wayne
Having built many buildings shown in Flames Of War books over the years, Wayne has certainly earned the title of builders apprentice. With the release of the pre-painted Battlefield in a Box range of buildings though he might have let his skills decline?

Mike
One of the alpha-hobbyists in the building he is often leading the charge on any hobby project, having written some of the best scenery enhancement (or “pimping” for short) articles on the Flames Of War website.

Chris
Voted as most likely to glue himself to something, Chris is not the most likely candidate to take out The Block: Stalingrad. He is however a bit of a dark horse so cannot be written off early.

Stay tuned to the Flames Of War website for the launch of The Block: Stalingrad

~Chris

Sniper War – Intro Article

with Mike Haught

Snipers have always invoked a lot of talk and enthusiasm around the office whenever we get the chance to update them. There is just something to be said about a one-person warmachine that can instil fear deep inside the hearts of the enemy. These legends of the battlefield always sit above the rest and so they are rightly something we all were excited about during the project.

It all started around the lunch table, when someone suggested we each get a sniper team and really get into modelling and painting. We all have large army projects on the table, and doing a simple sniper team is a great achievable distraction that we can actually use in our armies.

As we were talking about what painting and modelling we’d like to do with our snipers, I spied a set up city table across the room and I started to visualise my sniper operating in the new City Building terrain. Then, as it so often does, my mind instantly went into design mode. So we decided to up the ante a bit by throwing together some missions just for snipers and try and have our snipers ready to face off during the launch event. In the next few weeks we’ll get those missions and our snipers ready, so until then, stay frosty!

StuGs About Town

with Mike Haught

One of the first 15mm tanks I ever painted, indeed probably one of the first miniatures I ever painted, was an old Battlefront StuG F/8 assault gun. I had just completed a 1/35th scale kit of an F/8 and when I started into Flames of War all those years ago, my first question was, ‘what StuGs do they make?’. My friendly local hobby dealer, er I mean, retailer, pulled an F/8 off of the shelf and handed it to me. From then on, StuG F/8s have become a staple in every German Mid War army I’ve used.

The StuG Ausf (model) F was a vehicle trapped between the old and new. It occupied a narrow window (about 8 months) between the short and long barrelled assault guns. The main change in the Ausf F was its more powerful medium 7.5cm gun with the newer block mantlet and an extractor fan added on the top. The rest of the tank matches the older models with clean, flat surfaces. The StuG F8 variant incorporated additional armour, schurzen side skirts, a machine-gun shield, and other features seen on later models. In the end, the StuG Ausf F a transitional tank, and I’m drawn to that sort of thing. I enjoy recognizing and shining a light on tanks that mark important steps in tank development, and the StuG Ausf F is a good example of that.

StuG units went wherever the infantry went, dealing with counterattacks and blowing away obstacles blocking the way. So, to that end, my Iron Cross force is a StuG Batterie, a force from the Iron Cross command cards, backed by a platoon of grenadiers. In game terms, the StuG (long 7.5cm) has some excellent features, such as its gun with a respectable rating of anti-tank 10. This will give me an answer to medium tanks, such as the T-34, and a fighting chance with heavy tanks like the KV. They have an average armour profile with a front of 5 and side of 3, enough to give them some protection, but also helps to keep their points down at 9 points each. I’ve taken a full battery of 10 assault guns divided into an HQ of one StuG and three platoons of three tanks each.

With the remaining 10 points, I’ve backed my tanks with some infantry to keep enemy infantry off my tanks and to hold objectives. I can spend these points as either a grenadier platoon with some heavy machine-guns to form a solid defense, an assault pioneer unit to utterly wipe out a target with flame-throwers and submachine-guns, or a balance of the two with a panzergrenadier platoons. For starters, I’ve gone with panzergrenadiers since I have them painted, but I’ll probably experiment with the other configurations as we go!

With that, I’ve got 10 StuGs on my painting table, so it’s time to get stuck in!

~Mike

Lunch Comes But Once A Day…

The morning has flown by. No surprises when you have a group of friends getting stuck in to some serious hobby time together.

  • Mike has the last of his StuGs assembled and is starting to get the base colour on,
  • Sean is making rapid progress on his Soviet Sniper team,
  • Wayne, who only has one tank to finish for his army is wondering what he will be working on tomorrow,
  • Andrew has his Fortnite inspired sniper hide coming along nicely,
  • Victor has finished his build and is wondering what infantry he would need to paint to flesh out his TANKS force to turn it into a full on Iron Cross force,
  • Morgan has graduated from building digital assembly guides on boxes to building her first actual plastic tank, and
  • Chris continues to keep adding yellow decals to Lee tanks.

~Chris