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Saturday, June 15, 2013

Big games equal Total War!

So,

Robert and I have picked back up with our Flames of War El Guettar Campaign and we have been having a blast with it. In fact after not playing for the past month or so, I forgot just how cool the game looks on the table and just how much I missed playing. Now as some know, I was not always a huge fan of 15mm or Flames of War, but I have finally embraced it as the main game I am playing.


Now, even though I enjoy Flames of War, I still have not embraced playing in a tournament. My first FoW tourney was a bust due to my own fault. If you remember I went to an early war event and took a Cezch 38t list, having all 38t's representing Rommel and his Ghost Division. Well right before the event started, I had one player look at my list and then go tell the tourney organizer that my list was wrong. Well when the organizer asked about my list, he asked where were my Panzer II's at. I told him it was an all 38t list and I did not take any PanzerII's. Well in my race to get my army done, I forgot one thing, the entry for the Cezch Tank list, you must take a platoon of Panzer II's as a compulsory platoon. So you had to take at least one platoon of them!

I was shocked and embarrassed that I over looked this one little aspect! So I told the head judge to put me down for three loss' and to take me out of the running for any other prizes. I felt like a tool and even though the organizer let me play, I just wanted the day to be over. So this may be a reason I have not done any other event along with the fact that our local group of FoW players all like to play Late War.

Now there is another event that is sort of like a tourney but has more of a campaign feel and it is the Shifting Sands events that the locals run. Up until last night, I was actually thinking of playing in this event since it was going to be the battle of Kursk. Now I am a tread head at heart and knowing that this was the largest tank battle of all time, got me fired up. Last night Robert and I spent about an hour talking about possible lists. He mentioned a StuG G list and I was pretty excited about it.

But it seems that I will be sitting this game out due to the points restrictions they are putting on the event (1500 pts Mid War). Well if you play FoW Mid War, you know that 1500 pts is not going to get you very many tanks. I still do not know why they are not doing 1675 points, this makes me scratch my head. So even though they are going to do the largest tank battle in history, there will be very few tanks companies at the event. I could be wrong, but that is how I see it.

Now being a tread head, I would love to see a ton of tanks on a large table (just like in World of Tanks!) and this made me think about something I wanted to do earlier this year, run a huge tank game using FoW rules. Then this morning while searching the net, I found this article by Battlefront themselves, Total War.


It seems that someone at Battlefront had the same idea as me and they have gone ahead and put this out as a PDF. The funny thing is that our local FoW players have not mentioned this on their forums, which again has me scratching my head. But this is playing FoW in a different way than the tournament setting. It allows huge armies to be played on huge tables and has that grand feeling of battle.

So this has gotten my head thinking of all the cool possibilities with this and now suddenly a Kursk battle of all tanks could work. So I think I will start planning on doing a huge game for Kursk and I will see if there is any other folks that are interested in joining me on this crazy little event. In fact I am thinking of doing this as a two day event somewhere here in Phoenix to allow folks from other parts of the country (or in fact other parts of the world) to come and play.

Just how cool would it be to do a 1 for 1 tank game of the battle of Kursk, I think it would be awesome! But lets see who may be interested first. If you are interested, drop me a comment and we will talk. Now I must start some planning....

TK

9 comments:

Tom O said...

Tim,
I hope to play in the Kursk Shifting Sands event and will be running armor. You are right, it will be a small force, but you have to remember that they utilize "firestorm" units that get added to different forces. I'm going to have fun and play some games, afterall isn't that why we play?
As for your mega-tank game battle, I'd be up for that too!
Lastly, late war isn't so bad either :-)
Tom O

Tim Kulinski said...

Tom, I will be building a Mid War 1675 list, planning on doing a StuG G list.

I will be planning the Big Tank game, I look at it like our ACW games for BP, it is something we need to work towards.

Scottswargaming said...

In have often pondered the rational behind the standard points army sizes for the Mid / Late war theatres... of course the rules say you can play any agreed points value with your opponent, yet covention seems to have pigeon-holed MW @1500pts and Late War @1750pts, yet as you say most things are way more expensive in MW, so your tank forces will be smaller, unless you are running minor PzIIs or PzIIIs, start taking StugGs or Tigers and you are rapidly out of points!

I love your idea of MW Total War for Kursk, and wish you the best of luck ... its my end goal too for FoW!

Tim Kulinski said...

Scott, maybe you need to make the trip out to phoenix for the total war kursk game man!

Your right, the mid war points and the way they pointed vehicles has me scratching my head. Early war and late war seem to be cheaper than most mid war vehicles, i just do not get it.

So has your group tried the total war games. I am noticing that not many fow players have tried this.

Scottswargaming said...

Believe me I'd love to join you for a game!

We have tentatively mooted the idea of a trip to the US in 2015, for the kids to see Disneyland while they are still young enough to enjoy it and old enough to remember it...

If I can add a trip across to see you guys at the same time, that would be cool. I am guessing California to Arizona will be a flight or length car journey? It would be good to see the Canyon as part of our trip too...

Of course its all dependent on pennies at the end of the Day...

My group dabbled with the idea of trying out a Total War game back in Easter, but we didnt get anything planned in time and ended up playing a mini-tournie instead.

The idea is still on the back burner though, so hopefully it will get a try out in the not too distant future.

Robert said...

Uh oh Scott! You said the D word. Have just touched on Tim's favoritest thing in s whole world. Be careful or he might get you in for free and then insist he goes with you.

Scottswargaming said...

Cool, a free guided tour then!? ;-)

Tim Kulinski said...

Scott,

You let me know and I will be your tour guide, look over here, nothing to see!

Scottswargaming said...

LOL, OK!