Stuartica - Using An Early War Tank In Late War

Stuarts -They are better than you think they are.

I'm on a one man crusade to prove that the best tank in late war, point for point is the humble Stuart M5 light tank. I am aware that this is an uphill struggle to pursuade people of it's merits, but one day I will get the chance to take on Ben in a Stuart Vs Panzer IV/70 fight to the death and when I emerge triumphant on my one remaining light tank, I will be able to insist we get a new logo replacing the silly Gudarian's ducks with a proper tank, from early war, in late war.

Anyway, there are a number of options for using Stuarts in late war, should you choose to, the British use them as recce, the soviets use them as a 10 tank mass of awesomeness and the US use them in squadrons of 5 as a light tank in a number of lists. Having played around with the US options I think the best option is to go for Confident trained Stuarts and I tend to use the 3rd AD from overlord as I get to auto attack and spearhead, both if which are very useful, the first because this is a very, very aggressive army, and the second because spearheading let's you cover some more ground before the enemy start shooting you, which as we will see is absolutely vital.

Stuarts vs T34s, suicide you say? I think not...

Flames of War Tactics - Kangaroo

Ahh one of my favourite units, and I'm going to look at how to use them. Hi all coxer here once again and I'm discussing the British armoured transport the kangaroo, both Ram and Sherman.

So for those of you who don't know what a kangaroo is let me enlighten you. During the war British infantry were aware of how vulnerable infantry were, at the same time the US made Priest self propelled artillery piece was removed from British service due to problems with supplying ammunition - these defrocked Priests became the basis for this experiment and were very successful - it was then that the obsolete Canadian Ram tank was identified as an armoured transport - in Italy damaged shermans were used in a similar way.

Flames of War Tactics - Artillery 101

Hi all Coxer here

from today talking about the uses of artillery. (And a pic of some I found in Cyprus)

I'm going to be honest and say artillery is one of my favourite things to use and my favourite thing to moan about too.

Artillery can range from mortars through to off shore cruisers in flames of war - there is plenty of debate about having artillery represented on the board - as to scale artillery would be further back. Alongside this there have been several 'artillery park' lists with 16+ guns which are possibly not that fun to play against. So I'm going to take you through the mechanics in game if artillery, the uses (smoke, pinning, killing) and some tactics on them.

Setting up Infantry for Defence vs Tanks.

Hi All Coxer here,

this time I'm talking tactics, and how you can set up your infantry to defend an objective.

This can never be a comprehensive article as terrain/opposition will always shape your deployment, but there are a few simple tips and tricks which can help.

Flames of War Smoke Tactics

Hi all coxer here again, today I wanted to talk about smoke in FoW and it's uses.

Smoke comes in two forms, direct and bombardment - and it has two principle effects - units shooting through smoke can only see 16 inches, and if the target you're shooting at is obscured by smoke it counts as concealed and gone to ground - except for defensive fire where it's just concealed.

However there are some difficulties with smoke, you have to fire it at an enemy unit - so still need to roll to hit. Bombardments spread according to the wind direction - a random roll on the first smoke bombardment. Smoke bombardments must be the first shooting in the shooting step, and direct fire smoke is resolved before normal shooting from a platoon. Despite all of that smoke is key to FoW.

Red Army Tankovy Conscript T34 Army Tactics

Today we have a guest post from Robin Spence. Robin has been playing Soviet tanks for almost a decade and he's forgotten more about playing Soviet tanks than I will ever know! So Robin take it away.

Hi All

Having used these chaps for a number of years I thought I would write down my thoughts on their use. Hopefully it may help somebody who is thinking of running them.

The conscript Red Army Mid War T34 army from Eastern Front, my favourite army of the war. Totally unsubtle. Lots of Rusting hulks grinding the Axis scum under their tracks LOL Gaming the army under Flames of War is great fun.

Tactica - Living With Hen And Chicks

Hello All

I have spent most of the last six or so months playing Soviet armour and I have both loved it and found it frustrating as hell. Why I hear you ask? Hen and Chicks is the simple answer, it's both the Strength and weakness of any Soviet tank list and learning to live with it will either win or lose you the game.

So what is Hen and Chicks? For those of you who don't know, Hen and Chicks is one of the Soviets National rules.

The rule is:-