I've now played a good half dozen game of Flames and in the words of another player "I haven't had an un-fun game yet." I does seem to lack a lot of the unit crunching aspects of other games, and it's nice to have a bunch of humans fighting eachother, rather than space aliens.
Interestingly, on the 40k front. The local club, which has connections in GW HQ, have said that the 6th edition leak is actually real and a sounding WIP. If so, many of the changes to the core rules could make 40k a really exciting game again.
Anyhow ... back to Flames.
The local club is running the Cassino Campaign to get everyone into the game. I've been playing around with some lists and even got a couple of test games into the mix. The games are strickly small scale 500-900pts affairs, with no vehicles. Cassino and the Gustav lines was one of the hardest slogs and most WW1-like campaigns in WW2. Casualties mounted as the allies smacked head-first into some of the toughest defensive positions of the Second World War.
As such I'm taking Russians (mascarading at Greek Partisans). At 500pts I'm fielding the following:
Rifle Battalion - 500pts
Rifle HQ (Command, 2nd, Commissar) - 30pts
Rifle Platoon (Rifle and Machine Guns) with 2 additional Maksim HMG - 180pts
Rifle Platoon (Sub Machine Guns) with Kommissar - 145pts
120mm Heavy Mortar Platoon (6) including command and spotters - 145pts
The SMG's are my assault leaders and can defensive fire or assault fire the best. The Heavy Mortar platoon sits at the back and punches well above its weight, bringing the pain. The Rifle/MG's have a range of 16", with the HMG at 24". They will strive for a strong defensive position and cover a flank and offer aggressive fire.
WIP Round 2 - 800pts
Scout Platoon - 100pts
82mm Strelkovy Mortar Platoon (incl spotter) - 110pts
Sappers Rifle Platoon - 85pts
Thinking .... the scout platoon can use the 'infiltrate' rule to pull forward the Rifle Platoon into a good aggressive position. The SMG team will be secondary to the 'sheer firepower' of two mortar companies ladling it on. The lighter mortars can also pot-shot directfire, giving them fair bunker busting capabilities.
WIP Round 3 - 1000pts
Additional Stelkovy Platoon - 110pts
Flamethrower Platoon - 90pts
Flamethrowers and Mortars - well the germans will be dug in, so what else matters. The additional Strelkovy Platoon on the 'assault' platoon will bring this up to 15+ models, meaning that the defensive fire will need 10 hits to pin, rather than the standard 5 (Quantity is Quality rule). As Assault platoon of Rifles/Machine guns, SMG's, flamethrowers and a command team.
Hopefully that should help crack those Fascist Bastards!
