Today we look at the answers to the questions you posed to BF regarding V4.
The plan
A while ago we appealed for questions to send to Battlefront regarding Team Yankee and FOW V4. We were inundated with questions and picked the best to send to the BF team. They have kindly found the time to answer them. Today we look at FOW V4 responses; Team Yankee will be in another article, shortly.
Q&A
Will V4 cover Hungarians as extensively as V3 did ? I have Hungarians for EW, MW and LW and am a little concerned that they may be dropped.
Right now we are not sure what form the coverage for Hungarians, Finns, Romanians and so will be, but they will be covered. Chris, Phil, Wayne and Andrew all have armies and won’t let them be left behind.
Will there be a V4 army builder. If so when?
We are working on it but want to have a Team Yankee one first.
When we will have Gepanzer lists for mid war desert? If so when?
There will be one included in the Eastern Front books that you can use.
Are there any plans to release fortified forces for v4 and rules for them?
No, we are not planning on any Mid-War fortified forces at the moment (although that’s no guarantee that we won’t do some sometime in the future!). The main reason is that the current mid-war German and the forthcoming Italian infantry companies already handle this fairly well. If you play a defensive battle, you gain minefields to fortify your position and most of the benefits from gun pits are now standard for dug-in guns.
Should we expect more command cards released for existing nations in mid war? And same about objective cards? Also, is there any plans to have command cards that will give you points back, decreasing the quality of troops, but allowing more numerous forces?
Our plan is to create one pack per book so there is no plan to make additional ones for books that have already been released. We would like to create additional Fog Of War decks over time though. The Italian Command Cards will include options to decrease the quality of your troops.
Any plans to roll the card packs back into future books instead of using cards.
No. We want to keep books accessible to the widest range of players possible by focusing on the core range of units. We can leave the complexity of ‘should I pick this flavour of Rifle Platoon, or this other flavour’ to the veteran gamers.
Why is the turnaround for the rules updates to V4 EW/LW so quick? How will the team be able to draw in enough playtest data and filter out all of the community noise to make appropriate major changes?
We had been paying close attention to the thoughts of the community since the release of V4 and identified the areas that needed a review. During this period we had also been discussing potential options so were confident that we had good options to present to the community. Once the proposed changes were presented we found that the information coming back from the community was similar to what we were seeing with our internal playtesting and that gave us the confidence to move ahead at speed.
What’s going on with the stock via online store? Are we still going to be getting blisters for removed platoon box’s. I.e a lot of the Pacific stuff.
All of the missing box codes will be replaced by individual blisters and should be in the online store now.
Will the infantry for Italians be plastic or metal?
The infantry will be metal and the gun crews will be plastic.
Is heavy calibre artillery going to be removed from the game? And for Late war and Early war when they get re-done?
Not sure at this point.
The new Fortress Europe book for LW/EW, will it be the same points as the current books or are you starting to convert LW/EW to 100pts.
The points in the new ‘Fortress Europe’ book will be compatible with the current Late War books. This book is all about making it easier to get in and play some Late War games.
Will we see any new LW/EW books other than Fortress Europe? If so when?
After we have completed Mid War we will be returning to Late and Early War. We also expect to see a Berlin Compilation as well.
Will we see any new LW/EW models? If so when?
Yes, cannot give specifics on timing at the moment though. We would like to add the Maus to the Berlin Comps though.
Will there be another German book for MW Desert to flesh it out given BF has already mentioned a second British book.
There won’t be a second desert book for the Germans, however you will be able to build desert themed lists out of the Eastern Front books if you want – for example Gepanzerte Panzergrenadiers
Is BF surprised by the somewhat negative reaction to V4?
Yes. V4 has seen a lot of positive feedback with players returning. We know we own the game but we don’t own the hobby so we do need to stay in touch and understand any concerns that players have.
Will we see more rule changes/updates?
Lessons from the Front is considered to be a living document so we will see more changes but we have no plans to make any further major changes (like the recent EW/LW ones) any time soon.
Will there be a V4 Firestorm campaign, if so when?
We would love to do one. Look for an Organised Play program coming to stores/clubs soon.
What books can we expect next year?
Avanti (Italians in the Desert), 8th Army (British in the Desert), two Eastern Front Mid War books, as well as a book covering other Western forces for Team Yankee.
Will BF be continuing to produce the new ‘flexible’ plastics given the issues with the Desert Rats models?
We believe have solved the issues that people have mentioned in the past and so look forward to what we are able to do in the future using this technology
Conclusion
Well there you have it some answers to your questions. It looks like there is plenty to look forward to in the next year, i am certainly interested to see what the organised play might look like! Please share your thoughts and views on our FB page.
Bullshit.
BF killed FoW.
They promised a book dedicated to paratroopers of different nations and Japanese for mid-war. Now both are gone =(
There is more to come for this q & a?
Yes we will have a TY Q&A but that’s it for V4
No more pact forces for more than a year,sound like they really love the eastern block of the Game
I’m with Yury. I have literally thousands of dollars wrapped up in this hobby and they managed to destroy it. We had 18 veteran gamers in our group at one time with V3. In the first 2 months of V4, the group dropped to 7. Seven months in, the group remaining was at 4. Four of us broke to remain with V3 lists and use just a few V4 rules (move orders, air, arty, smoke). We’ve been running a weekly desert campaign for months (on scenario 15 now, Mersa Matruh). It was the only way to salvage a once great game. It’s gonna take ALOT of new players to make up for all the veterans who dropped. I don’t see it happening.
They are surprised by the negative feedback regarding V4? They killed FoW because they didn’t listen to their playtesters and especially the tournament scene.
The answers above make me sad and I am sure that I won’t buy any FoW stuff in the next years. Here in germany FoW is dead. Since V4 not a single tournament where before we had ~20 a year. The former tournament players now play By Fire and sword or The 9th Age. In my opinion BF used every single opportunity in the near past to do things wrong.
Crybabies…..it’s fine….dAre I say, better?
When they comment there are no more major changes coming, this clearly means the morale rules will remain. This is a huge mistake as this is the single-most broken part of V4 and is largely responsible for the huge drop off of players. If BF were to “man-up” and acknowledge this would be fixed, it just might, just about…..arrest the steep decline the game is currently experiencing.
BF seem content to watch it’s customer base move to other things
When the rules are poorer than the version they replace why on earth would you expect people to play V4,0k
I’m very surprised BF didn’t see the negative reaction coming , and really show how much BF have their finger on the FOW gaming pulse LOL
For my own part, in our area FOW was already trailing off before V4. Many loved V3, but you only had to look at the dwindling stock in hobby stores to see that it was already on a downslide. Maybe V4 accelerated this? Maybe not. I was one of the people who really loved V3 and thought “Why would you do this?”. I also was experiencing “Version fatigue”, as in…not another set of changes. However, after opting into a V4 tournament locally, I found I really liked the changes. They made a lot of sense to me – not just for play-ability, but less oddities. My hope is that FOW starts to grow again. I get the bitter feelings some have, since I felt the same way initially. But I don’t think it is as simple as V4 killed FOW.
This answers make me wondering what BF thought when the invented V4? To much overconfidence about their great game (which needed a rework to be honest) that it can take such major changes that upset a lot of veterans now.
Sorry the new release plans and the strategy behind it seems to be just sales orientated. I can understand it from a plain business mans view. But this business man just saw their business one dimensional, with greed…
V3 needed an update to make it less akward for newbies. But instead of fine tuning where it would have made sense they tried to invent the wheel new. And failed in some aspects. There are some good additions but the few bis issues I got with certain rules (e.g. bullshit morale rules) weight very heavy.
I still play the game from time to time and it can be still fun. I enjoyed most of my V4 games. But the feeling and depth isn´t as big as it was in V3. V4 is a nice game but it´s not the FoW I started to play 2004.
I will play FoW in the future (spend to much money for that stuff) but do not plan to invest much money in further projects. And from what I hear here in Germany thats similar to a lot of veterans of FoW. And since we got next to no V4 tournaments here in Germany it seems a lot of FoW veterans have similar issues with V4.
But thx to all this mess BF created I got now the opportunity to play more games I hadn´t had the time when FoW was my main TT game. So I even got the opportunity to go to my first DzC tournament after 5 years and even make the 1st place. So thank you again BF.
I generally agree with the V4 critique as above. To be fair they have addressed some of the responses of V4, but not nearly enough. I think that Battlefront are too focused on Team Y and other projects and have greatly reduced their focus on what was once an outstanding game.
Perhaps suffering from a case of victory disease, they have badly damaged their base product. The EW/LW adaption is so broken as it is.
Dare I say, taking V3 as a base and then adding elements of V4 to it seems to be the best way to salvage the situation until V5 Comes out. This seems to be happening in a few places already. Let us make V 3.5 and make FoW great again! It has been done with other systems.
…the change from V2 to V3 was great and not nearly as dramatic and broken as this one and there was not nearly the same amount of critique. So it is not like the community is resistant to change.
To all those saying V4 ruined the game- I may be an outlier but despite several attempts accross version 2 and 3 I found the force organisations hard to follow and distracting (this may be my dyslexia but considering I played DBM, FOG Bolt Action and playtested for WAB I have a reasonable variety to compare to)
V4 actually got me playing FOW for the first time due to not fighting the rules and concentrating on enjoying the game.
But I do end up fighting through a lot of negativity that is probably putting more people off
V4 is more fun than V3 to play. People aren’t playing tactics is the problem. Bug tanks and infantry don’t need to be knocked down to 2 or 3 but 2 or 3 IN COMMAND most complaints i see is because people are playing V3.5 and not V4 as is.
I’m a bit disappointed to see one TY release listed for 2018.