Upcoming Remagen Book

The fine chaps over at Model Dads put up a brief preview of the Wargames Illustrated preview of the upcoming Remagen book for Flames of War.  They do a good job of providing a summary of the upcoming book.  If you run the video in large screen / high definition you can actually read some of the text and get a good idea as to what is going to be in the book.

Probably the biggest news is the Americans finally get an upgraded tank - the Pershing.  According to the Model Dads review it is roughly the equivalent of a Panther, and should give the American players a fun new toy to add to their lists.  Also on the way is the 76mm version of the Sherman Jumbo and a few other fun goodies.

On a few of the forums, the inclusion of rare American vehicles has brought up the issue of relative scarcity of equipment and how it is handled in Flames of War.  Many gaming systems account for the relative scarcity of equipment in its point cost to limit its usage on the tabletop.  Flames of War has never gone this route.  All equipment is pointed based on its capability or stat block, and the designers have instead limited the rarer equipment by list.  The net effect is that you're more likely to see a piece of unusual equipment in a Flames of War game than many other wargames.

Honestly, I prefer the Flames of War model (obviously since I spend way too much time on the game and its allied activities).  First and foremost because the Flames of War model gives you a lot more variety to pull your forces from, and second because most of the rare equipment was rare for a reason and they typically are not unbalancing on the table top. 

On the German side it there are going to be some fairly interesting lists, including 512 Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung and 654 Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung.  There is also a list for SS-Panzer-Brigade "Westfalen" - which if you've read Zaloga's Remagen book, should be interesting.

I've been waiting for this book to come out for some time, and will have a lot more to talk about once it has been released.