Want to try Minis but not sure where to start.

To reiterate, Tide Of Iron is a board game, in that its not collectable.  Everyone gets the same stuff in their box, just like other board games.  They have an expansion that adds some more units and scenarios I think, according to the website.

I’m considering putting ToI on my Christmas list, if I here enough positive reviews of it.

With Set II coming out you’ll be able to field and effective Soviet team and Japanese team. There are a couple of new Japanese tanks that are pretty good.

You might even be able to put together a Chinese team but you might have to amek a house rule that allows more than 15 units per team or play 80 pts. or something. Those 2pt soldiers don’t really fill out the points very well.

If by tourney para bomb you mean too many paratroopers to shoot at.  then the answer to this is NO.  this 150 point build isn’t the way to go.  I tried this and my buddy brought out 8 paratroopers and 2 captains.  that alone caused way too much chaos, not to mention the shermans.  i haven’t tried it against an all out sherman swarm.  but again i would say NO.  shermans are so powerful especially in hordes.  ( but that def of the KT is awe strucking)

I guess my challenge would be getting used to those maps again.

I was thinking of lettered columns and numbered rows, like battleship. Use the facing as described above. Counting movements should not be a prob. I think a code chart for unit shorthand would be wise too, to speed the play.

@Cinefyl:

do I NEED a starter/base set to get the rules for a particular flavor (Task Force, Flank, Zebra, etc.) Does a base/starter set have enough pieces and parts to let us actually get started (even on a limited scale) to give it a test run without spending major $$$

Thanks!

You don’t need a starter or base set to play if you download the rules.  Each domain (land, War at Sea, and Angels 20/Bandits High) is independent and incompatible with the others.  Within each domain, all sets are completely compatible and no set is necessarily better than another.  The exception is perhaps with the land based game.  In the first four sets the vehicles were not always to scale.  Players call them version 1 or V1.  From the set 1939-1945 and thereafter, the vehicles were much more to scale.  We call them version 2 or V2.  Many, but not all of the vehicles were then reissued.  Many of the soldiers were as well, but they are essentially identical.

The starters have barely enough to get started.  I highly recommend buying some boosters or used collections on eBay.  Btw, I have a few extra unopened 1939-1945 (land game) starter sets and a number of War at Sea boosters:

Flank Speed, x1 booster
Condition Zebra, x1 booster
Set V, x1 booster
Surface Action, x19 boosters

PM for more info if interested.  Good luck and have fun!

PM sent

@Ducky:

@Obergruppenfuhrer:

…and you nailed it completely. One of the main reasons Germany lost WWII was preparing for a short war that ended up being a long one. Pride was their downfall.

It’s a character flaw a lot of Germans seem to possess. My German family generally all have the stubborn “my way, or the highway” philosophy….

Yeah. It’s funny how each culture, race or nationality (whatever you want to call it)  has it’s own special gifts in certain areas a a collective whole. Of cousrse there are individual exceptions by the thousands but as a whole, Germans have been know for their dominant, regimented and calculated behavior. They are also a very industrious people with a history of producing the finest iron and steel the world has ever seen.

Himmler was adamant about restoring the practice of making damascus blades which took could take at least 10 years to master making. They produced those as swords and especially daggers for rewards to the SS. These blades were renouned as the finest in the world. Much like the Katana. The difference being, these blades had an amazing spectrum of colors that refracted off them becuase of the long, EXTREMELY difficult process it took to make one. Only a hand full of people in the entire world knew how to make them so Himmler set up shops and apprentice programs to keep this medieval practice alive. Today, I’m sure a genuine dagger could go for 10’s of thousands of dollars on e-bay but they dont even have genuine ones listed. The originals are about as rare as it gets. There’s lots of blades that carry tha label but none that I’ve seen are the genuine ones made by the Germans.

The Italians, as mentioned in a another thread, are not naturally gifted warriors. They are a people of the renaissance, connoisseurs and lovers. They fought like cowards on the eastern fron especially.

They deserted their SS comrades many times as soon as they came under heavy fire. As I’v noted before. The Luftwaffe, stuka pilots in particular returning from sorties, would strafe partisans and Italians running at full speed away from the front line out of pure digust for their cowardice.

got it…

Thanks