My Thoughts on the Fourth Edition Flames of War rules

It has been a few months since the fourth edition flames of war rules set has been released. I cannot help but notice the different reactions that came from flames of war players. Some of the them have embraced the fourth edition rule set wholeheartedly. Others have had issues with the fourth edition rules. I myself have some mixed feelings on the fourth edition rules because Battlefront have split it between late war and early war versus mid war. Previously when a new edition of the rules came out it was the one rulebook that covered the entire war. I feel that the mid war rule set is somewhat incomplete. I say this because there seem to be something missing in the rules which should have been in there.  I am not talking about specific units necessarily or nationality traits. Even if the present incarnation of the mid war rulebook is meant to cover the desert war only, there should've been rules for barbed wire and entrenchments as they did have them at the time in the desert. Now anyone with common sense would be able to take the rules for barbwire and entrenchments from the early/late war ruleset and just add on to the mid war rulebook. I understand that Battlefront is trying to attract new blood into the gaming system, which would explain why they included the Tiger one tank and the 17 pdr antitank gun. Both of these were not present at El Alamein. If one were to look at the initial intelligence handbooks for the Desert Rats and Afrika Korps one would think that this is covering El Alamein and before.  However, these books are cover 1942-1943 and there were a lot of technological advancements made on both sides (Hence our Tiger and 17 pdr among the early releases of miniatures).   Battlefront is staggering their release schedules for their miniatures because they are also supporting their Cold War gone hot game Team Yankee.  BF does not want to be under the gun when it comes to miniatures release schedules.

German 88mm guns dug in on a hill.

 So BF has added force cards for both sides which contained different warriors and units that normally would have been included in the intelligence books, but for a number of players, there is still something missing.  I started a Desert Rats force and and Afrika force from scratch so I do not even have those cards.  The Fog of War objective cards serve as a nice variation for some of the missions in the book of which I have reviewed them on my YouTube channel (Canu's Chem Corps).

WHile I am enjoying the 4th edition of the rules, I feel like there are things missing and maybe when the Italians and AMerican along with more British and German forces are available that might change.  For now, I have to wait and see.

Happy Gaming!