In the ongoing saga of things to do with rebased mechwarrior minis, a friend and I played FWC (
http://blitzkrieg-commander.com/default.aspx?Area=FWC ) last week. Here's my friend's blog about the game.
http://rpgdiehard.blogspot.com/2010/12/future-war-commander-with-rebased.html
I agree with what he says. A few more observations.
-Once you get the rules down, the game plays pretty quickly. A largish battle should resolve in under 2 hours.
-I've been told that the command function in FWC and Blitzkreig Commander and Cold War Commander is based on
GW's Warmaster, and looking through the warmaster rules (free from
GW) there are other aspects that are very similar as well. This also might explain the author's thanking of Rick Priestly in the
BC rules.
-The command function activates multiple units at once and moves things along fairly quickly, though the game is still
IGOUGO, which is not my favorite turn/activation mechanic.
-It is abstracted, compared to other games. Most units only have one or two weapons systems.
-FWC does not have different structures or command systems for alien races.
-FWC contains enough sample army lists based on various manufactureres miniatures that you can find a stat for almost any kind of futuristic vehicle, mech or infantry unit
-Coming from a
40k background, it's interesting to see a battle where weapons have ranges that are more realistic.
-"Command" units in the game are mostly not able to attack or be attacked, they serve to direct the battle and establish command distances. I think they will be a nice excuse to use VTOL's and other unique vehicles or to model unique units that may not have a place in the army otherwise.
-There are no set force organization charts. Like most open-ended wargames systems, FWC is open for abuse by power-gamers, but those who are willing to discuss with thier opponents the forces involved shouldn't find this to be a problem.
Overall, FWC seems like a great way to get alot of miniatures on the table at once for a battle that will not take an eternity to play. I still prefer Mech Attack when doing smaller skirmishes, but for massed sci-fi combat, I may have found my rules! I'd never played a mass battle in small scale before and though I love 28mm figs, I really see the appeal of smaller (10mm/N-Scale in this case) battles that allow large amounts of troops and vehicles on a standard table.
I enjoyed the game enough that I ordered the Lulu version (26 bucks shipped rather than 55 bucks shipped for the color version) and immidiately got to work rebasing more
MW clix figs. Though the rules seem most ideally suited for 6-15mm scales, It strikes me that it'd be fun to try abstract rules like FWC to play apocolypse size battles in 28mm. Using FWC (or epic
40k) rules, you could play an apocalypse size game in a few hours rather than an entire day.