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Looks like bunkers, sandbag emplacements, and beach obstacles.

Cool! Any word on cost?

should be about $90 if its in line with the other 2 sets they have done

Is this a game I should want to play? I'm not a history buff.

Flames of War is a great game. Basically a WW2 version of WH40K. Plays well. It gives reasonable historical result but certainly is more game than simulation. If you like WW2 give it a try.

Posted By tanker on 12/30/2006 8:15 PM
Flames of War is a great game. Basically a WW2 version of WH40K.

Huh? How is a 15mm game that uses squads instead of individual models a version of 40K?

You're perhaps confusing Flames of War with Wayne's original WW2 40K variant that was what got him the job at Battlefront to produce Flames of War.

No I'm not confusing it. FoW was written by ex-GW guys I think. The rules are similar. It is not the same game but any 40K player will recognize the similarities. Presentation is similar; I-go, U-go turns; similar army building and army books; platoons of team stands instead of squads of individual stands; similar command distances; similar assaulting; morale, etc. They even have a few 'hero' units. Again, I don't want to overstate the similarities --they are also very different -- but any 40K player would pick up the game quickly.

Tactics are VERY important in this game. Units MUST support other units or your in a bunch of trouble.

The similarities are mild- you're going to find them in most any game you play. We'll worth taking a look at.

Hm, I'll look at it today at the FLGS.

Posted By tanker on 12/30/2006 8:55 PM
No I'm not confusing it. FoW was written by ex-GW guys I think.

Phil was never a GW employee to the best of my knowledge. Phil offered his earlier game (a 40K variant)  to GW to produce but was turned down and I think that is the extent of its connection to GW. The FoW rules were not based on that 40K variant.

If you want to comment on the presentation that is one thing but basically what you are then saying is that it has a professional design and layout similar to GW products.

All that means is that the game is produced by people that pay designers :-)

I'll take your word about the GW connections as I really don't know. I take back my statement of "Basically a WW2 version of WH40K." That was a bit flip. But I stick by my clarification. It is not only a similarity of graphic design and presentation but of game support/sales theory. FoW was the first historical wargame, to my knowledge, to use the GW 'mold' or influence. I do not mean this as a bad thing either. Too many historical wargame rules suffered from not only poor graphic design but lack of support. FoW has support in spades.

But compared to competing rulesets at the time FoW came out: Command Decision 3, Battlefront-WW2, Spearhead, Mein Panzer, Piquet-POA, Battalions in Crisis, and a couple others I am forgetting, FoW played very 40K-like at a general level. Unlike the above listed games FoW doesn't have sighting, overwatch, or a heavy command component. It also encourages 'army building' over actual historical forces. Much of this comes from the fact it intends to be a game first and a simulation second. The new 2.0 rules have diverged from that a tad more as have the newer army books. But when FoW first appeared I think it was commonly compared to 40K and many historical gamers panned it as too gamey. I think with time it has gained the respect it deserves as a solid game of its own.

I've been playing FoW since it came out and had been using Battlefront minis long before that. All of this is just my opinion. If someone wants to say FoW is further from 40K than any other game on the planet that is fine with me.

Of course the whole point of my initial comparison was to simply say FoW is a great game and is easy to learn and play. If you like WW2 and have not tried it you should.

It is quite the enjoyable game. v1 was often compared to WH40k, but I always thought that comparison unfavorable as at the basic mechanics level, FoW is a superior game in all ways. It does help to have at least some modicum of interest in WW2, otherwise what is the point? Also prepare to have a lot of common myths and misconceptions dispelled. A lot of people seem to think mid and late war Germans are "Space Marines". The are not. It's one of the things I love about the game, the various army lists are quite well balanced and you are much, much more likely to hear people grouse about ahistorical match ups than "cheese".

As mentioned before, some of the historical wargaming community knocked it for it's gameyness and the ahistorical match ups that used to often happen, (like Russia vs Britain, German Afrika Corps vs. Russians, or the all to often German vs German battles). However, it also holds up well when someone organizes historical simulations that abandon the points system and instead stick to historically accurate orders of battle. Combined arms is really critical regardless what style is played. I still prefer the battalion level Command Decision 3, but I can dig me some FoW company battling too.

Not to throw the thread off track but nyarlathotep667 have you seen the new CD4 'Test of Battle' rules (www.testofbattle.com)? I have them on order but still have not gotten them yet.

Some of the folks at my old LFGS helped playtest some of the very, very early versions! However, that was well over two years ago and between then an now the rules has gone through many, many revisions and changes. Enough so my experiences with the beta testing really have no bearing on the current mechanics. I think the my only major complaint was the loss of the attritional combat system but as I've yet to play the CD4 rules in anything remotely like their final format, much less read through them, I can't really say. Sounds good from what I've seen though.

Cool. If you get a peek at it post some details.

Alas, that's unlikely as I've since moved and very, very rarely get a chance to see the old grognards. Surely you should be receiving the new rules soon, or are they not out now? Says so on testofbattle.com, at least through their online store, or did you preorder through your LFGS? In the next month or so I'll have even less opportunity to play as I move out to the middle of nowhere to take care of my grandmother.

I ordered through a local store. Not sure what the deal is. It's been a couple weeks now.

Ah, I know that pain. My experience when ordering through the LFGS is they sometimes take a little longer, a combination of the store owner only ordering on a few specific days and sometimes having to meet some sort of minimum order level, depending on distributor. Plus it's the holidays, which can sometimes exacerbate this. If your LFGS is anything like my old one, it will arrive soon enough (just never as fast as I'd like it!)

That looks awesome.  Thanks for posting the pictures, tanker. 

Zubbie (or any other interested parties), I would highly recommend Flames of War.  It is fun to play, and the armies are very well balanced, something that 40k lacks right now, unfortunately.

The game is very tactical, and as others have said, you must use combined arms, or you will struggle.  If your force isn't well balanced, the probability of getting creamed is pretty high.  It's awesome.

Oh, and most of the rules actually make sense.  That's something I really appreciate.

A big bonus if you're into history: You can learn a lot about WWII playing Flames of War.  I've learned more about WWII since I started playing then I had in my whole life up to that point.  That's because I really get into doing research  on units to base my army on.  I like to build lists that are effective in-game, and historical.  Something that is very possible with a game like Flames of War.

Oh, and did I mention it was a lot of fun?

FoW is a very fun game that you can either go historical if you wish by using certain units in specific scenarios, go generic for gaming fun, or do tournament style competition.  I ran demos of it back at Origins 04 (might have been 05, my memory is shoddy) before the Stalingrad book came out.  We had a lot of fun and so did almost everyone that can play it.

Usually when I hear it compared to 40k, or GW in general, isn't so much in the rules but in it's accesabilty and sales model (army books, box sets, ect), which many historicals fail at.  The rules are fairly straightforward and the books are pretty.  This is different from text only set ups that go like:

4.0.1 - The units my sniff (MY 5.5) their armpits (2.3a) but only if they are unhappy (6.4.01) or if they have played Halo recently (TRT 1.0.1c).

I haven't played FOW, but have heard some mixed stuff on it. The one thing that stood out was that they have a "codex" approach to their force's. You might want to take a look at a company called Peter Pig, http://www.peterpig.co.uk/ who do a game called PBI "Poor Bloody Infantryman". I've seen a couple of demos of this and it plays really well.

Actually, FoW seems to be moving away from the Codex approach. As it stands, the US+British Airborne are their own, standalone book detailing the Normandy drops. Past that, everything is organized by theatres of war.

Posted By Wolfstan on 01/02/2007 3:11 AM
I haven't played FOW, but have heard some mixed stuff on it. The one thing that stood out was that they have a "codex" approach to their force's. 

They did with the previous version. The current process is that they are producing "theatre" books. So we had an eastern Front and Africa book, an "early" Late War book that covers the Eastern and Western fronts and the new D-1 D-Day airborne book.

Its quite a significant move from the "codex" approach.

Battlefront will also be releasing division books and campaign books for Late War, so those will be more codex-like.  D-1 (the airborne book) was the first of the division books.  The Normandy book is the first of the campaign books.  So while there are theater books, there will also be some codex-like books for Late War in the form of division and campaign books.