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I'm hoping this community is better than BoLS and a few other forums i've posted on as this question continues to go unanswered for me.

So, increasingly there is a local community playing FoW, and I have, for a long time, lusted after it. It will be a while before i'm ready to make purchases, but I do have questions and hope you guys can help.

If i'm buying into Flames of War, from naught, what would be my best purchases? Again, keep in mind, I don't own a thing, and that includes 15mm terrain. I have mountains of 30mm terrain, but obviously that is of little use to me here. There also aren't Tour of Duty/Vietnam starters and such, so purchases get harder still.

Do I need the core books, or is Tour of Duty the entire system book for the setting?

Do we know if this sub-game will be supported? I heard the game was attempted once, and almost immediately died on the vine.

Any suggestions on where to buy online (to the US) and maybe save some money? My usual online retailers Coolstuffinc and MiniaturesMarket don't even stock Flames of War.

Finally, any broad stroke system thoughts? I am coming to the game knowing almost nothing about it. My background/tastes are such that I am fond of WH40k, but am mostly a player of LARGE scale Dust Warfare games, and on the other end, play Malifaux constantly. Is it possible to play FoW with predominantly infantry if i'm not a huge huge fan of armor? I would love infantry, some armor, and air units, in a perfect world, but know the game wants to be very armor heavy.

Hoo boy.

I'll start right off with this: FoW Vietnam is nowhere near as popular as the WWII version. It wasn't very well supported, and let's be honest, the FoW ruleset doesn't lend itself very well to the type of combat that dominated most of the Vietnamese war (or at least the bit Battlefront is trying to cover).

You'll need both the hardback rulebook and the Tour of Duty book, since it only contains the army briefings.

As for purchases, I'd say buy the book first, since that'll actually tell you what you'll need to field a force.

Judging by the current reception of ToD, I'll hazard a guess and say it won't be too well supported. You won't be seeing any National Level tournaments devoted only to Nam.

Buying online? Go to the Warstore.

And as for the game, FoW is primarily a tank game, but I've had plenty of fun playing games of infantry-on-infantry battles.

Honestly, I don't see FoW and Vietnam mixing well, and I don't know why they keep pushing this waste of development time and cash. If you want 'large scale' battles using the FoW rules, look around for the projects people are doing, like the Arab-Israeli wars.

FoW: Vietnam has never been too popular or good, it felt kinda cheap, but Battlefront seems to be restarting it so we can see where they go with it.

Other than that, I don't think there is much I can say that won't rephrase what infinite_array said, so welcome to the Fow/Historical Boards

I don't know if the small rulebook from the Open Fire boxed set is available on eBay or not, if it is then go ahead and purchase that at a pretty good discount from the main rulebook (and get it spiral bound once you get it). If you think you will do any WW2 at all just get the whole box.

What period does your local community play?

Few people are getting on the Vietnam boat now. I would invest in the small rulebook. Peter pig also make 15mm Vietnam goodies also.

Just out of interest I’m looking at Peter Pigs range for Vietnam as I think they would be a suitable option if I was looking to play some Nam Games and I’m wondering what exactly the difference is between the US and ARVN troops? They seem to be wearing the same uniforms and equipped identically.

So are these ranges interchangeable, or is there something I’m missing?

I actually thing I prefer the ARVN sculpts so is there anything to stop me using them as Americans?


US troops with M16


ARVN troops with M16