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Has anyone played the 1/100th scale ww2 tabletop game Flames of War? if so, what's your opinion?

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/26.page

That link brings you to the flames of war section of dakka dakka.

I think it's a good game - the mechanics themselves are solid, fairly intuitive and with a fair amount of room for tactical manoeuvring. There is more emphasis on playing a particular era, or theatre, of the war rather than list building and than in itself is kind of nice. Some of the books also contain multiple lists, so you and a friend can both collect opposing forces from the same book, which again is a nice feature.

Model wise again it is a pretty solid range these days - Battlefront have now branched out into plastic with both some of their tanks and infantry. The other benefit is that because it is a historical game, there are a wide range of different manufacturers making miniatures at 1/100th scale which are compatible with the game; Skytrex, Peter Pig, Forged in Battle and the Plastic Soldier Company to name but 4.

Again the knock-on effect of this is that the miniatures are more reasonably priced - the other manufacturers (and especially Plastic Soldier Company) have forced Battlefront to stay competitive with their pricing. The company also does cool stuff like giving you a free new rulebook when they update editions (providing that you have the full version of the previous one). Of course stuff like multiple Soviet Strelkovy batallions will still be more expensive, but the option is there to go cheaper if you want to.

Finally last (but definitely not least) apparently it is 3rd in terms of popularity behind GW games and Warmachine - there is a pretty big community of players out there, and its very rare that you will find a club where no one has dabbled in the game before. Otherwise, as Rotgut says, take a look at the section of the website on Dakka!

I'd think that globally, FoW is actually bigger than Warmahordes.

Bit more gamey than your average historical game, but its a great gateway game. Probably the most popular ww2 ruleset, if not historical game in the world


Also if you want to get in, I'd suggest to buy 3rd party models. Cheaper

 Pacific wrote:
Finally last (but definitely not least) apparently it is 3rd in terms of popularity behind GW games and Warmachine - there is a pretty big community of players out there, and its very rare that you will find a club where no one has dabbled in the game before. Otherwise, as Rotgut says, take a look at the section of the website on Dakka!

You must be out of date good sir The ICv2 report hasn't had Flames of War on the top 5 list since like late 2011... Since then it's been 40k, Warmachine, Fantasy, Hordes, Malifaux.

With that being said, Flames is popular, and it's probably not too hard to find a game (it's the most popular game at my flgs), and the Open Fire box set is awesome for the value, 2 decent sized armies with tanks, infantry, and big guns, and a mini rule book (that's still larger than other games mini rulebooks) for 70 bucks US.

Awesome game, great minis. A good stepping stone into historicals if you're at all into that.

They are getting to be as dickish as GW as far as thier "Product".
50/50 opinion of them, to be sure.

I have a few good forces for them. The crowd is second to none and some very class acts. I love the community. The compnay does some assclwonish stuff, but if you can over look that, it is a great game.

Pricing sucks, but WTH. It is WW2. and you can have some very tight battles if you get in there.

Starter was for me,a few tanks, a platoon of infantry, and some bazookas.

Fought a few WW2 battles, and they were excellent.

^ But unlike 40k, FoW covers a historical period where several other manufacturers supply relevant (and indeed, often better) models.

BF can't enforce a "use only our models" policy in EnZedland, let alone Australia (because one maker's 15mm scale PzIV looks much like any other maker's version) or anywhere else in the world for that matter.

Not that it didn't stop them trying. They got laughed at and the gamers continued on using what they were using.

Thanks for your opinions guys! Just bought the Open fire starter set. Fantastic value and I find the rules easy to adapt to and in general, thoroughly enjoyable.

I'm a recent convert and I absolutely love the game. Very simple and elegant ruleset, there's very little that will strike you as unusual or completely unrealistic. I find it really rewards smart play over list building, you don't get nearly the same mileage with spamming certain units like you do in 40k so you're actually a lot better off building a balanced army list.

Also there seems, to me at least, that the power creep is extremely minimal. I'm using the latest Axis book and my friend kicks serious ass with his 2nd edition Turning Tide infantry company. It's also a very cheap game to start if you buy 3rd party stuff.

I've also just recently bought Open Fire, and I'm loving it so far, previously GW only for 20 odd years (and I'll still paint my current Nid army and buy the Heresy books, but this is a great change of pace).

The models are great, and the fact there are so many different sources is brilliant, I'm still trying to get handle of what looks right / scales right with what (ie is PSC infantry and FiB tanks the way to go, or vice versa, or FoW for certain models, or everything).

The rules look great to me, not too heavy, but the great thing is there seem to be lots of alternate rules sets out there for 15mm WWII.

Also, I've been looking for a way for some time to own HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS OF TANKS, this could work

The models are great the game plays pretty smoothly and there's very few clunky rules that slow the game down. Ignore the usual hyperbole about how they're basically GWv2.0

Love the game and the tournament scene in the uk is far more friendly and mature than the 40k scene

I've heard nothing but good things. Bought an Open Fire box the other day and looking to move from 40k to what looks to be a much better game.

Also lol @ all the players telling them to feth off and using generic WW2 minis. Anyone got a source on that? Or on any other dickish "GW-esk" behaviour from Battlefront?

IMO its a great game and more historical/realistic than many detractors say.

Ive studied WW2 alot and read tons of documents/books/first hand accounts. Most WW2 games give players either to much or no real control over what is going on. I think FoW hits a happy medium of being detailed enough to be a good representation of WW2 combat but not getting so far into the weeds that you spend more time on charts than playing the game.

So IMO its a great game for anyone to get into, and you will find a great deal of the players have an interested in WW2 history as well.

As to GWish behavior....well BF for many years was a great game company but in recent history----basically the last year they have begun to take steps to be more like GW which IMO is the complete wrong direction. For most of the time Ive been playing FoW they had a policy of use their rules but use any 15mm WW2 miniature you wanted to play the actual game.

This last year though they tried to institute a 90% BF models only policy. Then they backtracked to a 50% Bf model policy after a massive public backlash. I know from talking to their employees many there still think they should go with the 90% policy as they want to make more money basically. However after playing the system for 8+ years and allowing other companies minis its a tough sell to long time customers to go to a BF only policy and IMO quite wrong. I personally can live with a 50% policy and think that it is pretty fair as you are playing their game and they do provide prize support.

At the same time a 90%+ policy is wrong because over the last decade of the game being in print many people bought models BF didnt sell at the time and now would effectively be punished for it forced to move on to other game systems. Which there are a couple other options out there depsite what BF may think.

Overall though I play the game alot, I play in a fair amount of tournaments and I do support the game as much as my time allows. So think you should give it a try and hopefully BF wont mess up a great game/good game company by taking the path of failing evil empire.

 Reaver83 wrote:
Love the game and the tournament scene in the uk is far more friendly and mature than the 40k scene

I hope so. I'm making my first foray into the tournament scene this year!

Flames of War is a very fun game. It manages to balance historical considerations against ease of play rather well. Though there will always be people on either extreme who don’t like the game for that reason. You can’t please all the people all the time though.

Being historical means that there are no copyright issues and so there is plenty of competition in terms of models. This is always good news for the gamer as it keeps Battlefront on their toes and means plenty of choice and value for money.

I got into it about 5 years ago and have never looked back. 15mm WW2 is now my dominant gaming passion and I’ve not played a GW game in years.

Seriously if you can find opponents then go for it. You won’t regret it.

 Dakkamite wrote:

Also lol @ all the players telling them to feth off and using generic WW2 minis. Anyone got a source on that? Or on any other dickish "GW-esk" behaviour from Battlefront?

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=274174

BF tried to ban other manufacturers from official FoW tournaments (even though BF don't actually have a 100% complete range) which didn't go down well at all, not least because BF had previously made a promise to not do this, and then one of BF's big wigs made some frankly stupid comments about PSC on their forum which exploded in their faces and saw quite a hurried climb down on BF's part. BF have also started to call FoW "the hobby" and generally act in the protectionist manner familiar to anyone who has any knowledge of GW.

Personally I buy most of my stuff from other manufacturers and I only get specific items from BF as they are (usually) good quality and they have the most complete range.