Flames of War.

[frank]

I have been playing this great game since version 1 and it is now on version 4. I am at the moment only playing Germans, who quite often get new relwases before their opponents which is quite handy. It covers the desert, and just being released now, the eastern front for mid war, and Europe and eastern front for late war.

The way you pick your force is now simplified, going from a 1500 point average game to a 100 point one. You can get theatre books, or, single nation books for different theatres. There are also "unit" cards giving stats, points cost and any special rules which you can use during a game, or if you don`t want to splash out on and army book you could probably just use these to pick your force. There are also "command" cards that give you the option to add special characters or assemble a more specific force.

www.flamesofwar.com/online_store.aspx?CategoryID=13859

An army starter box gives you a good way into starting a force as they give you about 90 points worth of models, an A5 rulebook, unit cards, a "start here" booklet and 2 decal sheets. An example is the late war german force below.

www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=79&CategoryID=13564&PageIndex=2

Ok, the link is a bit more vague than I expected, with the starter box at the bottom of page 2

[Whiterook]

This is a cool system, that has a massive following at one time… around here in Western Massachusetts, you’re hard pressed to find either individuals or groups playing it, though. There was one game store that had regular, big meet ups playing great battles, but they fell away for Magic and such.

I bought into the system with a respectable collection of books and miniatures for edition 4 and still mean to delve in. I know of a couple ex-FoW players that may be nudgeable back into pushing minis 

From what little I’ve looked at, it is as Frank says… more accessible for the newbie. The cards seem to have been a real game changer, and the points system more manageable. The miniatures kinda surprised me, going away from the solid resin bodies to hollow “kit” builds, literally on parts sprues!

[frank]

It is definitely easier with the new points system, and the new plastic minis are really good. My bugbear with the old resin/metal vehichles was it was a right pain to get a proper fit. I used to paint the parts of the tracks that "should"" have touched the main body and then trial fit to see where the paint voids were so I could stick a little ball of Green Stuff in to help with the fit. And don`t get me started on truck front wheels . A resin body with a small rebate where a lug on the back of the wheel was supposed to fit. If you even breathed on it heavy it fell off.

They have fiddled with the points balence as well. When the King Tiger came out in , v2 I think it was, you could field a heavy tank force of HQ of 1, and 2 squads of 1 plus a few points over for some support. Now you can take a force of HQ 1, platoon of 2 and either a second platoon to give you a few points left, or, a platoon of 2 Tigers to leave you a bit more option for support.

I am being careful to not give actual points cost as companies tend to take a dim view of that.

[Whiterook]

Working in my Vietnam minis has me feeling a little more confidence in painting the figures… vehicles and artillery aren’t as bad for me, but the figures had me a bit trippy. On the system, it seems to be to be more accessible to someone that is totally new to the system (aaaah, that would include me!), and that makes it “doable”… now, as the say at Nike, I need to “just do it!”