"FOW Website Comments..." Topic

Oh wait, the poster was making a joke at my expense

I thought he was just making a joke.

To give Richard due credit, he has asked on several occasions for submissions for the SOTCW Journal on FOW related topics. AFAIK there haven't been any offered yet.

It's a game, for goodness sake! If people want to get worked up about the evils in the world then FOW would come rather low on the list for most of us. Clearly YMMV for some …….

"If you don't think these show how arrogant these guys are then perhaps I am overly sensative."

this is an accusation often given to Fow players. I've never been able to match the anger to criticism of Fow to the same person saying 'its only a game'

"Oh wait, the poster was making a joke at my expense"

I refer to my previous post regarding perception….

"these statements …(are identified to be)…. paramount to elitist fascism not recognising the importance of such a radical system rejuvenating historical wargaming in its entirety to the saviour of all."

Everyone is going to have a different veiwpoint on all aspects of a game system. When a large group of people are exposed to a wide diversity of alternatives, most of which stand head and shoulders above FOW in terms of game system, they are not going to give something selectively popular in a lot of isolated wargaming ponds a lot of shrift. Why should they?

my own club has literally thousands of games played by members in any particular callander year. Nobody plays fow, Does that make my entire club membership of 70 people Arrogant?

Allen
"Its the reason I hate FOW and all it stands for…"

My take on this statement is that the poster beleives that FOW is a 'cash cow' based on a lowest common denominator ideal adopting an outdated fantasy system spine to attract 'crossover' wargamers from fantasy systems.

personally, I beleive that gives them too much credit. Theres too much blundering to indicate a co-ordinated evil mastermind.

One wonders how sales of Mid war monsters will perform

Maybe I need to find a game I dislike, dont play and nag on any topic it comes up in. Its amazing how stupid and pointless that sounds isnt it??

Im no fan boy and there are lots of things about FOW I dont like, and like other WWII rules better.

However its a fun fast game thats lets me play with a group of enjoyable gamers whenever we have the time. Isnt that what our hobby is all about when it comes down to it??

Cheers 2nd BB

I think if FOW promotes interest in the topic of WW2 and encourages more people to get into our hobby, then that is all well and good.

It happens to be a well played and well like product, now I can say that impartially without having any connection to the company and it's suppliers and to the product itself, in the sense that I game in three other scales and none of them are 15mm. I enjoy looking at their pictures and modelling, even if every picture is somewhat over crammed with models, and yes it is the GW of the historical wargaming world, but I remember in my younger gaming days, I played alot of silly games that I thought were the business which I later found out were not even remotely historical, and had a good time. As I matured as a gamer I got interested in other peroids and systems which I thought more accurately reflected the peroids and battles I still wanted to play, while still admiring the older ones for their charm. Hoepfully many of the new FOW players will eventually follow a similar journey.

Either way, any new people coming into this hobby, by whatever means, is a good thing for us all.

What Worl War II 15mm Company level game is better than FOW? I play FOW and love it, so if there is something better I would like to know?

After all if you loving drinking beer and all of a sudden someone told you that it was crappy beer would you not try something else?

Please let me know (I am not being sarcastic).

Smitty22, there are (at least) several at a similar (company+) level. A quick rundown of those that I'm familiar with includes:

I Ain't Been Shot Mum (IABSM) – Too Fat Lardies
Poor Bloody Infantry (PBI) – Peter Pig
A Leader of Men – Task Force Productions
Crossfire
Battlegroup Panzergrenadier (don't own this myself, but have read good things about it)

I believe I am correct in saying that these can all be played using 15mm FoW-based miniatures. Each has different strengths and weaknesses, so I'd definitely give each a try if you can. As with your beer analogy, tastes vary widely. Taking any one "expert's" advice exclusively is never a good idea. Try them all, and have a good time with some friends doing it! :)

And of course, if you go up or down a level or two, there are hundreds more.

- Bob

@ bobstro, thanks for the list, are you saying that all of those games are better than FOW?
If so, why?
Not an argument, as I have not even heard of those games, just a question.

No, not better necessarily. Just different. As to what's better, you have to try them and see which you think is better. I personally like the blend that FoW offers, but the others deal with factors that some people don't like about FoW. Crossfire is probably the most radically "different" of the bunch with no fixed movement sequence. IABSM uses blinds for movements. And of course, you want a game that you can find opponents for.

I'd suggest doing some searching through TMP for more details about each of these rule sets to get a feel for them. I dumped my own thoughts into this thread (among others): TMP link

I'm trying to play as many different rules as I can. There's not reason not to jump around between them. There's nothing exclusive about rule sets.

- Bob

One persons opinion is not that of the entire society, the same as one bigoted opinion on TMP does not reflect the opinions of the rest of us.

That particular opinion does seem to be widely held amongst the more prolific posters on the SOTCW forum. I did wonder how many less vocal SOTCW members have not re-subbed like aecurtis perhaps because of the general tenor of remarks in that vein whenever FOW or indeed WI came up.

Smitty, our club plays FoW mostly and thats what my figures are based for, is a game I enjoy and what I play most – however, its not everything I play – of the two Bobstro lists I am familiar 2, IABSM and Crossfire.

IABSM has a number of differences (strictly all my personal opinion only of course, others will surely have different views)- first up it focuses on infantry and vehicles are comparatively secondary. It introduces a level of fog of war and the need to spot with the use of the blinds – so you lose the gods eye view of the battlefield that FoW gives, but that also allows you to feint much more effectively. You will need some markers using FoW based models to track the kills and suppression hits and unless you have an umpire I would codify between you and the other player what is an easy shot a difficult one etc to get the target numbers – it is fairly easy to port over modifiers based on FoW or any other system. It also uses the 'Big Men' concept for elements of Command and Control. The major interesting element is the card driven turn. The deck consists of a card for moving and a card for shooting for each element in the game, plus some other things in the game and an end of turn card. So the order in which things happen is somewhat random and not everything gets a full activation in a turn.

Crossfire is hard to explain as Im not an expert with it – it is however wildly different in style to anything else that I have played. In a very brief form turns/activation of units continue for one player until the other side gets an opportunity to react and takes it….so its not time based turns, nor fixed levels of activity but an undefined set of activity without reaction. Also terrain seemed very important and seems to me to need to be very detailed, a bush here a bush there makes a difference – aesthetically pleasing as well as game altering. It is one I wouldn't attempt without someone who knows it well , but seems to offer something very unique.

Two other rulesets that are popular at the club are Rapid Fire (not played it myself) and the Blitzkrieg Commander/Cold War Commander/Future War Commander line of games – Im waiting for the new version of BKC to buy it but I own FWC and other own CWC and they seem to work with FoW based figures.