"The Worst Thing About Flames of War is..." Topic

Well?

It makes wargaming accessible and popular?

Still no Pacific or Early War.

The haters. 8)=

Oh yes, it was entirely too quiet here of late…

Wyatt

the scale…

Is it still trolling if the editor starts it?

Hard to pick one…..

The scale! :)

Same with all points-based games I've played: power gamers.

Since I have started collecting, playing and gaming for Flames of war, it has distracted me from my true destiny, being the Commissioner of the North American Sedan Chair Racing Association.

The GW mentality, too many costly theatre books that keep getting revised and revised and revised and…

For me, that I get bored pretty fast in a FoW game. And I would like I do not! But… Well. Nobody is perfect!

No lasguns or Elves.

No consistent ground scale.

The concept that "history is hard to find / expensive" so we have to provide it for you (in short easy to read articles).

Not having played it, I am however a fan of their support for the hobby. That means the only negative thing I can find is the lack of early war material. I remain hopeful though.

No France 1940 supplement.

The parking lot look of some games.

acarhj, you hit the same problem I did.

I never played the game, so I can't comment of that phase.

However, I have seen it played at cons and the look of the thing is what put me off. A few years ago I saw one old school WWII game set up next to the FOW rows of games.

The old school game had the "empty battlefield" look and the FOW games looked like one artillery stonk would wipe out both sides.

Still it was 1 game vs. 20+. Any thing that brings in more players is a good thing.

Vince

That left-out feeling when half the gamers in the FLGS are playing it and I'm not… and knowing there's an expansive and expensive new area of the hobby singing another siren song.

Plus what he said, ignoring the Pacific Theatre all this time seems silly. Same for France 1940.

I'll tack a vote onto Mike S's subjects.

scale: insofar as the mini/groundscale relationship is not accounted for to avoid interference.

history: The prepackaged (artificial?) history that comes across like a paint-by-numbers version of people/events. I don't mind that POV when it deals with the usual imaginary GW-type forces, but for some reason it sticks in my craw to have real people treated like glitz/fluff --probably just a symptom of grumpy old-age…

disclaimer: I have played a bit, but not much --and my only association with the minis is via painting them for others (though I have noted the quality of some of the castings has slipped…lately, I would've tossed mistakes that I've found back in the pot --but I suppose that's a sign of success/popularity that mini quality isn't necessary for maintaining sales?).

Only seen a couple of games played but two things that put me off were :
1) requirement for supporting artillery to be on-table
2) tanks crews jumping in and out of their tanks every other turn

Anyone who has the parking lot look with his tanks is not playing against competent opponents. The first air strike I ever launched cured our club of that. Yes, I rolled well, but I DID knock out 5 PZIIIs.

All Germans are magically equipped with Konigstigers and are either Waffen SS or Falschirmjagers.

Buckets of dice.
"Guardism": people only paint up the elite stuff and ignore the rest.
Stand elimination versus other mechanisms.

Any thing that brings in more players is a good thing.

That's a common, but mis-guided sentiment.
Its a good thing for the company selling the newbies their stuff. But it can definately be a mixed "blessing" if the players are gung-ho, tournament-playing, rules lawyers. Unfortunately, FOW seems to be attracting a disproportionate share of those types because they are already trained to think that way from their GW indoctrinations.

So I guess I would say that the tournament atmosphere is FOW's main drawback in my mind.

And the "parking lot" syndrome is nothing new. I remember playing in some micro armor games back in the 70's that suffered from the same problem.

Ditto lack of Pacific and Early War…

…the Pile of it I have sitting unpainted in the Closet….

…and no 'Weird War' expansion either!!

{ ducks }

What "Irishserb" said.

Erik

The really dumb questions that get asked by people who seem to want someone else to do all their research for them. I've yet to see one, that could not have been answered by the person asking the question, if he had just spent some time to look it up on the www…or read some books on WW2.

Dont get me wrong. I quite enjoy helping out and answering questions. But its the 'lazy' questions that annoy me. I sometimes feel that the questioners are taking advantage of the time and knowledge of others, instead of making an effort of their own.

Oh…and of course that most of the people asking that sort of question are enquiring within Flames of War terms….hence you know what rules they use. Whereas most other people dont bother to mention which rules.

When FoW first came out, I went " Oooh, shiney!" and started looking though the rulebook. Came across an example of play that went something like this: Tank A shoots at tank B. Hits but no penetration. Tank B's crew fail morale and bail out. OK so far. Then on B's turn, the crew rally, jump back into the tank they just bailed from and proceed to destroy the enemy tank!….oooooookaaaay. That just seemd silly to me and I put the rules back on the shelf.

The other main turn-off for me is the "parking lot" look noted by others previously. I will usually check out the games if I'm at a con because they typically look very nice from the standpoint of well-painted terrain and miniatures. But then I see the phalanx of anti-tank guns, or whatever, advancing hub-to-hub towards the enemy. That kind of thing tends to dull any kind of enthusiasm for the game I might be building up.

The continued criticism of the "bail out" mechanism reflects so many people's lack of understanding of the rules.

The "bail out" result is the equivalent of a morale failure that can be recovered from (by contrast an infantry morale failure results in the unit being removed, no chance of recovery). It doens't literally mean the tank crew leaves the tank, hides somewhere, and gets back in.

The haters and the fanboys.

And the people who provoke them ;)

re: bail out.

I think I understand the motivation in trying to provide a more visually-appealing symbol on the tabletop to represent morale loss, but since the table is littered with markers during a game anyway, I think that adding one more to the top of or beside the model would cause less confusion?

…certainly one less stand to paint!

Panzerfausts can't move and shoot. Otherwise I love how it has brought our group together and is getting more people involved.

I don't understand; you do get "Bail out" markers in every token set. It's not like you have to use the little crew guys.

I was just going to bring up the topic of what is the best scale for gaming napoleonics (which by the way is 25mm as everyone knows), but why ask that when we've got threads like this?

Lack of Opportunity fire. Also the figures look like Odo fron ST: Deep Space Nine…

Damon.

I have to agree with the costly book revisions. That turned me off from GW products.

The lack of opportunity/defensive fire during the other side's move. This was the deal breaker for me.

From the other thread:
"1 to 1 representation – not this "3 vehicles are actually a platoon of 5 tanks" silliness."

But if that is the case then FoW is a skirmish game – with artillery ON the table and ridiculously short ranges?

Heavy armor distorts the game badly.

mjc

The rules leave me wanting another rules set.

This is a pre-poll discussion, so try to boil your points down to something that can be a poll option. Think pithy!

"All Germans are magically equipped with Konigstigers and are either Waffen SS or Falschirmjagers.

I have seen hundreds of FoW games and I have yet to see that sort of thing. Maybe it's just the gamers in YOUR area?

"I don't understand; you do get "Bail out" markers in every token set. It's not like you have to use the little crew guys."

BF doesn't even produce those bailed tank crew models any more, at least not for release with the tanks. They market only the tokens now since so few players were even using the other models. I have always considered it not "bailed out", but the crew is still in the tank recovering from a solid scare. I have any number of other rules sets that do the exact same thing. They just call it something less upsetting to all the oh-so-sensitive gamers out there. 8)=

What's not to like. All rules sets have issues and all rules sets can be "broken" if you have the right combination of factors. The game is fairly simple, easy to play, has a great product which requires people to field somewhat reasonable TO&E forces, and they have nice figures to boot.

If I do have problems it is with some of the "facts" that are in the books and some of the "realities" of the game which make some if not most of the Soviet weapons less effective than they historically were. I know why they do it, but the factual/data contradicts their attributes in game.

Some of the rule mechanisms seem very forced to me……

No Pacific….

Very little on early war….

It's not readily available in India.

I agree with Nazrat. I have always assumed that "Bailed Out" actually means that the tank has a momentary morale failure, and the crew are panicking and useless, inside the tank. That's not the official BF line, but if you ignore the 23-skidooing figures, it does make a bit of sense.

The Early War seems to be on schedule for the end of the year, and spring of 2010.

Making the North Africa Intel Handbook into a hardcover. First because I can't spiral bind it so I can lay it flat on the table. Second because it won't lay down flat on the table its a pain in the neck to look through and calculate a force. And lastly it weighs a ton and that's not very helpful hauling it around all the while having a bad back. Please Battlefront no more hardcovers. Anyhoo. Salut y'all!