"Opportunity fire for Flames of War" Topic

Perhaps a bit more background will help. There where 6-8 players in the game. We each picked a small force with a specific mission in mind. I was to cover the open flank which was the left. I was told that I needed to cover either an armnor assault, or perhaps a mounted infantry attack. As the left was a big area, I picked moble units rather than fixed. So I had 2 marders, and the quad 20mm flak on a Sdf 7.

Me and the guy across the table from me wound up in almost our own game. The people in the center where both rules layers and spent the whole game arguing over nothing worth remebering. I dont really rememer what the two on our right where up to as they got sucked into the center which was a ruined town.

After I lost my marders, the priests pulled back to shell the enter. Then the armored infantry roured inand my flak chewed them up. We did not finish as the argument in the middle took so much time. When my oponent had to leave, I took off as well.

Yes, I was basicly in the middle of a parkinglot. I was less than happy about that. But they wanted the tanks on the right.

Badger22 wrote:

[…] Me and the guy across the table from me wound up in almost our own game.

Ah, I've had that happen in a 3v2 game on a big table. Fortunately for me, my Soviet infantry wound up matched up against my buddy's Italian infantry. His opening salvo blew away my battalion komissar (an ominous start) and the final roll of the game was the climax of my assault with two infantry companies against his rapidly-dwindling platoon of infantry in some woods. He made his "unknown hero" roll, and that one stand made the difference.

He and I seemed to have the most fun. The guys with all the armor on the other side of the table seemed to spend a lot of time hiding from each other, at least by comparison.

Nothing really relevant to this thread, other than his simple defensive fire and steady rolls did more than any opfire would have! :)

- Bob

Badger wrote:
"After all, it is not like Phil never played a real wargame before, so I am sure he was well aware of the problem when he first published FoW. But, he made a decision about those things that it would be a funner game by not including them."

Yep – exactly – for those who got upset at my earlier comment – you missed the point entirely.

FoW is an abstraction for the purpose of getting a fast fun game that specifically does not use mechanisms "more accurate" simulations do.

If you want opportunity fire and concealment and tactical modes for platoons & that stuff go play WRG's 1988 WW2 set – tehre are still a few diehards using it I hear.

If you are playing FoW and you think it "needs xyz mechanism to be more acciurate (or whatever)" then you have a problem – because it's not built to be that.

In theory, wouldn't most OP fire take place at closer ranges rather than way out there?

Repeating what I said near the start of this topic, there's no such thing as "op fire" in real life. You take a fire position and fire your weapon at anything that moves or presents itself as a target. The range at which this takes place is the effective range of the weapon.

I don't play FOW so can't comment effectively, but I do play a game where movement in any stretch of open terrain in full view of enemy guns means almost certain death. Which is as it should be.
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Tim

No there is no op fire in real life. But opfire rules try to make the ability to deny a lane by covering it with heavy weapons.

Well placed weapons make free wheeling movement very hazardous. So it mostly doesnt happen.

But there are many that want the free flow dashing about type of game. FoW is a great game for them.