"FoW Open Fire Question" Topic

I just broke down and bought the FoW Open Fire box set. I understand these are the complete rules but do they include army lists or do I have to buy more books before I can even play?

Oh, and as a follow up to that question, I have also been looking at IABSM but it looks like the rules do not come with army lists and specific theatre books are required to play. Is that correct?

The FoW rules do not include army lists.
They do not even include "first principle" points cost so you can build your own armies based on your own research. At least WRG and DBM give you that much.

First, the Open Fire mini-rulebook does not contain the complete rules. They do not include a few of the obstacle and engineering rules that are in the hardcover rulebook. But they're a darn good start.

You will need to acquire one or more period or campaign supplements at some point, or build an army using one of the PDFs from the FoW Web site. But you can play using the vehicles in the boxed set right now.

Regarding IABSM: yes, it's helpful to have one or more of the period/theater supplements, unless you want to try building your own force from scrath using historical organizations and rating it. The IABSM supplements are more of a guide than prescriptive army lists.

Allen

"The FoW rules do not include army lists."

The first edition rulebook did, for the principal combatants. And there's nothing to say that you can't find a copy on eBay, and play first edition quite happily without regard to what the rest of the world does.

Allen

I swore I would never buy a FoW rule book, but I paid $36 USD with free shipping on eBay and at that price I get 5 tanks and some of those nifty GF9 dice, so even if I took the book and threw it in the garbage I would still be ahead.

I have had a little experience with FoW and to be honest there are several things about the rules that bother me, but as I continue to search for a company level 1:1 game I am finding that all the rules have flaws that bother me to some degree or another. IABSM has some things that rub me the wrong way just from reading the game description, but I am still going to order it as I am sure it has some great game mechanics that I will like along with the ones I will dislike. I have struggled for a long time to find a company level WWII game that does "it" for me. At this point I think I am going to put FoW, IABSM, and BKC in a blender and see what comes out.

I'd say take the time to play FoW and IABSM as written and then make adjustments. BKC is a rather different sort of game (well, IABSM is, too), but has features that could be worth borrowing.

An ideal game for play without an umpire (IABSM is fine as it is, *with* an umpire) would probably combine elements of all three.

Allen

I agree – play FoW first. I recently ran a large game for a group none of whom had played. All came in skeptical and left pleasantly surprised. It suffers from problems based on a tournament mindset. But if you build "reasonable" armies, none of this "three tigers and an AT gun" stuff you may find it better than you think.

"I have also been looking at IABSM but it looks like the rules do not come with army lists and specific theatre books are required to play. Is that correct?"

Just to clarify what Allen said, you can play IABSM just the the basic rules, but you'll need to research/design the scenarios yourself. It isn't a points/list based set of rules, but a scenario based set. The supplements are useful as they give you pre-done scenarios, but certainly not essential.

If you are basing stuff up for company level games, then a couple of other contenders might be Crossfire and PBI2. You can use the same stuff with all of these (you will need less stuff to play CF as it uses section rather than team bases).

If you want to see what the FoW lists are like, this page has the late war briefings (army lists) and there's a link to the mid-war ones on the left of the page.

link

"An ideal game for play without an umpire (IABSM is fine as it is, *with* an umpire) would probably combine elements of all three."

IABSM is perfectly fine without a umpire. About half of the games of IABSM are without a umpire.

jdg

I received Open Fire in the mail today….Couldn't have been more disappointed. I was looking forward to the vehicles most of all and they are a big let down. I assumed that they were the standard high quality resin/metal BF tanks. They are not. They are all resin with the exception of the barrels. They are completely solid underneath with a flat "base" that extends lower than the tracks on several of the tanks giving me some "hover" Shermans, I guess for my Sci-Fi battles. The resin schurzen on the Stug's are so chipped and broken I don't think they can be salvaged. Overall a real downer.