"Anyone Familiar with Force Fleet Command ?" Topic

I saw these in a games store last night.

link

I can't seem to find any online reviews. Anyone here with any experience ?

One thing I'm really not clear on is if they are stand-alone or require Panzer Korps to play – although would be odd that naval rules require land rules – but they appear tied in somehow.

Any thoughts ?

I think it says it quite clearly on the link you posted

''or when used separately, players can recreate large scale WWII fleet actions all over the world.''

There's a fairly extensive preview available here: link

They state in the rules that the other Panzer Korps games are not necessary for exclusively naval engagements, but will be required to integrate naval actions with land and air actions, and thus they are recommended. (Makes sense.) It looks to me like some air rules are included. (At least enough for CV strikes, it would seem.)

At a glance it looks like the granularity is rather low, making it perhaps a large tactical level game. Could be useful for campaign games. If translation and grammar errors bother you I might recommend against it. (Written/translated by a non-native English speaker, it would seem.) On the other hand, could be enlightening to get away from the usual Anglo-American naval biases and get an outside opinion. Looks to be about 35 pages of rules, 150 pages of individual ship charts, and a few pages of reference charts.

Would love to hear other thoughts, but at 212 pages at least your getting some paper in the deal.

I cant find any info on this either, other than the back page of the rule book which is pretty much already stated above.
However, it is being sold via ebay for about $20 USD +S/h
auction
craigH---was the copy you saw shrinkwrapped or were you able to peruse it at the store?

Thanks for the comments. Yeah, I saw that "used separately" comment too – but somehow thought maybe you still need the other rules for turn sequence or something – just the way they say "Panzer Korps _module_" made me nervous.

I was able to look at it in the store but, well, to be honest, I didn't look too closely as there was lots of other stuff to see and I wanted to do some online research as well. Then my online research turned up blank…

At a glance it looks like the granularity is rather low, making it perhaps a large tactical level game.

That was one thing I picked up – there did seem to be a focus in the rules on the formation of the ships, arranged in a task force.

I'll be back at the store in a week or so, I'll likely pick it up, I think the store price was $25 USD

I'll report back if they still have it next week !

"could be enlightening to get away from the usual Anglo-American naval biases and get an outside opinion."

Very good thought. Might be worth a look.

Agreed.

"could be enlightening to get away from the usual Anglo-American naval biases and get an outside opinion"

Given the current level of new research that has come out over the last 10+ years, any serious ruleset should be free of such bias. Now if you're talking about rules based on data from 50+ years ago or sloppy/lazy research, then you may have a point. But among the current crop of better rules, no, I don't see any bias (and I'm only been studying naval history for some 40 years and playing naval wargames just as long).

I may well be describing what you would call "sloppy" rules.

One of my particular quests is to find a good set of "quick play" rules that elegantly melds air and surface actions. (No small task that.) I do not wish to name names, as I've read so many different rule sets and played them all so infrequently that I might well be confusing things. Suffice it to say that one recent "quick play" book has a fairly clear RN bias. Another looks to be better researched, but I haven't actually put that one on a table and there are other problems with it. Some are more complicated than I'd like. Others are too poorly written. Some look promising, but without a local gaming group it's hard to test things. (I usually have to drive at least two hours one way to find a naval wargame. Small town a thousand miles from the nearest ocean. What can I say?)

I respect that there's a lot of great research out there, and new games "should" be free of bias, but that's not the same as aren't. There's still PLENTY of bias floating around the boards, often spoken by the same sorts of enthusiastic amateurs (read me) who might attempt to write a wargame. I do not doubt that there are great wargames out there. In fact, I've played some. But there's also very definitely crumby, poorly-researched, and biased stuff. And some of it is relatively new. (And some of it's fun to play in spite of it's flaws.)

If you want a list of the rule sets I own . . .

General Quarters III
Micronauts
Naval Thunder
Seekrieg IV
Surface Action Port
Victory at Sea

and even Mal Wright's convoy game Rising Storm.

I've played GQIII, Naval Thunder, and Victory at Sea. (And Wooden Ships and Iron Men, Action Under Sail, and a variety of more casual games. I bought my first naval wargaming rules fully twenty years ago now and I've played sporadically since, as I am able.)

Fleet Admirals is on my to-buy list, when it becomes available. This thread about Force Fleet Command makes me curious.

I find that literature, as Shattered Sword or First Team, is often of a much much higher quality than gaming rule sets, but even recent books sometimes have mistakes. (A bit of nonsense about a lack of arresting gear on Japanese carriers in a certain prominent book of about seven years age pops into my noggin. I think this was really more typo than anything else. Maybe they meant catapults. But it's just as mistaken any way you want to parse it.)

I don't have forty years experience under my belt, either as a wargamer or as a researcher. I've been gaming seriously for perhaps twenty-five years now and I'm a composer, not a historian, but it takes experience and time to sort the drek from the quality. (Both are in the above list. I have an idea of which is which. Will everyone out there? There's also CLEARLY bias in that list. Even among the new rulesets.)

I suppose the trouble is this: it's a lot easier to tell what's a good ruleset and what's not if you are, in fact, a naval historian. Most of us don't have that luxury. And I genuinely believe the last word in naval rules is yet to be written.

So I finally returned to the store and picked up the rules (Force Fleet Action) and they certainly look interesting.

Under 40 pages of rules – which is a bit misleading as there are many large photos intermixed in those pages and then about 160 pages of stats, photos and commentary.

It appears to be fleet / task force oriented, maybe not as much ship-to-ship tactical combat – in fact for 1/2400 scale the author recommends placing them on one stand (base). In fact he makes that recommendation for 1/1200 to 1/6000.

I'll have to give them a read and maybe a game and report back.

Thanks. Might buy a copy this week. Lots of problems getting in the way of fun this year.

Just to close the loop on this, if anyone is interested…

I'm not convinced these rules (Force Fleet Command), as written were ever blind-playtested. Just too many questions.

For example, in the data tables, all the ships have a speed yet there is also a chart that seems to indicate all 1/2400 ships move 7 cm.

There is a page listing "Task Force Permitted Formations" but no indication as to the impact on gameplay.

Combat is very simple – roll an Attack D4, D6, D8… and compare to a Defense D4, etc with some modifiers – range isn't really a factor as long as you are in range (chart supplied).

However, the nine pages (of 31 overall – so almost 1/3) explaining naval aviation might be useable in other games.

Having typed all this, if you are new to WW2 naval gaming / history you may still want to pick this up. The 150+ pages of stats and comments on the world's fleets do make interesting reading.

so you base your fleet on one base?

I don't know… (sigh)

I think the idea is, well, if you are playing in 1/2400, you will have a lot of ships to move between Sea Zones it would make sense to have them on one base but then the rules also say ships should be detachable if they want to move away from the Task Force…

Not to beat a dead horse too much but I just noticed another gap in the rules – range is based on gun size, okay, fair enough…but none of the ships data pages list gun size.

So to play the game you would need to research elsewhere the gun size for each ship.

"range is based on gun size"

Ouch! That might be a problem. Making such a broad brush assumption is definitely not historical.

Guess I'll pass on that ruleset. Sounds like too much is open to interpretation plus being a "fleet vs fleet" type game.
thanks for the run down of the rules.

If you are looking for a fleet level ww2 game, Battle Stations Battle Stations!
by decision games looks pretty decent.

please note I have just read them a few times, not actually played.