Meramic Enterprises

Face of Battle
All American United States Expansion Pack

by Bill Rutherford

Published by Meramic Enterprises, this new expansion set for Face of Battle (FoB) consists of 138 loose-leaf pages plus a full-color card cover sheet. To recap FoB again (in case you’re not familiar with it), it’s a set of fairly detailed skirmish gaming rules – 1:1 figure scale, short turns, and short distances – a very detailed treatment of land warfare on the bleeding edge…

This expansion provides everything you need to play Americans in FoB. There are sections with special rules for paratroops, including landing them, US ranks and medals, a handy page of American surnames for those of you not familiar with them (!), a fairly detailed section on small arms and munitions (I didn’t even know the US had ten different types of hand and rifle grenades) and a pretty complete vehicle stats list. A decent set of company-and-below TO&Es lets you put everything into context. A glossary and two page bibliography completes the rules section of 34 or so pages. The balance of All American contains scenarios and play-aids. There’s an innovative Easter Egg Hunt tournament scenario (OK – they’re looking for spies, not Easter Eggs, but the principle’s the same!) for tournament play that looks like fun. Eight other scenarios – seven involving paratroopers and one, a combined-arms taskforce – round out the set. Each scenario includes player hand-outs, an historical narrative, OOB and victory condition data, etc., a page of game charts and unit data for each side, and a functional map (OK – I don’t like their trees) that provides all needed game setup information. There are also ten new Event Cards, several sheets of “Improved” Soldier and Leader cards (all printed on paper for reproduction), and several pages of campaign notes. All American costs $19.95 and should be available from your local game shop.

If you cannot find a copy there, you can go directly to the publisher, Meramic Enterprises, at 778 Rolling River Creek, Gloucester, ON, Canada K1V 1M2, or on-line from their website at http://www.thefaceofbattle.com… If you play FoB you will definitely want All American. Even if you play other WWII skirmish rules you may well want a copy just for the scenarios and wealth of ideas contained therein.

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