Flames of War

WWII Rules

by Bill Rutherford

Published by Battlefront Miniatures Ltd.

FoW is Battlefront's foray into WW II miniatures gaming. They run 176 pages in length and possess some of the best production values I've seen in a rulebook. What do you get? 91 pages of rules; a Flames of War catalog page (more on that later); five pages of equipment statistics (US, UK, Germany, USSR, Italy); a page of game charts; a four-page historical introduction to WWII; 62 pages of information about the five noted protagonists; five pages of scenario design notes including basic meeting engagement and attack/defense scenarios; four pages of well-written and illustrated play examples, a four-page introduction; a page of designer's notes; a four page set of frequently asked questions; and last but not least, a page-sized color chart providing paint matches for virtually any WWII color you could need for miniatures painting. *Except* for Polly Scale's wide range of colors! I suspect these aren't as popular overseas (FoW was published in New Zealand) as they are here in the USA but it's really no matter, as Polly Scale provides their own color matches...

The figure scale is approximately 1:1 in that a stand of troops represents a weapons or rifle team and a vehicle or gun model represents a single vehicle or gun. Time and distance scales aren't given. The former is, I suspect, a very short period of time. The latter is, well, telescoped. For infantry weapons one inch seems to represent around 10 yards. For heavy weapons - tank guns and the like - the scale seems to be about one inch per 65 yards or so. For artillery the ground scale seems to be something like one inch per 750 yards (given that bombardments can be carried out as far as three times the printed artillery ranges). It works in terms of allowing all of one's troops involved in a battle to physically be on the game table but to me, it felt funny.

The play sequence is sequential; side A moves, shoots, and close assaults and then side B does the same. Everything's done based upon the platoon. Movement is normal; platoons move up to a maximum distance subject to reductions for terrain. Direct fire is resolved with a die-roll based on the target's experience level, modified in a very basic way for range. Targets get a saving roll based on their armor (for AFVs) or their experience (for soft targets). Soft targets are generally destroyed upon failing; the attacker makes another die roll to determine damage against AFVs. Close combat is similar in mechanism but bloodier (no saves). Artillery fire, too, uses the same basic resolution mechanism, though it must successfully "range in" on a target in order fire. Spotting is deterministic, that is, if you can see it you can shoot at it. Recce troops are slightly harder to hit than normal troops but otherwise function normally. They have their uses, though, as in an attack/defense scenario, the defender can place ambushes in covered or out-of-LOS terrain after the game starts. Recce troops, because they're slightly harder to hit, are the preferred choice for triggering ambushes by moving into or near likely ambush sites... Smoke, aircraft ground attacks, and anti-aircraft fire are all available and resolve using existing game mechanics.

The information on the five nationalities is presented with a very specific eye towards raising a gaming force for tabletop play. All elements are assigned point values and players build forces based upon agreed-on points totals. This seems a bit gamey at first glance but you do wind up with pretty (historically) reasonable forces. A lot of effort been put into each of the national "intelligence briefings" to bring out each country's distinctive characteristics, with much flavor text, specific rules (e.g., TOT for the Americans, Stormtrooper moves for the Germans, etc.) The phrase "Collecting Flames of War Miniatures" appears on page 96. Remember the reference to the catalog page, above? Battlefront Miniatures makes a whole range of 15mm WWII figures and vehicles, packaged for use with Flames of War. You build forces based on a primary company type and add support platoons into a reinforced company taskforce. Just about everything buildable from the provided organization charts is available from Battlefront.

The scenario notes provide the basic structures for meeting engagement and attack/defense scenarios, with extensive commentary. This was pretty well-written with the ever-present eye towards getting a novice gaming.

Oh - there are 16 pages of full-color interior art. 12 pages are inspirational - lots of well-painted and posed 15mm miniatures designed to get one's blood up for a game. The other four pages are the meat of the bunch, though: a two-page guide to scenery painting and building, and a two-page guide to figure and vehicle painting. These four pages provide, with a number of color photos and illustrations, and concise explanatory text, an immense amount of information on how to get unpainted miniatures, buildings, and raw scenery materials onto the game table in a very presentable manner.

The rules are quite simple and are well-suited as an introduction to the beginner to WWII gaming. Command control is essentially missing, as is any notion of spotting. The sequential playstyle will make for a quicker-moving game but it's at the expense of any perception of realism that interactivity adds. Flames of War is a competitor, scale-wise, to Mein Panzer (by ODGW) but not really to Kampfgruppe Commander, Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier, WW II Battlefront, or other even larger-scale games.

The feeling I got, reading the rules, was "What if Games Workshop produced a set of rules and a 15mm miniatures range for WWII gaming?" I confess to lack of originality; a fellow-gamer mentioned this to me when I picked up the rules and the feeling grew as I read them. Sure, this isn't GW but the (successful) formula is there:

  • Provide high production values,
  • Assume nothing about the reader's knowledge (explain everything!),
  • Provide lots of good graphics and color,
  • Explain how to paint the stuff,
  • Demonstrate basic scenery making,
  • Make sure the rules are simple enough to get right into playing after a single read,
  • Make raising an army *fun*, not merely a matter of researching tables of organization,
  • Provide supplemental army books for specific armies (e.g., Diving Eagles, Hitler's Fire Brigade, Old Ironsides), and
  • Provide a complementary miniatures range, packaged for use with the rules.

Laugh if you will, but this presentation will go a long way towards winning over the gamer who's only been exposed to GW (or other fantasy or SF) products and it's a model that other pub lishers could follow to good effect. In a word (or two), it's user friendly.

Flames of War should be available from your local gameshop for $39.95 or, failing that, directly from the publisher at http://www.flamesofwar.com or by mail from Battlefront Miniatures Ltd., DX Box BX10668, Aukland, New Zealand. It's notparticularly pricey, given what you get, and if you game WW II this just might be the tool you need to drag some of the WH40K players at the local shop into the historical world.

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