Flames Of War (FOW) was published by Battleground Pubs around 2000. It’s got a very nice rules booklet going for it, but not much else. The booklet is around 1/2 inch thick, its got a colored cover, the text is on glossy paper, and most of the book contains, not rules, but weapon data pertaining to the WW2 era. I’ve no idea of the price. In searching the web, it appears the rules are available on a freebee basis by downloading them… perhaps the rules didn’t sell as well as the publishers hoped, and they were determined to bring joy and gladness to the wargaming public, whether or not they could make a profit. The game in which I engaged had 3 players pushing American troops, and opposing them were 2 (of which I was one) for the Germans. It was a fairly small scale encounter using 15mm troops. And right there, it was a loser for me… while my aging eyeballs can make out 15mm Napoleonic and Ancient troops, I find it difficult to identify the WW2 drab-colored units… they all look alike to me. We Germans had the following force: a 2 infantry platoons, each platoon of 3 squads. A squad was made up of 3 stands of troops, hence our 2 platoons consisted of a total of 6 squads (18 stands). b We had another 2 squads of special purpose units… one was a squad of machine gun troops, and the other a mortar squad. c 3 armored units, termed “sections”… I have no idea of what a “section” represented, but each section consisted of 2 tank models. The American force was slightly larger… the squads, for example, were composed of 4, instead of 3, stands. The Americans were defined as the attackers, and we Germans placed half of our force on the table… we chose the units… the other half would show up later. The Americans all started off the table. I thought the victory conditions were cleverly presented… these had nothing to do with FOW, but were concocted by the gaming host. First, we Germans were given a marker and told to place it anywhere on the field… the one restriction was that it couldn’t be placed on our baseline, but had to be at least 16 inches in. Then the Americans were given a marker and told to place it on our half of the field. These two markers were defined as the holy grails of the game… if the Americans could reach and obtain control of either marker, and maintain control for a turn, it would be an American victory. But this had to be done before Turn # 8. If not, a German victory would be declared. With we Germans half setup on the field, the Americans moved first and entered the table. And here, I suffered my first disappointment. This concerned the sequence. FOW has the most basic of all sequences… the active side moves, the active side fires, close assault is resolved, and then the opposing side becomes the active one. This is the simplest of boardgaming sequences, wherein the active side moves and fires and does horrible things to its opponent, and the poor opponent sits there and waits for his half of the turn. It’s a true “Gotcha!” sequence, in that the non-active side is given no opportunity to react or fire defensively, but sits there until it’s his turn to go active. It was interesting to note that at least one other gamer was unhappy with the sequence. And the host himself stated that he was displeased with the sequence, and was going to revamp it. He wanted to institute some sort of defensive fire phase in the procedure. Throwback I was surprised that in the year 2000, a rules publishing company would offer what I consider a sequence that was, essentially, a throwback to the rules sets of 30 years ago. Perhaps that was why the rules didn’t sell. But I have to admit that, because of this basic simplicity, the game turns go rather rapidly… Side A moves and fires and then Side B moves and fires and so on. Moving was performed quickly… it was the fire phases and the buckets full of dice that held us up. On to the field came the Americans. Infantry moved at 6 inches per turn, and armor moved 10. You could double these rates, but if you were fired at while doubling your move, the firing unit would double its hit dice, and as explained below, doubling the hit dice could be fatal. Eventually, the advancing Americans came within range (16 inches) of one of the rifle squads I commanded, and I opened fire. Each German 3-stand rifle squad had 2 rifle stands and one light machine gun stand. The rate of fire of the rifles was 2, and so I tossed 2 dice for each rifle stand… this gave me a total of 4 dice (all 6-sided). I also tossed 5 dice for the rate of fire for the light machine gun stand. And so I had a total of 9 hit dice. My rifle units, because they were dug in and not moving, were entitled to their 2 hit dice. If my units moved, they’d be reduced to a single hit die per stand each. And if the light machine gun stand moved, it would be reduced to 3 dice. In contrast, the American infantry rate of fire was not reduced when they moved… they’d continue to fire at a rate of 2 dice each. Firing at infantry in the open, I took my 9 dice, and needed a 1, or 2, or 3 for a “hit”. Now, for every die that showed a “hit”, I had to toss again, looking for a “damage hit”. The damage toss was interesting, because it depended upon the quality of the target stand. To hit a veteran stand, a 1 or 2 was necessary, while to hit green troops, a 1, 2, 3, or 4 was required. I assume that the veteran troops could dig in and hide that much more effectively than the conscripts. Each “damage hit” resulted in one complete stand gone. If you got no “damage hits”, you scored no losses on the enemy. This procedure meant that you could literally inundate a target with many, many “hits”, but if your “damage hit” tosses were ineffective, you caused no direct injury to the target unit. The saving factor was the fact that if your basic “hit” throws totaled 5 or more, the target squad was defined to be pinned, and had to test for “un-pinning” before it could be called on again. After some 4 or 5 turns and a lotta firing, many of the 3-stand and 4-stand infantry squads were down to a single stand apiece. This appeared rather awkward to me, since it seemed rather futile, pushing a single stand around. If I had my druthers, perhaps there could have been a “reorganization” phase, wherein the sergeants rounded up the single stand units and combined them into effective fighting units again. Firing on armored units generally followed the same procedure as the infantry, except that you had to refer to a table (or tables) giving the relative penetrating effect of the firing weapon versus the armor thickness of the target. Infantry stands had an arc of fire of 360 degrees. The same for turreted tanks. But vehicles with fixed guns, such as the German Hetzer, could only fire to their front. Each side had a mortar unit, which fired in each fire phase, using a burst circle 5 inches in diameter. I’m still not sure I understand the procedure, but the mortar seemed to get 3 bites at the apple… you tossed your first die for the first blast, and if you got a 1, 2, or 3, then you tossed another bunch of “damage hits”, looking for kills on a 1, 2, or 3. End of mortar fire. If you failed on your first die toss, you tossed a second die, and if you got a 1, or 2, you tossed your “damage hits’, looking for a 1, or 2. End of mortar fire. And if you failed the first two times, you got a third “hit” die, this time looking for a 1… and if you got a 1, you threw a bunch of “damage hit” dice looking for a 1. Again, I’m not sure of the rationale for the above, but the mortars were pretty deadly… they caused most of the injuries to my units. Another item I’m not sure about was the presence of officers on the field, and what their functions were. We had platoon commanders and a battalion commander, and, ordinarily, they couldn’t be directly targeted. I must assume that if, somehow, they were hit, some horrible consequence would befall their troops. The advancing Americans came close to the victory markers on the field, but “close” wouldn’t hack it. When Turn #8 rolled around, we Germans still had possession of both markers. In all, FOW flowed swiftly, but it isn’t my cup of tea. Too simple a sequence, and too many dice tosses. 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