We need breathing space - Hilter, 1938
A
suddenly popular game, I bought my brother the rulebook and some Germans for Christmas
one year and nothing really happened until the next when my games club, The
League Of Ancients, picked up some new members who crossed over from the
similar planned Games Workshop world and the rest is history. Gone are complex
tables or unlimited movement, replaced instead with Teleporting Ambushes, D6
mechanics, and an increasing amount of army list specific rules and Warriors
that are only missing oversized power weapons. I am sure however, that
sensible players in the club, or the designers reining back a little, will
restrict any silly additions.
What I like about FOW is that it is, at heart,
a simple game, and I can make noises as my T-34s and KV tanks grind over the
bodies of slain fascist invaders, followed by swarms of Heroic peasants
lacking all but spirit and a Commissar at their back with some heavy
machineguns pointing to them as further encouragement. See, FOW is that kind
of game players can get too involved with their troops in.
Soviet
Union: 
My
brother has the Nazis, so I must have their victors, Stalin's Great Patriotic
War! Nothing is more immpressive and demoralising to an opposing player than
me putting down squad after squad of fearless Russian peasant infantry until I
have to put them back in the casualty box, mowed down by machineguns and
artillery. But no fear, I also have lots and lots of tanks; the mighty
indestructible KV monsters, the ubiquitous T-34 legions charging forward with
SMG toting strelkova hanging on for dear life until they are all smoking
ruins, and then hordes of tiny and fast lend-lease M3 Stuart tanks from the
United States of America, with SPAM. Then if I want to be diverse I can add
the Organs of War, batteries of 76mm artillery, Stalingrad assault teams,
penal companies, and flamethrowers, oh yes, the T-34s can have flamethrowers
too. Imagine a Chemical Battalion. Even with special rules that only limit the
capabilities of a Russian Colonel, the Russians are the only army for all
seasons. It is just too bad that it is impossible to have all the little extra
platoons to make a hodge-podge force. Instead I must do with vast numbers
concentrated together. It worked in reality.
Americans:
I want to build a US Mechanized force and have begun with some APCs, an
infantry platoon, and Priests with supporting M4 Sherman deathtraps (I
wouldn't play them the safe way). Then I can port the Stuarts over as well. A
long way off being fieldable however, probably as a D-Day/Ardennes late war
force to face off against the Germans, below.
Germans:
I have even less Germans than Americans but that is normal, and the German
armour that I do have are all very expensive, namely King Tigers and Panther
tanks for an SS Company of Peiper's Panzer Division. I want to add
Panzergrenadiers and their half-tracks because they look good, and can
modulate the force into the 12th SS Hilter Youth Panzergrenadier Division as
well for battles during D-Day when the Division was practically destroyed.