F l a m e s

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W  A  R

flames of war, or fow, is a new and easy to play WW2 miniatures wargame made in New Zealand. The company also produces its own range of miniatures well supporting the game. They have learnt from GW.

 

links

FOW website

 

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: For Stalin! Crush the fascist invaders of the Motherland.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.

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