Flames of war a very brief intro

Flames of war is a miniature table top wargame , with teams and platoons up to company level, with some divitional support. in each bound your teams first move or digin, vehicles encountering difficult going make a bog down text , any score of a 1 bogs vehicles down and must be released by a skill test on your next bound. any morale tests are done in the same fashion at this time.

After this you are allowed to fire on your enemy. the system for firing is a little different than in most other games. instead of scoring a set number to hit you target. it relies on your targets training, position on the table. hitting a unit 5 times pins them down, and reduces their rof in the insuing assult phase or next bound to a rof of 1.after firing and saving throws etc. we turn to the assult phase,each unit can charge up to 4 inches to contact. the defender then can opportunity fire on the attacking units. resolving any hits and determining the winner if any and resulting routs or fall back , game play goes in to the next bound. artillery will be covered when we use it.

there should be enough men for 2 players each side.

Battlelore

 

Hi, I've got another game that I like a lot and it happens to be from the same designer and company as Memoir 44.
Battlelore and Memoir 44 are almost identical (on surface), so if you'd like ww2 theme check my previous review here . It's got same card driven mechanic with a twist of magic cards, and mostly fought in melee combat. Three races to choose from, mighty and fearless dwarves, pesky goblins and noble human knights, every rase has their own abillities.

I like it so much that I even tried to paint it, but there is literally tons of miniatures here, I am talking like 220 minis in the base game alone, and there are 10 expansions adding roughly another 20 each.
Unit variety is enormous, but none is overpowered. You can field archers, cavalry, knights, spearmen, drummers, balistas, ostrich riders... the list goes on and on and a cherry on the top, just look at that! creatures, dragons, spiders, hydras yummy.

Its beautifully produced, artwork is kinda childish but very thematic, everything is in bright colours popping on the table and pleasing eyes as you play, the book is a piece of art, glossy and in full colour,  leaves no doubt about how to play. Sadly in times of recession noone want to publish it anymore because of cost to produce.

Everything has its place in the box insert, every miniature is cut out from their sprues, and stickers glued to flags... ready to play out of the box, they realy made an effort to make you happy.
I would recomend grabbing one while you still can find them on ebay, especially to those who start with boardgames/wargames/miniature games (be aware that there are french refurbished versions that has english cards but the booklets are in french, rules can be found on FFG website, link on the bottom of this review.)

Its a fast, fun and bloody game, setup might be a bit lengthy (setting up map overlays and units usually takes me 15 minutes) but gets quicker the more I play it, usualy plays in an hour, but it depends on scenario. Rules are so simple anyone could learn it in 5 minutes, every stat and rule like in Memoir 44 is printed on a cards that you lay in front of you, in case you forgot, scenarios start simple and progressively introduce player to more advanced rules as you play. Gameplay revolves around command cards, that allow you to move your units on the split in 3 sections board, some of them have specific instructions printed on them, and allow you for more advanced manouvers. The genius thing about those cards is that both players draw from the same pile and because your right is my left flank (mirrored board) and there is only as much cards of one type, when you start using cards to go down one section opponent also has more chances to get cards of opposite side (same section as you) leading to intense fights.

 Basicly there are three strenghts of units: green banners (pansies), blue regular troops, and red mighty heroes, each group rolls different number of dice when attacking, banner colour also determines how fast your unit will be, weak units will be swift on the battlefield while your heavy infantry is cumbersome and drags like hell, different terrain overlays also affect speed and attack strenght (from inside out and outside in different values), and blocks line of sight. You score hits on banner colour or shield (depends on weapon used) and when you eradicate completly a unit it counts as a victory point. Flags force you to retreat and this shiny purple thing is in my opinion the best part of this game... lore!

Yes, you guessed it... magic! and I am telling you, despite rolling it means a miss... you crave more and more of those shiny things on your dicerolls, because every time you get a point into your gobblet, you are saving it to cast powerfull spells, fireballs, you name it. You also get a choice to collect some lore tokens and cards on end of each of your turns, so magic is often played.
Four advisors are there to help you spend those points: warrior, rogue, cleric and wizard and each of them has their special deck of magic cards that are shuffled into common magic deck (playing card out of character cost penality points)

With an expansion you can field those advisors on a board and grow them in might, they get xp points, and can aquire new abbilities but when they die you want to cry.

Because the use of dice and cards luck can be a factor, but for me it just spices up the gameplay. Strategy is important as well as resource management, to know when you can attack and when to hold your ground is attribute of skilled commander. Every game I played was dramatic and till the very end it was hard to predict winner.  One time I was loosing a point and knew I won't last the next round and just got enough lore tokens this round to send down a fireball and kill off entire squad winning me the game, that was awesome.

With a additional board you can set two together creating a huge ass map, and play 4 players.
It also features a well designed custom setup mechanic that ensures replayability for ages (in an expansion).

Why not checking it for yourself on Vassal?
Here you will find the latest module ver 2.9 (in module section there is ver 1.2, this one is developed by fans and include all expansions).
Download rules from Fantasy Flight Games website here

There is a reason this game is on 64 place in board game geek list.
I'll try to explain how to connect to vassal and operate it in next posts, might be of some use to someone.

Enjoy.

blitzkrieg commander

Another world war 2 game. some where on the eastern front, russians v germany. The rules are based around Games workshops warmaster with 3 commands each side. so any one wanting a variant from the normal i will put a game of this on the 26th November 2011:

Flame of War game

if any one is interested i will put on a game of flames of war on the 15th October 2011:late was americans somewhere in France.

Salute 2012

Date for your diary!! SALUTE 2012 ! I have it on good authority that salute will be held on the 21st April in London.

Gruntz 15mm

A fist game of Gruntz, and oh boy, that was great.
I am looking forward to have another go allready.
We Have been playing Marks Armies, ARC troopers (Me) vs Hammer slammers (Mark).

I was amazed how well they turned out, after painting them with primer and masking using blue tack for another coat of paint. The result is quite nice looking camo pattern with little effort.
I think Mark did a great job preparing everything for Gruntz, everything looked nice, all counters were laser cut, templates in sleeves... I was impressed.

We had 300 points each, and that not include those awesome mecha, artillery nor Jet fighter.

Gameplay was a bit jittery mainly because of me, and my lack knowledge of rules, but that didn't spoil the day for me and I hope Mark had a good time as well. I must say the rules were not as much complicated, and I think next time the game will flow better.
The table was cramped with terrain and loads of opportunities to hide just before the river crossing.

After a firefight just one of Marks Vehicles has been shreaded to pieces by support mecha, meantime on the other bank of the river some hammer slammer heavy tanks were aproaching my positions, but due to unlucky rolls I have been saved many times. It couldn't last forever and finaly my one and only tank was blown away.

We couldn't finish it in time, but I would say it was an even fight.

Gruntz is fun, but I think its still in its infancy, and many rules needs tweeking or are not explained in the book well enough. Its very flexible, and you can create any unit you desire, you just need some 15mm figures and you are ready to go. That's a brilliant idea to include unit creator, could possibly draw new players to the system, and there is pleanty of miniatures to choose from and still growing. Companies that produce 15mm figures support this system and you can buy starter bundles (eg. from Critical mass games).
If I am not wrong Neil is building his own army as well, maybe he would share what hes got up his sleeve there.

We decided to go for 300 points next game, so we could grasp the rules, maybe we could have a simple objective.

My army is in development, you can check my progress on our forums as well so it might be interesting.
Comment here, or post your own armies on that forum page.

Role play games

There has in the past been a small interest in RPG's , so her's the first post.

I have Dark heresy , D&D and Warhammer,

it is my intention to start up a small group on club nights. playing either dnd or whfrp.

Blood Bowl League update

Greetings sports fans.

The New Blood bowl season is starting in September. please keep your eye on the forum for updates.

Chaos in the old world

we had our first full game of Chaos in the old world, still getting used to the rules but we had Fun.
thinking board games may become the norm at club meets.

next meeting

Hi all the next meeting is the first 4 hour meet. it starts at the usual time and finishes at 10.30pm cost now £5

apocalypse 40k game

Neil is arranging an inter club game at Lakenheath hive on the 8th October 2011. at the moment he wants rough ideas on who wants to play, which army you have and how many points.

it will be held at Lakenheath Methodist hall as its the cheapest around, unless yoou can find some where cheaper? contact Neil via the yahoo group.

September club meetings

As of September 2011 , we will be meeting for 4 hours. this will cost a little extra to cover cost. however this works out cheaper hourly rate to all members.

At the moment we are due to meet up at 18:30 until 22:30. We have the possibility to change this to 18:00 to 22:00 hours. the cost is £5 a head.

Memoir 44

Memoir 44 is a simple yet elegant board game about 2nd world war published by Days of Wonder.

I would recommend it to beginning war gamers because of its simplicity. Rules take about 15 minutes to explain.

There are reference cards for every unit and terrain so you don't have to remember them all.
You can start playing straight away, and be competitive. Different scenarios gives you opportunity to step back in time and recreate those famous battles like landing on Omaha beach or liberation of Paris.
Game is fast paced and usually takes about an hour.

It is a tactical war game that takes place on a hex map divided into three sections- left flank, right flank and a centre. To simulate the fog of war and the difficulty of communication, it makes use of command cards. Each player has a hand of cards which can be used to command units in a specific sector, more complicated cards have more flavour, and allow you for example to call an air strike, counter-attack, ambush etc.

Combat is very simple and resolved with custom dice that show several different icons:

Infantry kills infantry, tank kills tank,grenade kills anything, star does nothing unless you played a command card that says otherwise, and the flag causes an opposing unit to retreat, and retreat is what makes this game so strategic. Holding a defensive positions is crucial, and distance affects damage.
Units are balanced, every group has a chance to take out a group of any other type.

Thats how it looks:

At the moment We own 2 copies of that board game, so we could even join them together and play "Overlord" scenario on a grand scale, where you join two boards together and play 8 players, with 3 generals and a commander each side. Commander distributes cards, assigning orders to his generals, but the orders are executed by generals alone, and commander can only communicate with one general at a time.
Generals can activate their troops, even when not given any orders at a risk.
So this makes it quite interesting...

anyway... check out this review made by Shut up and sit down , enjoy.