Just spent the last two weeks of quarantine stuck at home finally learning how to play Vol I, heavily studying the rules. It's my first solitaire wargame. I love it! So rewarding once you learn how to play. The flow of the game is great. Definitely not for the faint of heart. I'd say I've invested about 30 hours between reading the rulebook, and reading BGG resources and errata. TH-cam videos weren't of much help because I think they make so many mistakes they're unreliable. But it is truly an outstanding game. I'm not a board game expert or anything, I read about Vol I on an old MTG magazine a decade ago, and I always thought the idea of a "solitaire" board game was fascinating, so it stuck in my memory. I remembered existed in preparedness to the quarantine and bought a copy a month ago. Worth it!
i dont mean to be so off topic but does any of you know of a tool to log back into an instagram account? I somehow lost my password. I love any assistance you can give me
@Jonas Colton thanks for your reply. I got to the site through google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff now. Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will reply here later with my results.
Bit baffled that they'd provide corrected counters for a game in a magazine that people would have to pay $36 (+ shipping) for! That's the sort of thing that they surely could have shipped out for a few $ at most to people who own the game?
Yeah that was very bad. Ship a game with flawed components and then charge you if you want to correct THEIR mistake. I wonder what genius came up with that one. I've been buying GMT stuff for decades and what they did really soured them for me.
My favorite wargame of all time. It is the many rarely seen problems and mechanics that make this what it is. Forget about getting your men to fire, try getting them to stop firing. And the Hue city campaign is like nothing else. If someone is interested in the Marines or the campaigns in Vol 2, I wouldn't hesitate to get it before volume 1. It is a bit of a mess, but it is straightened out fairly easily with the aid of BoardgameGeek. The problems with the rules are real in many ways and I understand that GMT is doing something to correct that for the next release. Still, so many people have learned to play and love this game.
As a retired Army officer I had a decade long training in FIBUA fighting and I think the designer came clearly from a military background too BUT in my view he missed the ball completely when he created the game to reflect a realistic tactical combat simulation. In these fights and situations in real life you fall back to your structure and training to overcome stressful situations but instead FoF throws a swamp of artificial rules at you. Up Front is simply better in creating that insane hectic combat feeling of small unit fights. Stumbling over an undocumented creek, being held up by some wire and getting suppressed by fire from a small building you didn’t notice before is one of these things a military is trained for to overcome in such a pitched fight. You have all this and much more in Up Front. In FoF though the military structure is your limit instead of your aid to overcome these rather fixed positions. In FIBUA training your structure is your aid, instead here it is an obstruction to your goal, which quite frankly is the opposite. FoF is a burocratic view and procedural management tool. Which is completely wrong in my view. Add the hundreds of unneeded rules overhead and you simply have a bad game AND a bad simulation. Overhyped, under developped and quite frankly a piece of nonsense tactically and mechanically. There are much better wargames around.
rockhopper01 which explains exactly why FoF stumbles over its own military feet. Instead of helping you to overcome a pitched battle by falling back to our military training techniques, he designed a game where the military structure is a hindrance. His background does not make him a good simulation designer and explains a lot why things were done in this game in a very narrow way. If I had to guess he was much more involved in the administration and planning than actually engaged in FIBUA fighting. If not he should review his own game with a rather crucial question: which game demonstrated my own experiences on the battle field: Up Front or this game where the military structure is actually a serious obstruction to your goal. The hierarchic mechanics he uses are typical structured on operational situations but tactical pitched fights do not use these rigid structures as such, instead the military FIBUA training helps you to overcome the stress and often unexpected surprises. He inverted the proces instead which leads to an unnatural bookkeeping experience totally unlike the situations on the battlefield. Sorry but most military find that Up Front portrays this correctly, while FoF is a typical game designed for desk warriors. The fact the designer used his jargon does not help either for normal players without military background. Hence why this game gets so much extra flak on its rules too.
I have to believe the two games, both of which I love and place in my top 5 easily, are simulating two different things. Besides, they are at different physical scales and time scales.
The BoBo Sentence fragments. Improper subjects. Poor spelling. Subject-verb agreement errors. Misplaced modifiers. Are you sure you’re an officer sir? And if so, I’m a bit worried with the education of Army officers. As a Marine I’m expected to be a knucklehead. But you... Did you not attend any staff courses? Since you claim retirement, I expect you have probably received some kind of post-graduate work?
rockhopper01 My mother languages are Dutch and French. I also speak fluidly German as this is our third national language in BELGIUM 😃. Questioning ones authority on the basis of his knowledge of the English grammar as a foreigner is typical indeed.
The problem with the random terrain of Vol 1 is that the missions within the campaigns start feeling all the same. Vol 1 had a little bit of the non- random terrain, with some of the Korea War scenarios. There's nothing stopping a person from just using the random method with Vol 2. I havent looked at the game, yet, but there must be a couple scenarios in there that are random. FWIW this is one of my favorite games, but one of my few criticisms is the random nature of the scenarios. I want more history baked in - not sure how he should do that. I think maybe a semi-random approach might work. Note: Either you or I are reading these counters wrong. When I see 1/3 PLT I read 1st squad, 3rd Platoon. Also, I dont think the 1st sgt or Gunny sergeant can give orders to any of the officers. Might be a grey area in terms of the game system as they are part of the command staff, so would be used occasionally in that role. It is extremely rare, though, as it is a breech of discipline. I use them to command the squads directly, either to gather casualties, or to patch up hot spots. They are the only units where jumping the chain of command is not frowned upon. 1st sgt tells you what to do, you do it. If some other platoon ldr tells you what to do, you'd likely give him a funny look and go to your own platoon ldr.
Honestly, this isn't a great starting point unless you're really dedicated and are willing to put in a lot of time to even set up your first game. We have a couple of videos about solo game recommendations. But if you are willing to put in the time etc I would say Vol. I for starters. The WWII campaign is a good place to begin.
I think the Fields of Fire rulebook is written for fans of wargames that would already understand some of the core concepts. As primarily a Eruostyle gamer, the game is not presented in Step 1, Step 2, .... last step, and repeat, fashion. I really wish GMT would provide the easier-to-follow Deluxe rulebook in pdf format for all customers.
they do! the rules and aid charts are already or will be downloadable on the gmt field of fire deluxe page! They said on the bgg forums they will make everything available online for free once all layouts are finished
It would really take a certain type of person to want to nail down a 64 page rule book. I'm sure the game is great once you know it but it's not one I'll ever touch, That's just too much for me, and I would suspect for most people.
Just spent the last two weeks of quarantine stuck at home finally learning how to play Vol I, heavily studying the rules. It's my first solitaire wargame. I love it! So rewarding once you learn how to play. The flow of the game is great. Definitely not for the faint of heart. I'd say I've invested about 30 hours between reading the rulebook, and reading BGG resources and errata. TH-cam videos weren't of much help because I think they make so many mistakes they're unreliable. But it is truly an outstanding game. I'm not a board game expert or anything, I read about Vol I on an old MTG magazine a decade ago, and I always thought the idea of a "solitaire" board game was fascinating, so it stuck in my memory. I remembered existed in preparedness to the quarantine and bought a copy a month ago. Worth it!
i dont mean to be so off topic but does any of you know of a tool to log back into an instagram account?
I somehow lost my password. I love any assistance you can give me
@Michael Cason instablaster =)
@Jonas Colton thanks for your reply. I got to the site through google and Im waiting for the hacking stuff now.
Looks like it's gonna take a while so I will reply here later with my results.
@Jonas Colton It did the trick and I actually got access to my account again. I'm so happy!
Thank you so much you saved my ass!
@Michael Cason Glad I could help =)
Excellent and very informative review! Thanks for putting that much time into it.
Your discussion of the tension between control and narrative is genius. Really one of the smartest observations about wargaming, I've read this year.
Volume #1 is 9th Infantry Division in three conflicts, ww2 Korea and Vietnam. Vol 2 is 5th and 1st marine divisions. Great review - love this series.
Bit baffled that they'd provide corrected counters for a game in a magazine that people would have to pay $36 (+ shipping) for! That's the sort of thing that they surely could have shipped out for a few $ at most to people who own the game?
Yeah that was very bad. Ship a game with flawed components and then charge you if you want to correct THEIR mistake. I wonder what genius came up with that one. I've been buying GMT stuff for decades and what they did really soured them for me.
Another great video Alexander. I bought vol.1 after your earlier videos (and love it), but definitely need to get vol. 2 now.
My favorite wargame of all time. It is the many rarely seen problems and mechanics that make this what it is. Forget about getting your men to fire, try getting them to stop firing. And the Hue city campaign is like nothing else. If someone is interested in the Marines or the campaigns in Vol 2, I wouldn't hesitate to get it before volume 1. It is a bit of a mess, but it is straightened out fairly easily with the aid of BoardgameGeek. The problems with the rules are real in many ways and I understand that GMT is doing something to correct that for the next release. Still, so many people have learned to play and love this game.
Great video, Alexander! This game looks like one I need to get to my table!
Been waiting for a 2nd edition of this considering all the mistakes I've heard about in the current version.
As a retired Army officer I had a decade long training in FIBUA fighting and I think the designer came clearly from a military background too BUT in my view he missed the ball completely when he created the game to reflect a realistic tactical combat simulation.
In these fights and situations in real life you fall back to your structure and training to overcome stressful situations but instead FoF throws a swamp of artificial rules at you. Up Front is simply better in creating that insane hectic combat feeling of small unit fights.
Stumbling over an undocumented creek, being held up by some wire and getting suppressed by fire from a small building you didn’t notice before is one of these things a military is trained for to overcome in such a pitched fight. You have all this and much more in Up Front.
In FoF though the military structure is your limit instead of your aid to overcome these rather fixed positions. In FIBUA training your structure
is your aid, instead here it is an obstruction to your goal, which quite frankly is the opposite. FoF is a burocratic view and procedural management tool.
Which is completely wrong in my view. Add the hundreds of unneeded rules overhead and you simply have a bad game AND a bad simulation.
Overhyped, under developped and quite frankly a piece of nonsense tactically and mechanically. There are much better wargames around.
The BoBo the designer was a USMC infantry officer, served in Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and Enduring Freedom.
rockhopper01 which explains exactly why FoF stumbles over its own military feet.
Instead of helping you to overcome a pitched battle by falling back to our military training techniques, he designed a game where the military structure is a hindrance. His background does not make him a good simulation designer and explains a lot why things were done in this game in a very narrow way.
If I had to guess he was much more involved in the administration and planning than actually engaged in FIBUA fighting. If not he should review his own game with a rather crucial question: which game demonstrated my own experiences on the battle field: Up Front or this game where the military structure is actually a serious obstruction to your goal.
The hierarchic mechanics he uses are typical structured on operational situations but tactical pitched fights do not use these rigid structures as such, instead the military FIBUA training helps you to overcome the stress and often unexpected surprises. He inverted the proces instead which leads to an unnatural bookkeeping experience totally unlike the situations on the battlefield.
Sorry but most military find that Up Front portrays this correctly, while FoF is a typical game designed for desk warriors. The fact the designer used his jargon does not help either for normal players without military background. Hence why this game gets so much extra flak on its rules too.
I have to believe the two games, both of which I love and place in my top 5 easily, are simulating two different things. Besides, they are at different physical scales and time scales.
The BoBo Sentence fragments. Improper subjects. Poor spelling. Subject-verb agreement errors. Misplaced modifiers. Are you sure you’re an officer sir? And if so, I’m a bit worried with the education of Army officers. As a Marine I’m expected to be a knucklehead. But you... Did you not attend any staff courses? Since you claim retirement, I expect you have probably received some kind of post-graduate work?
rockhopper01 My mother languages are Dutch and French. I also speak fluidly German as this is our third national language in BELGIUM 😃. Questioning ones authority on the basis of his knowledge of the English grammar as a foreigner is typical indeed.
The problem with the random terrain of Vol 1 is that the missions within the campaigns start feeling all the same. Vol 1 had a little bit of the non- random terrain, with some of the Korea War scenarios. There's nothing stopping a person from just using the random method with Vol 2. I havent looked at the game, yet, but there must be a couple scenarios in there that are random. FWIW this is one of my favorite games, but one of my few criticisms is the random nature of the scenarios. I want more history baked in - not sure how he should do that. I think maybe a semi-random approach might work. Note: Either you or I are reading these counters wrong. When I see 1/3 PLT I read 1st squad, 3rd Platoon. Also, I dont think the 1st sgt or Gunny sergeant can give orders to any of the officers. Might be a grey area in terms of the game system as they are part of the command staff, so would be used occasionally in that role. It is extremely rare, though, as it is a breech of discipline. I use them to command the squads directly, either to gather casualties, or to patch up hot spots. They are the only units where jumping the chain of command is not frowned upon. 1st sgt tells you what to do, you do it. If some other platoon ldr tells you what to do, you'd likely give him a funny look and go to your own platoon ldr.
Which wargame would you recommend for a first time solo wargamer?
Here's the link to the first video of Blue Tweezers that was mentioned in the video: th-cam.com/video/GbEQZfgpVdA/w-d-xo.html
For a complete newbie looking to make his first purchase into solo war gaming (and the hobby in general) would you recommend Vol 1 or 2?
Honestly, this isn't a great starting point unless you're really dedicated and are willing to put in a lot of time to even set up your first game. We have a couple of videos about solo game recommendations. But if you are willing to put in the time etc I would say Vol. I for starters. The WWII campaign is a good place to begin.
I'd recommend Warfighter WWII instead.
I think the Fields of Fire rulebook is written for fans of wargames that would already understand some of the core concepts. As primarily a Eruostyle gamer, the game is not presented in Step 1, Step 2, .... last step, and repeat, fashion. I really wish GMT would provide the easier-to-follow Deluxe rulebook in pdf format for all customers.
they do! the rules and aid charts are already or will be downloadable on the gmt field of fire deluxe page! They said on the bgg forums they will make everything available online for free once all layouts are finished
It would really take a certain type of person to want to nail down a 64 page rule book. I'm sure the game is great once you know it but it's not one I'll ever touch, That's just too much for me, and I would suspect for most people.