Great review. A comment about phased battles vs alternatives activations -- "historically" how the big battles were fought, the phased battles variant is more realistic as usually one side committed to their combat strategy and other side reacted to that. But good there is a variant to play both versions.
I agree and I think actually the optional phased battle rules in AoFR look like a good mix/compromise between alternative activation and igougo. Would be interesting to see you give it a go.
I'll do the same at my club. I also had a look at their "regular AoS" version as well as the Grimdark Future (40k) rules. I think, we are in for some fast and furious games..I had made trials with a form of alternating activation on Flames of War rules quite a while ago. For these games, which we played with 4 players ( 2x germans, 1x US, 1 Russia or UK ) we took the idea of dice drawing activation from Bolt Action and applied it in Flames of War rules. Without the BA rules associated to it though. It produced a completely different, very challenging wargame experience. How did it work : We used one die for each unit with a cap on 12 units per player - fitted neatly into the FoW typical battle sizes ( around 2.000 points ) . The 12 dice of each player had a different colour compared to the other player's dice so theya were easily distinguishable. They all went into a bag ( the pool ). All players threw a dice. The player with the highest throw started the turn by drawing a dice from the bag and by handing the dice over to the player to whom this die belonged..sometimes, to himself, if it was one of his dice. He then handed the bag ( pool ) with the rest of the dice over to a player left or right to him, on his choice. By this procedure, we decided the sequence of dice drawing for the activbe turn, which lasted 48 draws, executed by 4 players each 12 times. So the player who drew the next die, handed it over to the player to whom this die belonged ( or himself ) and handed the bag over to the next player and so forth. The player who received one of his dice from the drawing could now start an action with ONE of his units ( Move, shoot, close combat...). The die drawn from the bag was placed next to the activated unit, so each player knew always : how many and which units from whom had already been activated and how many units could be activated in the next activations steps and from whom. But, of course, not exactly when for whom and for which unit, of course.. Kind of representing battlefield intelligence , who found out gradually which units were on the other side and , step by step, what they are , potentially, going to do next...if they are next... With the number of dice reduced in the bag after each draw, it was clear, towards the last third of complete turn ( which comprised 48 activations in turn 1 and gradually less in the subsequent turns due to losses ) , who will have maybe even a series of activations coming up as it might have been, that players drew for while mainly dice for other players. Later on, we changed this in that the first action had to be either an Artillery bombardement or an Air raid ( level or dive-bombing , Rocket ground attacks ). If a player used Para's or Recce, he was obliged to activate them in the first 2 turns ( out of 6 ).These changes brought major differences in the tactical way we played flames of war and made the game even more realistic. As for the activation system : At the end of each turn, all dice for undistroyed units were collected and placed in the bag again fore the next turn. For each destroyed unit, the die was taken from the activation pool and placed with the player who destroyed the unit. Generated Victory points later. So another dimension opened up in the game. Any kind of silly suicide attacks stopped and we noticed a behaviour very close to real live military situations, meaning : Withdrawal if necessary and re-groupings. Keeping certain strategic and tactical options by keeping a die in the pool became suddenly very important, as it left the others partially in the dark about the of real intentions for the next move and the meaning of an activation. I have to admit, that these were the best games we ever played as they became really immersive. Especially when certain key units, like a Tiger 1 platoon , a Sherman Firefly or a an 88mm battery lost a certain percentage of their strength, but was still part of the pool....
I do like that approach to alternative activations. As you say it does stop a lot of oddities we see in IgoUgo game systems. I have the fantasy rules version of Bolt Action, when I get around to it I am going to have a look into it.
@@stonehorsegaming you're welcome. I don't know whether the BA Fantasy activation resembles what we did for Flames of War. We just took the idea from BA WW2 and gave it our own "twist". In the BA system, each die has also different actions engraved on each of it's 6 sides and I think in BA, one is supposed , after haviing received a die from the pool, to select a unit, throw the die and carry out the action shown on the die. We thoiught, this renders to many tactical aspects of the FoW game rather useless as it adds a another layer level of unpredictability on top of what is already given by the activation and the various tests to be carried out during the battle turns. So we briefly discussed and skipped it as it didn't fit to the rest of the ruleset. I hint here : It is no so easy to convert an existing Igo Ugo phased ruleset like 40K, FoW, WHFB into a game with alternating activation unit by unit without creating balancing issues. There are quite a few things in those rulesets which depends on the outcome or action of a prior "phase" or are written with a Igo Ugo action in mind. Nevertheless, we took the effort and converted also 40k accordingly to alternating activation and it was a hell of a game to play, way more tactical, unpredictable and more mind-challenging then thew regular activation. I think the most challending aspect is, that each playert has to constantly re-consider his options depending on how the activation generates opportunities and threats . And for both players ( or more ) it is not just reacting on the actions of the other player...one is forced to seek his fortune...;-))
Age of Fantasy comes in several forms. Age of Fantasy (Skirmish warband level) and Age of Fantasy Regiments. Both have free standard rules, which are enough to use. The full rules add more options like command points, different missions, set up types battlefield conditions, etc.
Age of Fantasy is the warband level skirmish game, think Dragon Rampant, Age of Sigmar level. Units don't rank up and operate in loose 'blobs' where models in a unit have to be within a certain unit coherency. Some people use the rules in that to create skirmishers in the Regiments version.
Can't recall if there is or isn't a set of campaign rules in the full rule. I do know that OPR release a lot of additional content for their game, so there may be a set if campaign rules on their website. I do recall seeing a narrative scenario type thing for the game. Oathmark has a fantastic set of campaign rules. Really can not fault you for choosing that.
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Great review. A comment about phased battles vs alternatives activations -- "historically" how the big battles were fought, the phased battles variant is more realistic as usually one side committed to their combat strategy and other side reacted to that. But good there is a variant to play both versions.
That is a very good point that I hadn't thought about. Still as you say, good that both approaches are playable.
I agree and I think actually the optional phased battle rules in AoFR look like a good mix/compromise between alternative activation and igougo. Would be interesting to see you give it a go.
When we get out of lock down I will try these at the club. Just down loaded them for a good read.
Hope you enjoy them, it is a great system.
I'll do the same at my club. I also had a look at their "regular AoS" version as well as the Grimdark Future (40k) rules. I think, we are in for some fast and furious games..I had made trials with a form of alternating activation on Flames of War rules quite a while ago. For these games, which we played with 4 players ( 2x germans, 1x US, 1 Russia or UK ) we took the idea of dice drawing activation from Bolt Action and applied it in Flames of War rules. Without the BA rules associated to it though. It produced a completely different, very challenging wargame experience. How did it work : We used one die for each unit with a cap on 12 units per player - fitted neatly into the FoW typical battle sizes ( around 2.000 points ) . The 12 dice of each player had a different colour compared to the other player's dice so theya were easily distinguishable. They all went into a bag ( the pool ). All players threw a dice. The player with the highest throw started the turn by drawing a dice from the bag and by handing the dice over to the player to whom this die belonged..sometimes, to himself, if it was one of his dice. He then handed the bag ( pool ) with the rest of the dice over to a player left or right to him, on his choice. By this procedure, we decided the sequence of dice drawing for the activbe turn, which lasted 48 draws, executed by 4 players each 12 times. So the player who drew the next die, handed it over to the player to whom this die belonged ( or himself ) and handed the bag over to the next player and so forth. The player who received one of his dice from the drawing could now start an action with ONE of his units ( Move, shoot, close combat...). The die drawn from the bag was placed next to the activated unit, so each player knew always : how many and which units from whom had already been activated and how many units could be activated in the next activations steps and from whom. But, of course, not exactly when for whom and for which unit, of course.. Kind of representing battlefield intelligence , who found out gradually which units were on the other side and , step by step, what they are , potentially, going to do next...if they are next... With the number of dice reduced in the bag after each draw, it was clear, towards the last third of complete turn ( which comprised 48 activations in turn 1 and gradually less in the subsequent turns due to losses ) , who will have maybe even a series of activations coming up as it might have been, that players drew for while mainly dice for other players. Later on, we changed this in that the first action had to be either an Artillery bombardement or an Air raid ( level or dive-bombing , Rocket ground attacks ). If a player used Para's or Recce, he was obliged to activate them in the first 2 turns ( out of 6 ).These changes brought major differences in the tactical way we played flames of war and made the game even more realistic. As for the activation system : At the end of each turn, all dice for undistroyed units were collected and placed in the bag again fore the next turn. For each destroyed unit, the die was taken from the activation pool and placed with the player who destroyed the unit. Generated Victory points later. So another dimension opened up in the game. Any kind of silly suicide attacks stopped and we noticed a behaviour very close to real live military situations, meaning : Withdrawal if necessary and re-groupings. Keeping certain strategic and tactical options by keeping a die in the pool became suddenly very important, as it left the others partially in the dark about the of real intentions for the next move and the meaning of an activation. I have to admit, that these were the best games we ever played as they became really immersive. Especially when certain key units, like a Tiger 1 platoon , a Sherman Firefly or a an 88mm battery lost a certain percentage of their strength, but was still part of the pool....
I do like that approach to alternative activations. As you say it does stop a lot of oddities we see in IgoUgo game systems. I have the fantasy rules version of Bolt Action, when I get around to it I am going to have a look into it.
@@stonehorsegaming you're welcome. I don't know whether the BA Fantasy activation resembles what we did for Flames of War. We just took the idea from BA WW2 and gave it our own "twist". In the BA system, each die has also different actions engraved on each of it's 6 sides and I think in BA, one is supposed , after haviing received a die from the pool, to select a unit, throw the die and carry out the action shown on the die. We thoiught, this renders to many tactical aspects of the FoW game rather useless as it adds a another layer level of unpredictability on top of what is already given by the activation and the various tests to be carried out during the battle turns. So we briefly discussed and skipped it as it didn't fit to the rest of the ruleset. I hint here : It is no so easy to convert an existing Igo Ugo phased ruleset like 40K, FoW, WHFB into a game with alternating activation unit by unit without creating balancing issues. There are quite a few things in those rulesets which depends on the outcome or action of a prior "phase" or are written with a Igo Ugo action in mind. Nevertheless, we took the effort and converted also 40k accordingly to alternating activation and it was a hell of a game to play, way more tactical, unpredictable and more mind-challenging then thew regular activation. I think the most challending aspect is, that each playert has to constantly re-consider his options depending on how the activation generates opportunities and threats . And for both players ( or more ) it is not just reacting on the actions of the other player...one is forced to seek his fortune...;-))
Cheers for the review!
No worries, hope it was useful.
What's the difference between this and the standard Age of Fantasy rule book?
Age of Fantasy comes in several forms. Age of Fantasy (Skirmish warband level) and Age of Fantasy Regiments. Both have free standard rules, which are enough to use. The full rules add more options like command points, different missions, set up types battlefield conditions, etc.
@@stonehorsegaming Thank you for the reply. There is also a rule set just called Age of Fantasy, is that the same as regiments?
Age of Fantasy is the warband level skirmish game, think Dragon Rampant, Age of Sigmar level. Units don't rank up and operate in loose 'blobs' where models in a unit have to be within a certain unit coherency.
Some people use the rules in that to create skirmishers in the Regiments version.
@@stonehorsegaming That's great, thanks for the information. Have a good day!
@@robins5314 happy to help 😀
Always a fan of OPR and their products - keep it up!
Cheers! I am quite fond of their rules, will be doing some battle reports and reviews of their games.
@@stonehorsegaming Insta subscribe!
Thanks! Aiming to do a how to play series for all their games. So hopefully you'll find something you like.
Brilliant! Thanks for this!
Cheers, glad you found it useful.
Good review. Thanks for sharing!
No worries, hope you found it helpful.
Nothing about a campaign. I think for now, I'll stick with Oathmark to have a campaign but the solo play looks appealing. Thanks.
Can't recall if there is or isn't a set of campaign rules in the full rule. I do know that OPR release a lot of additional content for their game, so there may be a set if campaign rules on their website. I do recall seeing a narrative scenario type thing for the game.
Oathmark has a fantastic set of campaign rules. Really can not fault you for choosing that.