Flames of . . . . BRITISH!!

Since getting into Flames of War and getting 2 others to start joining in with me I have dedicated a lot of time to getting my force together and painting.

Here come the pictures!!!

Not the best, but I am happy with how it all turned out. Modeling the force after the 50th Tynes & Tees division from Turning Tide, but is being replaced by Overlord.

But since it has been done I found myself sort of restless. I tend to dive into things head first and the 2 other people don't have their forces together and I haven't really been able to play FoW as much as I would like. When I do I divide the force in half and fight against the same units with the same special rules. So far it has been a lot of fun and the game flows really well. Despite fighting against the same foes I think it will help me learn my British force and what works and doesn't work for them better. But I do want to play against

And despite my last blog post I have been considering getting back into 40k or possibly Warhammer Fantasy Battle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah I know. I am a big hypocrite. But the main reason is that my good friend Kurt has 2 armies already and I know I will have a good opponent to help with rules and such right from the get go. At least with 40k. Fantasy, not so much, but dang those High Elves look cool and so do the Bretonnians and the Empire and it seems like WFB is slightly cheaper than 40k. But also painting and putting together the FoW models has rekindled my enjoyment of painting armies and such and it is also just to have something to paint and play with to tie me over till I get my Robotech RPG miniatures game! OF WHICH IS SO READY FOR!!!!

But alas, it wont be getting shipped till December, but it will probably be pushed back. It was a kickstarter thing after all.






What is a dude to do?

New things. Man, I am a lowsy blogger

So it has been quite some time since last I posted. WHOA! About 6 months.

In my defense I was locked in deadly combat of classes and working towards a masters in history. I am way off from that though still.

Anyway I have been able to have a steady gaming schedule for once in my life thanks to having a set work schedule. So every Tuesday and Thursday I have been going to a place called Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie (Highly recommend this place if you are in the Maryland area) and playing various board games with my new friend Jeff. Whom I met through hosting a Legend of the 5 Rings demo.

We were the core group of a 3 person play group for L5R, but it did not last. It slowly dissolved to just Jeff and I and then we decided to switch venues at the suggestion of Jeff and play board games. And we have been playing a lot! More so that we have been playing a lot, but not necessarily a lot of different games, but we are working on it. Only because my memory is a little fuzzy probably from being sick as I type this.

WARNING! Lots of pictures of what we have been playing incoming! HIT THE DECK!

All those games pictured have been good fun! I recommend checking them out. I am sure I am missing several other games we have played, but oh well.

Another thing I decided to get into:

"But Jared! Why Flames of War and not Warhammer!!??"

Well let me expound at length about the basic premise.

You see my friend Kurt plays Warhammer 40k and is very kind in letting me use one of his armies when we play. His main army is Tau and his other is Grey Knights. I usually play the Grey Knights. Earlier in life I played the Eldar. Never got more than a 700 point army as I was a middle school kid with no job and GW was overpriced then. Kurt and I had recently played a game using the long overdue Tau codex for 6th edition and I no longer felt invincible with my Grey Knight paladin HQ squad. But it was great because Kurt finally got a sparkle of hope in his eye that GW finally recognized him as a paying customer and making his 2600 point army viable again after several years.

So this got me considering getting into Warhammer 40k and building up an army again. I was feeding off our mutual excitement of "Hey! The Tau don't suck anymore!" This was short lived when I looked at the GW site at Eldar units. Dire Avengers, 5 plastic figures, $35. Nope! Wraithguard, 5 plastic figures, $50. Nope! Are you kidding me!? 5 guys for 35 to 50 dollars? Why the price disparity and why the hell are they that expensive when it is plastic? Oh yeah, it's GW.

Thus my interest was quickly taken to the back of the chemical shed and shot dead. Now, go look at the Flames of War stuff, especially the Open Fire! boxed set. I will use Open Fire as an example.

In it you gets
11 tanks (both British & German)
105 infantry (both US Airborne & German Grenadiers
2 PaK40 Anti tank guns
Quick Start guide with 2 army lists
Full color rule book (The whole 296 page rule book)
Dice, carboard counters and terrain

And how much is it you ask? Off amazon it is about $70. It's a ridiculously great deal. Over 100 miniatures and a full rulebook!!

What does GW offer?

Dark Vengeance has much similar things as the Open Fire set. Though it's rulebook is about 272 pages less than the full 6th edition version. 

Though it may seem like I am bashing Warhammer 40k, I really don't mean to seem like it. It is really like the buisness of GW itself that I am bothered with.

Lets wrap it up!

If you are interested in the World War 2 historical setting and/or want a more reasonably priced miniatures war game that is a cheaper alternative to Warhammer, give Flames of War a shot. 

Also Battlefront would give you a free mini rulebook (like the one in Open Fire) if you had the hardcover of the previous edition (http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2011/12/breaking-flames-of-war-3rd-edition.html) and that is the SECOND time they have done it.

Orginization is key!!

So since having purchased several board games I have noticed one flaw in most of them. They pretty much all give you no options or anything to help you organize the components. Some games it isn't so bad, like Flash Point: Fire Rescue. There is a limited variety and number of components making it  no problem to split them among the boxes divider. But with some games, the game as a whole would benefit greatly from at least some attempt to help you divide them other than a box insert. Sometimes the box inserts actually makes it more difficult to store the game once all the components are unpacked and punched out. This is the case, IMO, with Descent 2nd edition.

One of the pet peeves with board games and having it all organized. I am finding that the grocery store sandwich bags just don't cut it for me. They are slightly opaque and when you have a bunch of them in a box it becomes this blurry mess which makes it more difficult to pick out what you are looking for/need.

This is a picture of what looks like all the components from the original game and the 2 expansions to Twilight Imperium. This guy, not me at all, has it all very neatly organized, but the organization rested squarely on him. Look at all that stuff!!! Imagine breaking this out every couple weeks to play and not having it organized at all. The hundreds of cards, plastic ships, race tokens, extra ground and fighter tokens, optional rules tokens, systems tiles, and race sheets just thrown into the box. I can imagine that it would be a HUGE pain in the ass to sift through it all for everything each player needs to play. This in turn would make me less likely to play it as it would be just a pain to get everything organized.

Of course that may be an extreme example. I recently purchased the vintage Risk from Target. It comes in a wooden box. The box tops slides out to reveal neatly organized components. All the wooden army counters are held in plastic containers which are held in place with a black plastic insert. The dice have a place, the cards have a place. Everything has a place!!! The game was about 22 bucks. So it would seem that in a lot of cases the reason companies don't give you much in the way, if any at all, to organize the games (sometimes many) components is due to cost. I can't imagine giving plastic containers or even decent plastic bags costing all that much


Anyway, I just wish more game companies would throw us a bone here. There is 1 company I know that includes nice plastic games, with a little in them so you don't have to worry about trapped air. That company is GMT Games. And damn if that isn't really cool to me!!! I mean yeah sure it is just plastic bags, but that is a ton more than most companies do for you. Memoir '44 is another game that's box is made to keep everything organized. So kudos to GMT games and Days of Wonder for that. I know I really appreciate it