When I first heard of Battlefront’s outstanding offer of a free ‘mini’ copy of their new rules to any gamer that presented their first edition rulebook I stated on their forums I’d pick up a full copy of the new rulebook as soon as it was available. Simply because I believe a company that treats its customers with such respect deserves my money in return.
Battlefront released the full hardback copy of their Second Edition rulebook for Flames of War on August the 3rd. Due to my real life interferring I wasn’t able to pick up a copy until last night for $75nz from the Auckland City Vagabond store.
I have to say the full rulebook is just as lovely as I expected it would be. Great work Battlefront! The presentation and content is top notch, easily matching books produced by other, larger gaming companies. The additional material also looks very interesting and glancing through I noticed several intriguing chapters discussing running campaigns and historical (non points based) scenarios.
I look forward to pouring over the rulebook in detail…
I may also have to get one I’m not fond of reading those little rules hurts my eyes and if I’m going to hurt them doing anything it’ll be painting.
Yes it’s definitely worth it I reckon. It’s hardback for starters, and has very sturdy binding by the looks of it so will stand a lot more gaming than the mini rulebook.
A full A4 page is a LOT easier to read in a dingy garage at night than a dense, glossy A5 page for sure :).
I haven’t had a good look at the ‘extra bits’ you get in the full rules yet but I do like the idea of finally playing some historical scenarios with FOW rules. Points based armies still have a very ‘40K’ feel to them…
Hhmmm, I’ll definitrly be having aa look at you rule book next game night Stu. Don’t know if I’ll be allowed to buy myself one for a while!
To be honest you don’t really need it to play the game if you’ve got the mini version. But it is a LOT easier on the eyes.
It just felt right to give $75 to Battlefront after they’d given us such a great ‘free upgrade’ to 2nd Edition.
I believe it indicates they’ve got their heads in the right space regarding customer loyalty and goodwill. GW don’t seem to give a shit about either these days and it’s certainly one of the reasons that prompted me to look elsewhere for my gaming pleasure.
I saw a couple of images of the contents and though the production values seemed quite high, looks like it’s carried through to the final printed book.
My flames of war journey should begin tomorrow, picking this book up if my LGS managed to get my copy in.
Grant, this is a good time to start playing Flames of War. The second edition rulebook is a considerable improvement over the original. Particularly because they’ve paid a lot of attention towards clarifying definitons and rules and provide a lot more examples in 2nd Edition.
The rules themselves have also changed from 1st Edition, although not greatly. They’ve removed some niggly, problematic rules to do with combat and air support so hopefully you’ll find the game pretty smooth to play as a beginner!
Be interested to hear how you find it. Flames of War still has a few issues (I dislike the core I-go-you-go mechanic) but it’s generally a fairly enjoyable game. The armies in particular are nicely balanced so you typically end up with quite close games which I find are usually the best because nobody likes to be walked over!
Well, I’ve got my rulebook now and I must say I’m blown away by it. I haven’t read it in detail but the production values are superb (taking the crown from Rackham IMO) and everything is well set out and seemingly clearly explained.
The major downside I’ve found is that there are no intelligence briefings (even basic) ones in the book so I have to spend 2/3 of the value of the rulebook again, before I buy any minis. Was 1st edition like this too?
Anyway, it looks like I’ll be picking up some DAK when I’ve got some spare cash, and who knows, maybe some trenches too…. ;)
Ah yes, that is the one down side to the new rules. First Ed did have basic army lists for each army but to be honest nobody used them, we all used the specific army books. Mainly because you’d get more special rules for your army and unit prices were generally tweaked in the army books.
I assume you’re referring to the ‘Afrika’ and ‘Ostfront’ books? Those are ‘combined’ army books that contain something like 3-4 of the old books each.
I believe the OLD army books should work fine with Second Edition rules as Battlefront published ‘2nd Ed updates’ for each of them on the web official Flames of War site.
Might be worth trying to find a store with the old army books, or pick them up cheap off Ebay?