Flames of War: First rulebook impressions

I've had a flick through the Flames of War rulebook, not quite enough to have learnt the rules - which are always best learnt through attempting to play - but enough to get the jist and to pass on my thoughts on the book itself.

First off in terms of layout and presentation, Flames sets the new standard. The book is full colour, photos on nearly every page, artwook everywhere. GW, Privateer Press et al all need to buck their game up if they want to match Flames.

Of particular note are these little boxes:

At the end of each rule description, there's a little summary box that restates the rules in bullet point form. This should be adopted by every wargame rulebook. How many times have you stopped in the middle of a game of 40k to go searching through a segment of the rules to find the key detail tucked away in the third paragraph? If your memory is as bad as mine, it'll be quite a few.
These little summaries are ideal to speed up looking up rules and for clearly laying out rules.

With every rule segment, there is a full colour picture providing an example of said rule in action. Not strictly necessary, but it certainly looks nice.


Again rather than just a page of stat lines or special rules, each unit type is provided with a nice photo example of such a unit. It's a small touch but a nice one that really improves the overall presentation of the book.

But there is always a but.

While the presentation side of things is great, the rules are well laid out and easy to understand there is a fundamental flaw with the product. And that is how well it is put together.

Simply put its rather shocking that with a book that is otherwise above and beyond the expected quality that they would skimp so much on it's binding.



This is a sample page from the book. As you can see not only has glue seeped out onto the pages themselves, they are no longer properly attached. Literally within half an hour of reading through the book, the pages were beginning to fall out.

I know there are many on the interwebs that decry Games Workshop rule books as having terribly bound spines, but usually the pages only start to become detached with their products after several months of intensive use. This started after a brief flick through.

So overall i'm mostly impressed with the rulebook. But skimping out on the manufacturing side of things has left a sour taste. All the pretty pages in the world are of no benefit if the book falls apart in your hands.

Achtung! Unboxing.

I decided to treat myself with another item that i'll likely never use and ordered the Achtung! starter set for 'Flames of War'.
As i've said before i'm not a historical wargamer or modeller by any means. My dice rolling experience is strictly limited to the skull infested battlefields of the Warhammer world and the Grim Darkness of the Far Future that is Warhammer 40k, with a few all too brief diversions into the steam powered punching of Warmachine.

So this is rather new to me. Any historical wargamers out there please forgive me for any hugely incorrect statements i make about WWII and it's forces as i unbox the game i shall likely never play that is 'Flames of War'.


A quick look at the outside of the box. Some nice artwork on the front and a comprehensive list of what you're getting inside.

What every wargamer likes to see, a box jam packed with books and sprues.

The two sets of tanks come on the familiar plastic sprues in two bags. Which for a novice like me is handy as it'll avoid me glueing a Sherman turret onto the tracks of a StuG by mistake.

*Pudgy fingers not included.

One of the StuG sprues. While not filled with extras like the average Games Workshop sprue, there are a few bits of baggage i can see. And the tank itself shows a nice bit of detail, especially considering its smaller scale.

The rulebook and a small bag of dice and oddly enough magnets. I presume that these are for magnetising components on the tanks. Should be interesting as i've not used magnets in any models i've built before.

And last but not least a shot of the innards of the rulebook. All of which is full colour with plenty of example diagrams for the rules.
I've not read the rules yet so i'll have to review them later, but all in all its a nice little starter set that provides everything one needs to start 'Flames of War'. So colour me impressed so far.

Until next time,
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-pope.