Welcome to Fireball Forward!

Hi All!

If you love World War Two wargaming, you will love Fireball Forward. We are about a year from publishing our first Fireball Forward game which should be out at Historicon 2011. Each Fireball Forward book will have the rules and about 18 scenarios specific to the historical topic. The first book in the pipeline is 'Panzer Lehr at Saint Lo' which primarily follows the counterattack that elite Panzer Lehr launched north of St. Lo, Normandy in July 1944. Panthers vs M10 Tank Destroyers and Mark IVs vs Shermans. Small actions and large battles...we have it all. Games last from 1 hour to 3 hours...perfect for a evening game. (...and if you have figures for Flames of War...they are perfect for the game. You don;t even have to re-base them!)

I am so excited by these rules that I hardly know where to start. It all began a few years ago with the design philosophy of 'simple rules but comlex tactics.' Let's have a game where players are spending their precious time planning attacks and thinking tactically and NOT spending time digging through endless charts, rules and modifiers. My friend Jonathan Miller took up the challenge and developed the basic infantry rules for a group of scenarios based on the Battle for Hue, Vietnam 1968. He kept trying to pull me into the creative process but I was reluctant as I did not want to step on his creative toes. But the beauty and power of the game were seductive and gradually I was pulled in. We decided that he would focus on Vietnam and I would develop a Normandy version. After fits and starts the Normandy version has really matured and I feel that we are close to giving the gaming community a new game and a new vision of historical wargaming.

I will post new entries after each game and talk about the current state of the rules and what we are struggling with in development. The infantry rules are pretty well set and the armor rules are about 90% there. Artillery is the last big question. Tomorrow we are going to play a scenario with artillery. Here is the issue:

In the scale of our game heavy off-baord artillery (105mm and higher) would very rarely enter into the tactical situation. It would either be used as preperatory to the fight, used to interdict access to the fight or be called in after an attack had failed. It was not really used to bomb the 'next hedgerow' in the middle of a firefight. Mortars could do that. But gamers want to drop arty.... I will let you know what we are thinking after tomorrow's playtest. We have soem uniquie ideas.

Mark