Fireball Forward Facebook Page

Hey all - I just started a Facebook page for Fireball Forward. If you are into social media 'like' the page for updates and chat about the game.

Just search for Fireball Forward.

cheers,

Mark

Blog moving to the website

Hi,

The Blog is now moving to the Fireball Forward website at www.fireballforward.com

I will be making new entires there...check it out! I just wrote about Historicon 2011.

cheers,

Mark

Website is LIVE!

http://fireballforward.com/

Lots to check out, and download.

Playtest Kit and Historicon

Hi All,

Sorry for the long hiatus from posting. Good news tho'...the playtest kit is about 90% ready to be sprung on the world! Just needs some more editing. The rules are being built as 'programmed' rules meaning you read a certain amount and are then ready to play a specific scenario. Read a little more and you can play the next scenario. Eventually you will have worked your way through the entire rules set and can do anything.

This is how the original Squad Leader rules were created and laid out. As a 13 year old I was able to teach myself Squad Leader so they must have been doing something right! We are also including copious examples to help people visualize the rules. The examples are in side bars that line up with the rules they are illustrating. I took this idea from Julia Child as that is how she laid out "Mastering the Art of French Cooking.' As a 43 year old I was able to teach myself how to cook delicious French dinners for my wife so Julia must have been doing something right!

The playtest kit will include the first rules section (infantry combat), the accompanying scenario (Easy Company's assault on the guns at Brecourt Manor), a quick reference sheet and markers. It will be available for free download from our up and coming website. The website will also have other goodies like troop labels, one-off scenarios and videos that demonstrate the rules.

Historicon is approaching and according to the event organizers Fireball Forward is going to be the 5th most run game at the Con! I am running two Guadalcanal scenarios. There is also going to be a few Normandy games (US and Brits), some Philippines '41 and a Tunisia '42 tank battle. So there will be a good cross section of games to choose from. Nothing from Russia this con as Curt Daniels has run at least three Russia '41 games at the last few conventions. If you like SS Tigers then get into Sean Barnett's Villers Bocage scenarios...good stuff.

Look for us at Historicon...we will be in the same place for the entire Con. I would love to meet you all and answer any questions you have. Stop by and have some fun with Fireball Forward.

cheers,

Mark

I'm happy to report that Mark has begun a new draft of the rules and it's damn good! It's a re-write of the draft I did a while back, which was overly-lawyerly & hard to read. The new draft is set up in stages with scenarios inserted, so you can play as you go. There are lots of pictures & examples in the margins - always great. The first stage covers basic infantry, and we're thinking of making it available as PDF so folks can check it out and give feedback.

That said, Mark and I are committed to ironing out all the details before releasing the full thing, so it'll be several months yet, at least, before the rules booklet is available. We're planning to have all major theaters of WWII worked out, and to really capture the differences, based on historical written accounts - which we're constantly reading anyway. The rules are aimed at re-creating for the players, the same kind of tension & story lines described by combatants who were there.

We began with late-war Western front Europe, worked out armor rules, artillery, flamethrowers, moved on to Pacific jungle fighting (VERY different), and recently began work on desert fighting. Mark came up with new rules for long-range visibility which was a huge factor in the desert. I just finished reading "Brazen Chariots" by Robert Crisp and then played Mark's first desert scenario. Definitely feels right, although it was purely an infantry fight. Can't wait to do armor. I've been developing rules for bicycle troops and cavalry (Philippines saw both in spades). Jerry Frazee and his crew in North Carolina worked out rules for Eastern front, including a Commissar table which is a total blast - always injects a huge dose of Communism into the story line. Good, bad & ugly as it should be.

To answer some recent questions from Jan in Copenhagen, labels are not mandatory, but they're cool to look at, and help narrate the story. You can download PDFs for labels, if you want them, from the "files" folder here:

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/fireballforward/

For bases, you can't beat Gale Force 9. They're inexpensive and super accurate laser-cut:

http://www.gf9.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=64&products_id=368

FbF is intentionally relaxed about basing dimensions. Anything roughly the size of Flames of War units work just fine. You can always use FoW units if you want - easy to get on ebay. Or make your own. The bases in the photos above are 3/4 inch x 1 inch (squads) and 3/4 x 3/4 (leaders & teams). Anything about 15mm x 25mm will work with the labels on those PDF's.

Lastly, your table is certainly big enough. Several scenarios are very small - just 2 x 3 feet (approx 0.66m x 1m).

Thanks for all the interest and encouragement,

MUST GAME!
Jonathan.