Monday, August 30, 2010

Future War Commander: First 15mm Game

I played my first game of 15mm Future War Commander last week so I thought it was about time that I posted some photos. I'll save all the opinions until the end of the post. That way, you can look at the photos and ignore the opinions if you like.

Chris brought two of his 15mm armies. I played his mounted infantry force. Here are my transports advancing under the cover of a heavy battle tank.


I sent this small command around the flank in an attempt to be sneaky.


This damn anti-tank weapon really did a number on my force.


Some of Chris's infantry advancing.


I believe that this tank was a plastic or resin model. Can't remember. It also caused me headaches.


Headache in question.


Chris built this nice objective from a cardboard container and various plastic bits.



Fighting across the road.


The fight over the objective.


Chris moves his right command across the road after more or less annihilating my infantry units.


The state of affairs at game end. We never did any calculations, but it was a clear victory for Chris's force.


Let's get this clear first. I've enjoyed many games that I've lost and have been left unimpressed by many I've won. This one was a combination of the two - a game lost that left me unimpressed. As I said to Chris the next day, I'm a having a problem with Future War Commander that is hard to ignore - I like it a little less every time I play it. FWC and it's sister game Blitzkreig Commander are popular with three or four members of the group, but I can't seem to get into it. Allow me to explain.

First of all, the game seems to depend on unit selection a little too much for my taste. Games that I really love - Impetus, Warmachine, Chaos In Carpathia - are all very different games, but they seem to be more dependent on the choices one makes, not with the specific units that are fielded.

Secondly, although the guts of FWC are derived from Warmaster (a game that I love), all of the tension and drama of Warmaster seems to have been lost. I guess that in Warmaster, emphasis is on melee rather than shooting, so giving successive commands is more difficult, as with each command given the unit is generally farther and farther from the commander. In FWC, however, many units simply stay near a commander and are given too many shooting commands too easily (in my opinion anyway). Without the desperate need to get one's units across the field, the game tension drops dramatically.

Anyhoo, I've only played the game four of five times, so I shouldn't judge yet. To complicate matters, science fiction gaming is not something that particularly inspires me at the moment. I guess the one thing that we can all agree on is that Chris's armies look great.

Thanks for reading,
JET

5 comments:

Reinwood99 said...

Great photos, action report, and game opinion. Thanks!

Bob Barnetson said...

I haven't played FWC but I have played CWC and BKC and I agree; I enjoyed it less each time. Great activation mechanic (although it tends to determine where the focus of your attack will be) but the combat mechanic does not transition well into a shooting game.

With high powered units in CWC, we found we came on the board and started rolling for kills. Even with lots of terrain, the scaling is somehow wrong. Oddly, HoTT gives a better modern game.

Bob in Edmonton

Christopher(aka Axebreaker) said...

Very cool!!

Cheers
Christopher

MIK said...

Thanks for the post, the battle looked great. We've got the rules, but haven't gotten around to trying them out yet.

That tank is a plastic Mechwarrior tank from the WizKids clicker line.

Anonymous said...

The Game gets a lot better as you choose your own troops or make your units. What your kinda playing now is like a board game where the units are set out for you. Just like war machine or Impetus the more units you can choose from the better the game.

I'm one of the guys that plays BKC in JET's group.