Great report Chris. Been interested in getting into Fof. Still have a ton of old battlefield evo minis. How does Fof compare? They sound similar with the reactions.
Pheeew... How do they compare? To be honest: not at all. The very ideas behind the two games already differ significantly. While BF Evo tries to handle (and does) large quantities of soldiers and wargear like tanks, flyers etc, FoF sends in only a couple of soldiers, mostly less than a full platoon. While BF Evo brings in an interesting aspect of being able to "do something" in the opponents turn, FoF
constantly goes back and forth between two players. You can act and react to about everything. FoF also handles stuff BF Evo doesn't even care about: wounded soldiers, ammo supply, confidence of troops etc. Furthermore, FoF is fun to play as the "Fog Of War" events can really mess up a game that so far was running good for your side. See my report above where a sudden change in the weather conditions ("who goes there?" event card) has drastically reduced my chances.
BF Evo is a good game for what it does, FoF I only recommend to experienced players as it really needs a lot of thinking. It can occasionally appear to be over-complicated, but once you've grasped the basics it actually is really simple.
FoF offers a really tactically challenging game experience. Once you have realized that you actually need to care about miniatures (in this game) the way you need to care for real life beings, you know your game is closer to real life than any other you have played before. You don't remove regular soldiers just like this, you need to make sure they get medical attention or even MEDEVAC in FoF. You also realise that the ability to "pop smoke" is something that comes in handy once you have seen what a soviet DshK does to a squad in the open. The whole fire and maneuver drill to include supression fire with light MGs - FoF has all of it.
The most important difference however is the lack of a points system in FoF. In BF Evo (actually in most games) you have an army list with points attached to everything you can field. You pick this or that until you reach the limitations of the game's point amount.
FoF works different: you pick the troops specified in a given scenario and your only goal is reaching the mission objectives. No stupid "shoot until you annihiliated the opponent". You make almost no victory points by destroying troops, while you get a lot of them for fulfilling your objectives. You do not necessarily have to field exactly what is in the scenarios (you can make up your own like I do, based upon a computer game), but you should stay close to its limitations.
If you have more questions, either post away here and I will try to answer them or get registered in the games' own forum (AAG forum).
06 September 2010, 09:50:57 AM