By Fire and Sword "2nd Edition"

 

            I can not begin to say how impressive BFaS' rule set is. One can see that the authors grew up with the same systems I had. I love that it has a Warmaster heritage. That Epic and Kill team mechanics are within it. Shako and Lasalle have parts within. 

2nd edition announcement 

            Now the news of a 2nd Edition and a Kickstarter. The changes coming agitate the hell out of me. I know the system has been around forever. It is so good I never thought it needed an update. (I have never played it in a tourney setting) A Kickstarter ohhhhh hell yeah. Look out November! I have been kicking myself for not getting in on the original kickstarter. I knew about it. Maybe even backed it and then dumped out. If I am deep in it now, I will be drowned by next June.

        And now for the pain. I do not have years of playing BFaS. Being a sailor. We hate nothing more than change. WTF, man?

 Changes;

    1.) Dumbing down of the game for the up and coming gamers. Its a business. They need to sell shit. It sucks I have to suffer these new age fuckers at work. Now the fucktards are shitting in my gaming.

    2.) I hate that the time taken to play a game determines how the rules are developed or changed. For a skirmish level, no larger than a platoon, 2.5hrs great. For a tourney system 2.5 hrs great. For a historic game 4 hrs is pretty short. 

Both 1, 2 and 8 are the same or they ride the same train. In effect the grand scale of the game is being trashed for right up in your face scrum. I know what they are doing. Instead of limits on force points and cutting down of the number of units on the table to control game length. They are increasing the number of units on the table, creating an element control and shrinking ground scale to speed up play.

    3.) The mini core rule book is out. So the giant bible sized book should not be a reason to fuck with shit that works.

    4.) CM for Inches. Man what the total shit. All for the American market. Multiple rules sets in high rotation play in metric.

        This is the biggest fundamental change. It messes with Ground Scale. The game was played in an area that would fit most home tables. Large brigade and army games on a historical table (6x7 feet or 9x5). The game will still fit on these home tables, but the change in ground scale bring the meat much closer to the metal. So close maneuver warfare will be gone.

    5.) Making movement all one distance. A standard set length that everything is based off. Great idea for speed of play. I think weapon range would be grossly out of wack to the distance things move. But all that could be fixed with changing the time a turn/activation represents.

    6.) Unit cards. Outstanding idea. They are a great teaching/demo tool. Also for larger battles fantastic as you would have sheets of paper everywhere with the different units on it.

    7.) Alternating Activation. This is huge and a double edge sword. I absolutely love this in NetEpic Armageddon. It within itself creates a tactical decision making challenge and increase the tactical depth of the game. How will the activation advantage be handled is the big question here. The well known down side is out activated and dead activations. We all know what happens to you once your activations are done and your opponent has 3 or 5 more to go. When someone can activate, do nothing, and your now forced into exposing units.

    8.) Movement trays. Could a player just not do this all on there own. I use movement trays in Warmaster. There are no rules for them. Yet there they are. I would guess now this will follow a Hail Caesar approach with small, normal, and large size units. You would now push around command elements Vs companies or individual regiments.

Highlight; "not that we are lazy bastards sitting around drinking beer."