Fistful of TOWs 3 Books Out

[tbeard1999]

A Fistful of TOWs 3 is now available in book and PDF format.

470 pages

[direct links removed as per the forum rules]

Do you like tanks? Do you enjoy fighting mechanized battles in miniature? Well, do ya punk...er I mean "fellow gamer"?

If so, FFT3 is designed for you.

It's a fast-playing, hard hitting set of miniatures rules for mechanized warfare. The rules are comprehensive, yet playable. And fast. Real fast. A typical game turn should average no more than 15 minutes. And it's designed to let you play big battles if you want, and use all those miniatures you have! (I actually designed it so that I could play with the zillions of Microarmour tanks that I had accumulated).

It also has the largest set of vehicle and gun data ever published in an individual rule set. And as far as we can tell, the largest set of army lists ever printed in a single volume.

Game Features

Troop Quality Matters A Whole Lot. Troop quality affects every system in the game. Just like in the Real World.

Elegant Artillery Rules. Fast to resolve and no pre-plotting required. And you'll actually use artillery.

Simple Command Rules. Clean and simple, the command system accurately models mechanized command and control, without a bunch of leader stands cluttering up the playing surface.

Virtually Every Major Weapon System from the 1930s to present is covered, along with data for different time periods and conflicts.

Full Campaign and Scenario Generation System. Plus advice and guidance for do-it-yourself scenario designers. And a point system to help balance scenarios.

Rules to Determine Your Own Equipment Ratings. If you think the Merkava III's ratings aren't right, we give you the rules to fix them.

Flexibility. Designed for play with miniatures from 2mm up to 15mm in scale with no modifications. Comfortably handles battles from company/battalion-sized to brigade/regiment-sized and larger. And no specific basing requirements!

Unprecedented Historical Coverage. With a single game system and data set, you can fight engagements from diverse times and conflicts of your choosing--such as Poland in 1939, France in 1940, Kiev in 1941, Tunisia in 1942, Kursk in 1943, Bastogne in 1944, the Ruhr in 1945, the Tet Offensive in 1968, the Golan Heights in 1973, the Fulda Gap in 1984, Iraq in 1991 and 2003, and many, many more.

[av8rmongo]

Ty,

Quick question. I downloaded the free version to check it out. Why is there a -1 to hit modifier for the firer firing in overwatch? I thought the whole purpose of overwatch was to be looking for targets in a given sector, ready to shoot when you see them. Seems like this penalty kinda negates that tactic. Close range gets a plus, troop quality gets a plus got it, makes sense. Long range is a minus and suppressed firing stand is a minus, okay I'm with you but the overwatch thing has me stumped. (Not hard to do)

Paul

[tbeard1999]

Ty,

Quick question. I downloaded the free version to check it out. Why is there a -1 to hit modifier for the firer firing in overwatch? I thought the whole purpose of overwatch was to be looking for targets in a given sector, ready to shoot when you see them. Seems like this penalty kinda negates that tactic. Close range gets a plus, troop quality gets a plus got it, makes sense. Long range is a minus and suppressed firing stand is a minus, okay I'm with you but the overwatch thing has me stumped. (Not hard to do)

Paul

In FFT3, it works like this:

If you fire before and enemy stands move or after they all move, no "to hit" modifier.
If you fire while enemy stands are moving, -1 to hit.

There are two reasons for this rule.

1. Overwatch slows the game down, especially when it interrupts enemy moves. The penalty encourages players to not slow the game down gratuitously.

2. The main reason you'd fire at an enemy stand while it's moving (as opposed to firing before or after it moves) is that the enemy stand is not visible, either at the beginning of it's move or at the end. In either case, the target is not visible for an entire turn, so it seems reasonable to me to impose a penalty on stands firing on it.

Mainly, though, it's #1.

[av8rmongo]

Okay, got it. Thanks for the reply.

Paul

[tbeard1999]

The FFT3 website is now live. You can download various freebies, including the FFT3 Introductory rules, the original Fistful of TOWs 2000 and various other games and supplements.

www.fft3.com

[bound for glory]

hows the vehicle stats work? give us an example...like the stats for a t-72.

[tbeard1999]

hows the vehicle stats work? give us an example...like the stats for a t-72.

FFT3's vehicle stats are designed to fit on a single line of 8.5 x 11 paper. Since I can't easily format them in this post, I'll list the data vertically. The preview at www.FFT3.com has a sample vehicle data page (page 25 of the preview).

Anyhow, here's the T-72B in the period 1988-96 (there are 4 entries for the T-72B; it's main gun got better over time, it got a missile in 1987 and armor protection improved)

• Name: T-72B
  Period: 88-96
  Points: 252
  Move: 9t
  Armor: 12 A 9 (12 is the front armor; 9 is the flank armor; A means add 1 to the armor rating if attacked by HEAT weapons)
  
  Gun:
  Pen: 15
  Rate of Fire: 2
  Effective Range (in inches): 16 (Long is 1.5 x Effective; Short is 0.5 x Effective)
  Anti-infantry Fire Modifier: -1
  
  Missile:
  Pen: 15h2 (Penetration is 15, it's a HEAT weapon and it has second generation guidance)
  Rate of Fire: 1
  Range (in inches): 1-40
  
  Indirect Fire:
  Range-n/a
  Ammo-n/a
  
  Equipment: s,n,i (stabilized; NBC system; infrared night vision)
  Capacity (how many infantry stands it can carry): 0
  Missile Ammo - limited
  Notes: 125mm/L48 Smoothbore; AT-11

For clarity, I've expanded abbreviations. As you can see, FFT3 has a lot of texture in the data. However, the game system is extremely fast-playing. It's actually faster than FFT2, which was a speed demon.

Default Scale: 1"=100m (1"=200m and 1cm=100m are also popular for really big scenarios; 1"=50m is good for infantry heavy games).
1 vehicle = 4-6 vehicles
1 infantry stand = 1 platoon

With only a few minor adjustments, the game plays perfectly well at 1:1 scale (the necessary changes are fully covered in the rules). Many FFT players prefer this scale.

No miniature scale is specified. I play with 2 scales -- hordes of Microarmour and other 6mm stuff for the really big fights; 15mm for more modest sized battles. Others in the FFT email group play at 2mm (!), 10mm and even 1/72.[/url]

[SKeeM]

Hey guys what's up? I just picked up the game got the chance to play two games last night at my club. We played with the normal scales and I thought it felt right. At first I didn't like the idea of not playing 1:1 scale but the game played well as is. So now I'm wondering what you guys think about playing at 1:1 scale? Have any of you tried it? Does it feel better? Are there any house rules you add? How do you feel about comma and units? I think I would like to add them to the game. Please post your opinions.

[kfeltenberger]

I'm working my way through the rules, but I think if you use points to determine forces that going from multiple vehicles/platoon per miniature to a one miniature = one tank scale you'll see some odd forces if you adhere to known TOEs. For example, if I buy one Merkava Mk. IV for 434 points, I'm essentially buying one platoon or three vehicles. However, if I buy a M1A2 (01-15) for the same 434 points, I'm getting a platoon or 4 vehicles. The Merkava Mk. IV and M1A2 are roughly equal across the board, yet the M1A2 buy will net you 33% more vehicles.

[SKeeM]

I would just pay 434 points per tank. If you go to a 1:1 scale the point cost would be for one tank not a platoon.

[kfeltenberger]

I would just pay 434 points per tank. If you go to a 1:1 scale the point cost would be for one tank not a platoon.

That's one way to do it, though IMO it overprices some units and the results won't be the same. It all depends on the nature of your group; most of the people I game with prefer to have a costs be consistent.

[SKeeM]

I play with a very competitive group that likes everything to be fairly pointed. I understand what your saying and I don't think I have played the game enough times to know what way is better. I like 1:1 more than 1:5 but playability is by far the most important. If changing the scale unbalances the game then that's not going to work for me. I need more opinions! And more game time.

[bishnak]

I'm working my way through the rules, but I think if you use points to determine forces that going from multiple vehicles/platoon per miniature to a one miniature = one tank scale you'll see some odd forces if you adhere to known TOEs. For example, if I buy one Merkava Mk. IV for 434 points, I'm essentially buying one platoon or three vehicles. However, if I buy a M1A2 (01-15) for the same 434 points, I'm getting a platoon or 4 vehicles. The Merkava Mk. IV and M1A2 are roughly equal across the board, yet the M1A2 buy will net you 33% more vehicles.

I'm not sure that's correct, since the game (and therefore points) works on a 1:5 scale. So the points listed would be for 5x Merkava IV or 5x M1A2 respectively. If converting to 1:1 scale, the points should both be for a single tank.

Like all rules at this 1:5 design scale, there is some 'fudging' of the numbers or rounding of numbers to end up with roughly platoon organisations per stand for most armies. However, in some armies like Soviet and Israeli armies that use 3-tank platoons, it's common to find that they have two-stand companies instead of the 3-stand companies common to western army lists. So the stands in armies with 3-tank platoons end up actually representing half-companies (not platoons) to balance with the 1:5 ratio the rules design for.

regards,

bish

[SKeeM]

The interesting thing is for Russian tank companies they used the two stand rule but for the BMP companies its three stands like the Americans. I think the big question is how much combat resolution gets effected by changing the scale. The more I look at the stats I think the better it works out at 1:1.

[kfeltenberger]

@Bish: If it's a hard 1 miniature = 5 tanks, then that really screws with tactics and organization. Your losses will also be disproportionately devastating to the smaller sized platoon formations.

@SKeeM: I agree that it would conceptually be better for a 1:1 ratio and that's why I've always disliked the whole "multiple number of vehicles represented by one model" avenue of gaming. What about the situations where there's only one vehicle in the formation? Do you pay for five and yet use only one?