Over the years, Fields of Fire has proved to be quite tricky to learn for a lot of people. As a solitaire wargame, the usual method of a finding an experienced opponent, or even a club of experienced players, to guide you through learning this new, complex system is a non-starter. This leaves you at the mercy of the Internet and its hidden pearls of wisdom amongst an awful lot of noise.

For Fields of Fire Deluxe, we address this in a few different ways:

1. Provide a rulebook packed full of examples. We also expanded the rules to cover each situation the player may come across in detail. Sure, this makes the rulebook 96 pages long, but we feel it’s important to have all the information in there, rather than not.

2. Flesh out the mission books. The new mission book design ensures that each mission takes the space required to explain exactly what you need to do to and what special rules may apply. Pictures of the counters required to aid players in setting up and a set of historical background notes up front so that everyone knows what’s going on.

3. Tweak the counters. We rather like the Fields of Fire counters with their clean design and minimal statistics. But with some slight tweaks to make VOFs visible and note immobile AT Guns, some differentiation in colour between North Korean, VC and NVA units, and finally a handful of QoL counters thrown in we reckon they make the game just a little easier to play.

4. Make some training material. The new rulebook is good, complete and has plenty of examples. But what we really want is an example of play, right? Perhaps some mini-missions to start us off gradually? The Fields of Fire Deluxe “Field Manuals” provide a step by step guide to the process of carrying out a mission. In Part 1 we start from the absolute basics of commanding a single platoon to walk across a field, moving on to deal with a machine gun placed at the other end of said field, before introducing the Potential Contact system. Each step of the sequence of play is explained, and we reckon you’ll be able to recite it by heart by the time you move on to training with a whole company under your command.

Moving on from the basics, Field Manual Part 2 goes into detail about various different operations you may need to deal with. From how to manoeuvre tanks around enemy AT Gun placements, to what needs to be cosidered when setting up defensive missions and air assaults. This Advanced Operations Field Manual is bookended by an Example of Play demonstrating all of the rules together in an offensive mission, and a graphical guide to Reconstituting your company after a mission.

By the time you read this both Field Manuals should be online for anyone to take a browse through. These are complex books, so we have blind testers, and numerous proofreaders making their way through them to ensure the final versions are as good as they can possibly be.

Future volumes will continue this with Field Manuals covering amphibious assaults, urban combat and perhaps a look at the complexities of commanding a company with a bugle; for those times when you’re stuck behind enemy lines and all your radios are broken.

5. A quick “starter” mission. Too busy to jump into one of the campaigns? This stand-alone mission provides you with a company, some basic assets, and a tough little map to traverse. There’s no vehicles, no radios, no experience levels; just the game at it’s most basic level. It even has its own Example of Play taking you through setup and the first two turns of the mission itself.

6. The Internet. Yes, Fields of Fire was designed to replicate the loneliness of command and the overwhelming feeling of responsibility upon realising its all up to you. But sometimes you just need a big room of fellow players to ask questions to, share your recent adventurers with, vent about how the cards “hate” you, or just learn about what’s coming next. Throughout this project we have endeavoured to be present online. Sharing the new materials as we create them, helping out new players, creating guides, and of course, sharing pictures of our own games. We aim to make the experience of learning Fields of Fire as fun for players as possible.      

We think Fields of Fire Deluxe provides enough material for anyone willing to take the time to try it out with everything they need to learn the game. This first volume (four campaigns, 32 missions) provides the perfect starting point to the series and you’ll soon be able to jump into any of the expansions and future volumes.

Talking of expansions besides the Bulge Campaign that is currently available, Ben has planned Marines expansions based in WWII (the invasions of Tarawa and Saipan) and Vietnam (Que Son Valley). Not to mention his campaigns from Fields of Fire II; Peleliu, Chosin Reservoir and the Battle of Hue which are all due to be upgraded to our new “Deluxe” standards (along with appropriate training material). Then there’s Fields of Fire III, currently on P500 which features the British Parachute battalion fighting for their lives in Arnhem during Operation Market Garden in 1944, as well as later campaigns bringing the system to the more “modern” settings of the Falklands (1982) and Afghanistan (2008).

Andrew Stead
Fields of Fire Series Developer

---