ePub A World Aflame: Interwar Wargame Rules 1918–39 (Osprey Wargames) by Paul Eaglestone in History

Review

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful. A nice clean set of rules for interwar gamingBy DiGA World Aflame is a new set of fast play wargaming rules by Osprey for the interwar period of 1918 - 1939. It's well illustrated; accessible; and a quick read. The focus is on infantry small arms fire; but allows for inclusion of vehicles such as tanks; airplanes; and boats. You won't find army lists but rather a tool kit to build out scenarios for an afternoon or evening of friendly gaming. Examples are mainly focused on the Spanish Civil War; but can easily be adapted to suit the Russian Civil War; Abyssinian War; etc.One issue I had was a call for averaging dice; which is a D6 numbered 2-3-3-4-4-5. These are pretty common elsewhere but can be a bit tricky to locate in the US. Check online as I personally had no luck locating these at one of the game store in my area; in fact I got quite a bit of head scratching and funny looks. Another item needed is an arrow die; however having played GW games for years I had a number of scatter dice lying about and I have a feeling many gamers won't find these too hard to come by.Overall; I have found the rules casual; not overly game-y; and filling a much overlooked gap in gaming rules for this period that is not overly technical (ie not a tournament rules set) and very flexible in scale. It will easily handle whatever scale of miniatures you would like to use with as many as you would like to use.11 of 12 people found the following review helpful. A nice first effort from OspreyBy Randall CaseI haven't tried A World Aflame out on the table top yet but I have to say that I'm impressed with what I've seen so far. It's a short and pretty simple ruleset for miniatures wargaming set in the Interwar period (1919-1939) and it covers everything from the Polish-Soviet War of 1919 to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). The rules can also cover imaginary conflicts like A Very British Civil War and The Back of Beyond. The game requires miniatures to be singly mounted and the squad is the base unit. What really makes this game interesting is that it also has simple rules that cover AFVs; artillery and indirect fire; and it has some very unique command and control rules that simulate the poor communications of the period. The game requires you to give orders to your units (usually company and battalion) and the unit must follow those orders; as best as they can; until they receive new ones. Many times orders that you give at the beginning of a game just flat out make little sense and it can be a real struggle to get a messenger through to the field commanders to change them. A possibility that could really spell diaster! Another cool aspect of the rules is the initiative system. Most games are You-go; I-go which means that the action is easy to predict and many times players can get away with very gamey tactics like moving over open ground and blasting an enemy unit because they know that the turn sequence will allow this and there's nothing their foe can do. The initiative system does away with this. Each turn the players nominate a unit to activate and both roll off with dice (and add the unit's initiative value) to see which unit activates first. This means that initiative can move back and forth between the players keeping both players engaged all through the game. A nice touch.There are a few minor problems with the game though. The most glaring is a lack of a quick reference sheet with the main tables and important rules. I can see players being forced to dig through the rules during game play to look up how artillery deviates or to find out how to resolve an anti-tank attack. You can make one up for yourself easily enough; but it is odd; in this day and age; that something so important is left out. Also I find the overwatch rules a bit tough to wrap my head around. It doesn't really match-up with other similar rules out there and the wording of the rule is a bit vague on a minor point and is; at least to me; a bit hard to understand. Finally there is only one scenario in the game and there are few hard and fast rules to help make them. That can be a real challenge for new players.In my opinion it's a great offering from Osprey. The price is very affordable especially when compared to other rulesets out there and the game itself is complete! Not a bad deal at all.3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Simple Way to Make Average DiceBy CWLI'm seeing confusion as well as overcomplicated suggestions on how to make average dice. Here's how I learned to make them: Using white dice for my example; take white paint and fill in the 2 center pips on the six; this now becomes a 4. Now take black paint or a marker and add two pips to the one side to make it into a 3. Now you have an average die with 2; 3; 3; 4; 4; 5. That's all it takes.