FOW Rookie Game Report

My anticipation had been building up all week for the game I had planned with my son, Curtis (graduated with a bachelor degree last week--very proud).  I spent a few evenings during the week getting ready and setting up the table.  My wife made pulled pork tacos again -delicious.  The North Africa, mid-war game started off well, but our second game was cursed with a sophomore jinx; we made some glaring rules errors and spent too much time looking up rules.  Too long since our last and first game.  I had placed more terrain on the table this time, bogging the game down somewhat as well as our vehicles.  We were a little shaky on the terrain rules.  The fog of war was thick and so were our heads.  We resigned ourselves to using the game as a much needed training session, therefore no battle report.  We had some good laughs as rules were remembered on my son's turn since I thought more on his turn due to not having to concentrate on moving and shooting.  This was an obvious disadvantage for him.  Plus, my die rolling was on fire.

The great news is we learned a lot and will now be playing on a more regular basis.

Lessons learned:

• Know the rules.  We need to study more.  The obvious good thing about playing is knowing where your rule knowledge is weakest.  I took notes of the questions we had.
• Practice with smaller armies.  Starting off at 1500 points is probably not a good idea.
• This game is fun.  Even with our issues, we still had a good time.  I want a game that's not too complicated and not too simple: this game is right in there.
• Use the turn sequence steps at the beginning of the rule book chapters.  I think I'll type them up and print them out.
• Have the terrain summary handy:  Page 30.  I emailed Battlefront a few months ago requesting this page as a PDF game aid. Hopefully, it will happen.
• Have the 'Concealment Status Summary' on page 89 readily available.  Also understand what 'dig in' and 'go to ground' does.
• Continue to use this great tool: assault phase flowchart.  Great tool for the new player.

The proud family from left to right: my mom, me with my Luke from WWPD mask on. Curtis, my beautiful wife and taco maker, and our favorite professor: