Fire and Fury Rules Review 

So glad to have come across your generous and fair evaluation of Rich Hasenauer's original Fire & Fury rules set. A college buddy and I must have played the Gettysburg scenario a dozen times and had all sorts of results combinations; Rebels winning 3 times in a row, Unionists victorious 5 in a row, alternate victory between the sides for 4 straight games. Decided not to tabulate how many times 28 fire points were focused on a brigade only to have a 2 rolled for a disorder result; of course, plenty of times when a brigade got shredded -- it all depends on the roll of the dice. Had plenty of work days painting soldiers, fences, barns, bridges, roads, trees, wagons; we loved accessories (can you tell?). The labels for the units were streamlined and made very legible thanks to computers and their 6 point fonts; we played only one game with the labels on the bottom of one of the lead stands -- got very tedious real quick. My buddy died nearly 5 years ago and have not wargamed since or gone to any con; simply lost the spirit. But I do enjoy watching games played (battle reports) and reviews such as yours here; that way I don't have to pick up figures and get them back in the multiple boxes. We played on scenario boards made of hi-density insulating foam (NOT styrofoam); we were able to use Dremel tool accessories to carve and shape rivers and hills. ALL FIGURES AND GAME BOARDS ARE GONE NOW; I have a few of the FandF rule books for both Brigade-level and Regiment-level as Mr. Hasenauer did such a beautiful job with his books. Too bad not many battle reports document FandF games played. Wish there were more. RIP, Patrick Mullins, HMGS-South gamester.

Rich is a great guy and very humble considering what his rule design brought to wargaming. The Fire and Fury rule book (which, by the way, Rich was responsible for the graphics and layout as well.) was a source of inspiration for a generation of wargamers and , as you have pointed out, has withstood the test of time in many ways.

The activation was a complete innovation at its time. Warmaster in 2000 introduced one of the most popular variable activation systems. Fire and Fury was the first and pretty good for its time.

"Command Stress?" I remember playing a refight of Fuentes d'Oronro using Sam Mustaphas 'FP Grand Armee' several years ago as the British and getting SO overwhelmed as the French pushed on my line, and i started to run out of command dice, that I was literally praying for the multi-phase turn to end. Shades of Wellington at Waterloo? "Give me the Prussians or give me nightfall". Fantastic rule set though. Never mind who's in square or not, just "how the hell do I ensure Picton's feint attack doesn't turn into the real thing?" (It did. Of course). With predictable results. Best Army - level game I ever played.

One obvious prehistoric inspiration for this game is the classic Gettysburg hex map game Terrible Swift Sword (Richard Berg, 1976, SPI). Defensive fire after movement and before offensive fire, detailed breakdown of different weapon types and their effect at different ranges, loss of combat effectiveness based on loss of strength points, with some brigades withstanding more damage than others. You didn’t have to buy miniatures or make terrain but you still needed a huge table and the thousands of cardboard counters in big stacks that fell over ....

This blew me away in 1990. These rules were innovative for their time. Still a decent game today. I love the old school massive investment of time, effort and money - but worth it in the end! I’m going to do this game in 6mm scale but streamline the rules to make them faster.

My mates and I did Gettysburg three times with these rules and had no problems at all. Pretty straight forward set of rules.

I remember when this turned up at the club, back in '90! Its impact was so big, it can not be understated. As you say, the rules standard before this was more like a pamphlet, stapled together. Probably the best you could get were WRG, with line drawings, basic look to the typefacing, etc. I would say this started the style of rules we now expect as standard. Well set out, colour illustrarions, useful illustrations showing how the rules work and so on and so on.

Excellent set of rules, this is evidenced by its longevity.

Started playing this when I was 6 in 1990. Still play it now

Really enjoyed when F&F came out. At the time, for speed of play, it was revolutionary, particularly the combining of C2 and Rally in the one Maneuver table, and the ability to play big battles since a unit is a brigade (some people thought the deviation from a unit being a regiment was sacrilege..). Also, you only needed to remember a handful of values/ranges and modifiers, so shooting could be done very quickly (this is an item changed in the 2nd Edition that is either good or bad - good in that they now cover different weapons to greater detail, but bad in that you need to consult the QRS much more frequently). The negatives include having to produce, and affix, labels on every unit and leader. The other negative I have come to appreciate is the fact that a single game turn involves two "half-turns", which negatively affects speed of play. Still, as LWTV mentioned, we still play it (this Saturday in fact).

Fire and Fury was the game that introduced my to the hobby. This will forever be my favorite game even if it’s through nostalgia lenses.

I remember when these rules came out and I thought it was Heresy at the time. I was all about Johnny Reb. Looking at the rules today and watching youre review I cant believe I never gave them a shot back then! Great Video and thanks for the review.

Fire and Fury was my intro to ACW miniatures gaming and remains one of my favorites, definitely an enduring classic.

Another great rules review guys! Now to get those 15s out and get them on the table. I remember way back when (90s), we used to use some the Johnny Reb scenario books too for smaller engagements. When I first started in war gaming after coming back from the first Gulf War, the local club used the original "Rally 'round the Flag" rules for ACW. Then, the fever hit for Fire and Fury. I too bought the original rules and the two expansion scenario booklets. Again, great show and thank you for posting!

Great review of a classic miniatures game. This one really takes me back!

Hey, you guys rock! Yeah, been playin' 'em since Moses was in High School... Only thing we ever modified was the Maneuver table which was if the unit was fresh (No casualties though) and in range of the unit's general, no roll was needed on the maneuver table.... Like what you guys are doing, keep up the great work! I rank this ruleset up there with The Sword and the Flame as the two rule sets that kept the hobby alive and fresh1

Loved this game. I appreciated that every status or maker was a model and added to the look of the table. The layout looked like a civil war battle without creating obtrusive markers, tokens, or game mechanical devices. There is no need for unit "movement stands", whole stands are swept away, no unsightly movement trays or pipe cleaners et al. Mechanically tight game and easy to play and learn. Still the gold standard for ACW, I would probably rate it higher than you did, but no quibbles. Good review.

love your reviews >> love Fire and Fury

We play sometimes with regimental F&F in our club and I've to say that it is a very enjoyable set of rules with one of my favourite mechanich.

Thanks! I’ve been looking at this and wanted to know more.

Fire and Fury is my go to game. Its fun and easy and to understand. I echo Greg's comment that it is very intuitive. I ran a game of it at GenCon last year and after the first turn all the players basically knew how to play, I only had to step in when something new happened. I have been playing the second edition and love it. It has a little more detail added for differences in weapons and its a little bloodier as brigades lose stands faster but I think these changes have made the game better. My Dad and I played a corp level game last Sunday and brought it to a conclusion in two and half hours. As far as I am concerned it's still the gold standard for wargames.

This set is such a gem of a system. It's simply well constructed and still holds up in comparison to many modern systems - not seldom better. It's spawned and entire subset of rules for the Napoleonic and European mid to late 19th century warfare. You can even use it for Steam- or Dieselpunk games with some home made rules.

The great innovation in these rules was the integration of morale into combat and manœuvre actions. The time saving was huge compared to, say, Johnny Reb or Stars and Bars which had very intensive tables, very regularly worked through.

Fellas, thank you for a great review. I am an avid painter and war-gamer with ACW 15mm miniatures and Fire & Fury is a great system. I have played a few others as well: Johnny Reb, Battlelines, and Mr. Lincoln’s War. All are good in their own way. Thank you again for the review of a “Classic” rules set.

Nice review. Played day two of Gettysburg in 10mm with a bunch of guys about ten years ago using these rules. Did Antietam as well. My copy of the rules are in black and white!

Great review and brought back memories of when I played this in the 90's. The only comment I take issue with is how this rule set handles big battles. It handles them fine provided you have enough players. Players can easily handle a division to Corps. A battle like Gettysburg can be done with six players on each side. MIss the days when we could get anywhere from 8 to 12 guys for a game.

I played Fire and Fury for the first time last December and it was a lot of fun. We had 4 divisions on a side and it went fast.

This is the game that got and kept me in wargaming. Of course our group has tweeked it, but just small things. It is still a great game.

The only problem I have with the rules is using the D10 in melee. It is possible to have every factor in your favour and roll '1' whilst your opponent rolls a '10'. To mitigate this wide result spread we use 2D6 in melee.

Lots of bases and large games are another remnants of 80s and 90s games. Command Decision is similar. Cool game, but large scenarios. ASL scenarios are the same - the older ones were designed for a long Saturday of gaming.

yet another Excellent review Gents, 1990 the year I finish my time in the British army, I'd been to UK gaming show's in the late 80's, seen lot's of great game's, I then seen a Fire and Fury game at a show and it was Fantastic, Caliver Book's had the rule's, I got it and couldn't put it down, I was like a headless chicken going round the different stand's buying the figure's, it had to be the largest lump of lead I'd bought in a long time, sadly I sold it all in 1999 to move, but I've got the bug again, will be on the hunt for the old rule's in the UK, keep up the Great review's Thank's LW TV

One of my favorite games still willing to play to this day.

There certainly is resource alocation in F&F. You still have to decide what you want your units to do, the dice merely decide how quickly they do it.

I’m working on an epic Gettysburg game. Over 1500 stands need to be completed, plus markers and terrain.

I find that most ACW rules take too much in the actual range that a .56” Springfield Rifle could be 800 yards but in actual fact most soldiers couldn’t hit anything over 100 yards. I picked it up because of Napoleonic Fire and Fury using the modified rules by Colonel Bill Gray. I also use Regimental Fire and Fury. Which can be use for most 19th. Century battles with a little research on the post ACW battles. Thanks to Rich. and also the Colonel. Great rules!

You guys make a good point, when you talk about PLAYABILITY. One does need lots of figures, when playing this game. Unfortunately old school rules are like that. You guys know how much I love General D'Brigade. But their figure ratio is 1:20. Luckily I been playing Napoleonics since the late 70s, so I have amassed thousands of 15mm figures to enjoy the rules.

Thanks for the review guys! For a long time I've been considering F&F as my first ACW game. The mechanics do seem a bit daunting, but it's good to here that they're smooth and make a lot of sense mechanically.

Hey guys, great commentary. As someone looking to get into this period, if you were to try and "add" that command and control stress to this system, how would you go about doing so?

ugh, old school... I remember buying it when it first came out and never looked back :)

The group I play with never met a rule set they didn't change, except for F&F. We started playing it when it first came out and continue to play it unchanged. We did add for additional class of troop type for late war battles, Senior Veterans, guys who have been at war too long. They role for movement as disordered, but other than that they operate as Veterans. As to requiring too many figures to start, the rules state it does not matter how many figures are on a base as long as the base size is standard. We used one 28mm figure per 1"x1" base, averaged 12 figures per unit, 48 figures for a Federal Division. I also know of a group that played for while using just the bases until they had the figures painted.

Great set of rules.

YOU TWO AND ALL THE OTHER ARE MY FAVS ...

In an era where miniature rulesets have new editions all the time, it's nice to see an original with real staying power.

Game looks great! What are some other ACW rules would recommend?

Very good review. Thank you. It would be nice to see General de Armee/Brigade by Dave Brown (TooFatLardies) on your channel too.

30 years ago, wargaming was great..

Just a thought : I have always felt that when a unit commits to an advance/attack that it will continue until it takes a morale or charge reaction test which could be every move by adding and subtracting points that affect it . Rather than roll every move . A start to move test I think would be good but until you want to take a charge move to contact or until casualties make a test necessar. ???

My current ACW group slapped a forced command for major size units like corps and divisions. All movements are toward the target location.

I like F&F's supplement for the Western Theater and the Regimental Rules.

I considered buying this but was completely put off by the maneuver table. Recently looked at Age of Tigers, a derivative of these rules, the number of figures required was basically a no go.

Nice video, love the channel! What would you say is the best rule set for American War of Independence with 28 mm? Thanks

Typical Union brigade is 6 bases/18 figs, Confederate 8 bases/24 figs. So, say, 54 figs per Division, 2 or 3 divisions for a Corps = 100-150 figures, plus cannon & Generals. That's very do-able. And it's not hard to paint up that number of figures in this period. A couple of spray cans go a long way... In my club we each produced a Corps of Confederates and 2 smaller Corps of Union. As a club, pooling armies, we can do any battle we want to do. These are great rules. I've never had an unsatisfactory game with them. My only gripe is that a D10 can give a huge variation in scores of +/- 9. A D8 gives a less "luck based" victory.

Between Fire and Fury and JR I, II, III that is basically 98% of the ACW. gaming.

If you were playing 6mm scale ACW - what rules would you use? Would you still use Fire and Fury?

Mechanics: I do not understand why they say there is no command stress and that units get 100% participation. That is simply not true. The commander has a plan and is trying to execute that plan. He is also reacting to the overall situation and the enemy's movements. A definite stress factor is that units may not move or move fully. A good order unit has a 40% of not moving at all, even though you want it to, and a 20% chance of only moving at half speed. When disordered, the non-move chance goes up to 60% and 30% to move half. These percentages may be modified up or down by a few factors, such as leader attachment, troop quality, morale state, and formation. As far as command resources go, what exactly is that and what do command points really represent? For issuing orders you really only have just time and couriers to expend. We are not talking logistics here as that is a different subject. I think the Maneuver Table does an excellent job of replicating command and control without getting bogged down by excessive rules.

Brand new war gamer here. Trying to get my first board and soldiers together. I’m thinking of starting with 10mm soldiers based around the civil war. These rules seem like a great place to start, but as they discussed Gettysburg might be too large to start with. What would others recommend for a starting battle based in the civil war for a beginner? Also, if there are other rules that people would recommend to a first timer I’d welcome any recommendations. Thanks!

This game got me started in historical wargaming

Not what I'd call "Old School". Still far more playable than Black Powder.

Im looking for a rule set with unit activation like sword and spear or saga. Both use unit quality and resource management.

To Greg's point about command stress and resource allocation. I think you'd enjoy 1870 (1871 is probably the easier to try first time) series by Bruce Weigle. If someone has some FPW minis it would be good for a vid!

Hi, love LWTV. I'm looking for a good set of rules to play brigade or division level ACW in 28mm but still undecided. Do you have any suggestions for the FPW?

Loved it! The napoleonics, ACW, and colonial themed videos are my favourites 😊

I have the rules but am wondering what is the best set of ACW rules at regimental level? have you tried Fire and Fury regimental?

Still play the original FnF - for me a better game than the 2nd edition for a variety of reason - though I do like the Regimental version. I agree that different rule systems for the same period can eliminate some of the search for the perfect rule set. I have used a New Market scenario to teach newer gamers about miniature warming and the ACW - It wasn't an overwhelming investment to get stated with a non-skirmish level game

Disorder was to easy to get on a unit which will hold up any attack. This happen several times in a row killing the whole union attack at 1st Bull Run Killed the game

Are there any miniatures systems your group is aware of that don’t use the prototypical “I-go-you-go” mechanic? I recently got into the Blind Swords system of hex and counter games by Hermann Luttmann and the chit-pull mechanic it relies on is fantastic for ACW. It captures command confusion typical of the period very well, while also giving enough impactful decisions for players in which orders they issue to brigades and the timing of when they play event chits to influence turns. A miniatures system using similar mechanics would be very interesting to see.

We used to use F&F until about 5 years ago, when we switched to Black Powder instead. One reason was the game where I rode my entire Reb cavalry division straight across the front of virtually the entire Union artillery which was 24 points firing, and they rolled a 1. My cavalry just laughed in their faces and hit the Union left flank causing it to collapse. My opponent didn't think that was historically realistic. We stopped using Age of Eagles, the Napoleonic counterpart to these rules aeons ago as we felt they were pretty crap really.

I adapted them for Napoleonics for the pennisular war

Got them for years... a step on the right direction.

Regimental Fire & Fury really rocks have you played it?

I prefer Regimental Fire and Fury (less generic than the brigade scale (that said, I did just order the 2nd edition of the Brigade rules). Johnny Reb (2nd edition) by John Hill is another great Civil War system.

Altar of Freedom is my intro to ACW :)

These dudes would love Ultimate General:Civil War.

I usually don't refight battles our battles are usually one off evening affairs. Scenario driven.

I prefer "Rally "Round the Flag". Been playing that since 1979

Anyone have a list of changes from F&F 1 and 2 editions?

it being the 90's we used a lot of cardboard squares to play games, especially if you were trying a new game, why waste money on miniatures if it turns out you don't enjoy the game or if you are new to the period knowing what would be good starting miniatures. so we played with cardboard while working these things out

Not "old school". Very innovatory when it was published. AFirst set of rules I saw (beyond my son's Warhammer) that offered good quality diagrams to explain aspects of the rules. Also the firstcset to have a significant amountnof eye candy. A rend many a set since has followed while not ovffering as much inbthe text. But that's another story. Mechanisms etc great. Straightforward and work. Drawbacks. This is not a set for a pick-up game. It needs a scenario, real or imagined, and it needs time in preparation, assembling brigades, labelling up etc. However 30 years on, it remains my ACW rules of choice. Still a set to bencmark by in a variety of ways.

Try British are Coming - American Revolution still available from Stone Mountain Miniatures.

I think you can work around the rules, 'must have' large even huge numbers of bases. RE: bases per Brigade, borrow BP idea. Either have a 'set' no. of bases per brigade. Or for Ex: 3 - 4 or 5 stands to show major size of various Brigades. Keep the same number of Brigades, simply reduce stnd per Brgd. Following the "Rules" as to the combat, maneuver, etc. that's what makes a game. So why pass up rules you think are great, because of 'lack' of mini's, adapt.

Could you wargame the Battle of Oravais? It's a really little-known battle, but it's really interesting.

i have loads of 15mm CSA and US figures along with HO scale figures. If anyone knows a place to sell them please reply to me.

Do you guys also card games, if so would play a game by the name of Dominion it's like medieval times

Just checked, and $10 in 1990 is like $20 in 2020, so yeah...$40 is much for a rulebook.

I dislike the firing mechanism in these rules - too chaotic, and I never understood the bonus for just out-numbering an opponent. Thus I was disappointed that you did not even mention that, but your review was otherwise good.

Hello folks..LWTV.. I am building up Rev War Britain's swoppets I purchased around 1980. They are plastic ,movable parts; I have some metal soldiers mixed in. Roughly 2 1/4 in. 60 mm. Giants compared to the minis. 20 man firing and soon 20 man marching/charging and 10 re-loaders/arms at rest. I have a Donald Featherstone book which I'm sure would appear ancient ancient history to most,but its fun. I know he has other books and is famous in wargaming. Eventually I'll have 50 men per side right now it's about 35. One gun for each ..no cavalry. I'm solo now. Played the other day on 4x5 table. 6-8 move scenario finished it. Any recommendations for rule sets that would fit what I have. I enjoy the programs tnx. AG

There is a Second Edition.

You should try Bolt Action by Warlord games. It's a really fun that me and a couple of my friends play. It's not at the scale of controlling armies but instead controlling a ww2 platoon.

I use to play Johnny Reb. Now have a lot of minatures but no one to play it. Seattle is a very dry spot for wargaming.

easy peasy not a problem to roll dice

Would love to see a Napoleonics game played using Altar of Freedom

So pretty pictures is the yard stick ? interesting....

Why not play a war game using a board game (many are detailed and lead to complex battles developing) instead of miniature figures (extra cost) and require building the battle field?

Great game if you like playing the Confederates and want to win without having to try very hard.

Had nothing but bad experiences with this rule set. After trying a game 3 or 4 times and not having fun with, it gets tossed in the trash.

Still Liked Johnny Reb better..and Johnny Reb II

What about JOHNNY REB..way better