I've had the base game for 3-4 years now, but haven't played in a long time because the poor (nonexistent?) playtesting of the base scenarios left a really bad taste in my mouth. I'm looking for a new 2 player game to buy, and noticed that my nearest Hobbytown has a copy of Fury of the Bear . Would I be wasting my time to buy it and have another go? Some of the threads here suggest that FotB has some big flaws as well.

Right now, it's down to FotB, Battles in Westeros, or 1-2 deluxe expansions of the Game of Thrones LCG. Thanks for your advice!

Ubercat said:

IMO Fury of the bear will not get rid of that bad taste in your mouth.
The expansion is in need of a major eratta. I would say that around 50% of the scenarios are fine as they are but the others need an overhaul, ranging from balance issues, historical accuarcy, missing information in scenarios and typos. Also there are new terrian rules with balkas that need clearing up as the rules make it unclear on how the play them and they feature in 6 of the 8 scenarios. There are also some other things in the rules that require an offical FAQ..

If you wanted an expansion for ToI I would look at getting days of the fox and the designer series sceario book as these offer some good new units and rules and most of the scenarios are very playable and there is a FAQ out fixing up any issues with them (not that there are too many).

I own all of the ToI products as I really do like this game but am dissapointed with the quality and support given from FFG and until I see a major improvement in the output and support from FFG i will not be buying anything else from them.

Otherwise I have a friend who got battle of westeros and is pretty happy with it, Im more of a historical gamer so I have moved to getting some GMT games and also find conflict of heroes a good game. I do still play ToI and make my own scenarios as I really do like the system.

Try M44!

I wish the TOI infantry figures were bigger.

in fact I'm going to put a white-out dot on top of the officers and paint a small red dot on top of the elite infantry.

I do agree that designer series is a good buy, cuz there are some wonderfull scenarios in that book. However, still there are unsolved issues with many of the scenarios, and many of these scenarios are also unplayble. However, the good ones are so great that it makes up for that bad ones.

Some of the elements that make Tide of Iron realistic are the different types of vehicles and infantry figures, and individual attack and defense values, which is what Memoir 44, my other favorite WW2 boardgame is missing.

Similarly, what is missing from Tide of Iron, is the simplistic fog of war kind of aspect that Memoir 44 card play has. And the TOI turn sequence seems backwards IMO. Should it not be Command phase first?, then Action phase (units carrying out the battle plan and orders from command HQ), and then the status phase. (after battle report, resupply, control of objectives).

Also, each phase is kind of complex, tedious, a little too predictable regarding no. of units per action phase,and some actions when playing cards, require too many incremental steps to complete.

Finally, although the scale of the game seems to be such that artillery would not be on the board, it could be modified just a little, and ranges and movements modified slightly to abstractly represent some field artillery pieces like 105 and 25 pdr, Nebelwerfers. Additionally, aircraft models could be used (which I do use) from Memoir44, and each aircraft could also have its own Attack and defense values, and allow fighter aircraft to shoot at each other, or shoot down an enemy plane attempting to make an air strike. This then leads to new units for air defense like Bofurs AA gun, and Whirblewind 20mm quad flak tank.

So there really is a lot of potential for TOI to be expanded not with just more boards, but to actually both simplify its complex turn structure, streamlining it for easier play, using cards for more random unexpected events, and adding a greater variety of pieces with different capabilities.

I have both the base game and Days of the Fox. I understand your frustration and, based upon that, would not recommend you buying any expansions. I choose the desert expansion simply because I weighed the pros and cons and still felt that I got a lot of enjoyment from the game. Specifically, I usually dislike it when a scenario is set up to concentrate a bunch of units together into one spot on the board. To me, it just gets to messy to make good decisions in the game.

In general, I don't think this game is for everyone, just as I would also include that the alternative choices that you mentioned are also similarly questionable.

Out of the various scenarios available it would be nice to get a more or less definitive list of the playable vs the broken ones.

4lterego said:

Play them and you will find out soon enough for yourself:

- what some find broken, others find an interesting challenge

- sometimes there's also an obvious and easy fix to find

Tide of Iron: Total War Edition fixes some problems, adds some rules, adds airplane models, AA guns, artillery pieces, early war tanks, SPGs like SU-76 and M7 priest, nebelwerfers, Katusha truck, mobile halftrack mortars, panzergrenadier halftrack assault actions, more realistic gun range vs movement factor ratio, 1 heavy vehicle per hex stacking limit, new spotting rules, simpler off board artillery sequence, wreckage, close range = half units normal range, Opt fire not premarked, and other rule additions/modifications.

This version is only available to me, but I am enjoying playing it with my co workers who I taught how to play the original TOI.

Days of the Fox is generally recognised as the expansion with the most balanced scenarios, plus having it will let you play all the scenarios in the Designer Series book.

Also, Battles of Westeros is a great game and despite being branded as a "Battlelore" game really doesn't have very much in common with that series of titles. Also, don't be put off by the fantasy book origins - it's basically a game of medieval combat with no magic/dragons/orcs etc. The only thing it really rips from the books are the commanders who are all pretty much human warrior types (ok - there is one dwarf, but think midget rather than beard and battleaxe).