Great news indeed.

I'm very very glad now that i kept all my TOI copies.

Now things start to get serious interesting…

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=4025

I am excited, but also a little worried about what this means for the line. I really like how ToI plays now and don't want it to become a heavy wargame that needs a binder and index for rules. I am also concerned that the quality of the bits will be maintained. The game has its problems, but it is pretty darn fun for me as is.

With that said… I am much less worried with Bill Jaffe and Dana Lombardy being the ones to take this on. Good luck to you both. I will be buying anything you guys release if you stay true to the system. I am a completionist with my games and already have 2 copies of all the ToI releases (and a whole lot of WTM/Pocket Army upgrades). The Land of the Rising Sun should not be far away…

I didn't know that Bill was a software engineer… any chance this means we get an updated sceario editor too?

Am I the only want that feels that their five questions are completely missing the issues with TOI?

Like the very poorly balanced scenarios (and possibly a couple of issues with the rules)?

Edit: I guess it's not going to hurt to add a small "Horray". Hopefully this will inject som much needed energy into TOI.

Yeah, have to agree there, not sure if for example "facing rules" are needed. I mean i wouldn't want to turn this into an ASL like game

It goes without saying that any future scenarios will need to be a whole lot more balanced on the whole than has been the case so far.

Past imbalanced scenarios indeed also deserve to be updated/corrected. I know this was on Bill's agenda once, but I could imagine he might be too busy for that at the moment.

Would like facing rules (for instance) but indeed as (optional) advanced rules. Then players can choose which of the two rule sets they can use to play. It shouldn't become a pick and choose, IMHO, because then no one would be using an official rule set anymore.

This is good news so long as the system remains the same and is only tweaked and not completely overhauled or revised to a 2nd edition.

For me though this may mean that all of the components get used in newly created scenarios; for example only half of the operational cards are used in scenarios in the basegame rule book. When you throw in the Designer Scenario book there are still cards unused, but no guidelines on how to customise your own scenarios. I have all the sets bar Fury Of The Bear and there are still two operational cards that are never used at all. So unless i make my own scenarios or tweak existing ones I kinda wonder why they were created in the first place. Im taking about Heat Exhaustion and Intelligence Report operation cards.

It would be nice for the new development team to revisit the existing scenarios and tweak them to allow other expansions components to be implemented. Sure I can do all that myself, nothings stopping me and the book does encourage us to make our own but I suppose but it might be better coming from established war game designers too.

Things I'd be willing to buy

New plastic coated refference sheets for terrain and unit stats

Designer scenario book #2 and beyond

POD scenarios with new cards and decks

New Terrain boards and overlays possibly with scenarios to go with them.

Scenario Editor or How to create scenarios guideline book

Pre painted squads and tanks, new types of units

Extra cards for existing strategy decks

The Big next expansion should be city battles.

Long live Tide Of Iron

Hurrah! Well done FFG for recognising that ToI needs more focussed and nimble management to develop the brand and thank you 1A for picking up the gauntlet.

There is a long list of possible expansions and I am sure no two players will have identical priorities. For me, top of the list is a Pacific expansion with all of the mobile invasion capability that entails. If you start with the early Japanese expansion this could include v. light sea squad level sea transport for rapid movement along rivers and coast lines.

Whatever way you take it, I am sure to buy and look forward to new challenges.

I guess that the imbalance of scenarios is an obvius one that they allready do know how we feel about.

Grand Stone said:

Maybe, hopefully….

Still won't hurt to let them know through their site: http://1agamesworld.com/whats-going-to-happen-to-tide-of-iron-help-us-create-the-next-wave/

I wrote them a letter through their Contact Us form and told them that the missed the mark completely with their questions and that they should update all scenarios.

I encourage anyone that feels the same to also do this.

bladerunner_35 said:

I agree that the 9lack of) quality of many scenarios is one of the major, if not the main issue with TOI at the moment. Hoever, i do know that Bill Jaffe is aware of this. There has been talk of revising/balancing many of the scenarios in question, but perhaps Bill is too busy for that at the moment. However, it's remarkably simple to adjust a great deal of those scenarios just using little tweaks and/or adding a scenario specific rule or two. On this very forum I recall reading many good suggestions in this regard concerning the imbalanced scenarios from FoTB. Hoepfully some of those will become official. I'm also hoping a future scenario book will include a couple of those redone scenarios at a time.

Kingtiger said:

I am sure you are right.

I just do not have the heart to sit down and do the research myself for something as basic as that (that should have been adressed officially long ago). Until then TOI stays on my shelf.

But I don't want to rain on anyones parade. Great things are coming for TOI I am sure.

I just hope the components in the new base game and all future expansions + reprints will match FFG's quality. I still think facing rules are not needed, but as an optional rule, why not. Also why do they ask about TURNS and ROUNDS? can someone explain? doesn't really matter to me. And why do they want to remove trucks? Also i have a bit fear about the "kickstarter" thing they plan to use for TOI releases.

AMAZING!!! then Brazilian players are grateful for the good news!!!

Himmelweiss said:

Well you need to add a LOT more details than vehicle facing to get even close to ASL… :-)

And more recent games have shown that you can get nicely flowing and realistic representations of tatctical combat without the smothering size of ASL.

Some new info up on 1A Games site

There is a poster in one of the pictures showing Stalingrad is to be the next expansion; 'scenario expansion'

Also they have hinted at some of the things they are looking to change

quote copied from 1A website:

"Here is a brief list of other improvements we’re working on:

• Make sure all the rules in each expansion work together
• Use the correct historical designations on the scenario sheets (e.g., replacing generic “division 1” with Company A, 112 ^th Infantry, 28 ^th Division)
• Improve historical accuracy of unit combat factors, e.g., differentiate between the many types and sizes of machine guns (one American machine gun weighed around 60 pounds, not including the ammo or the tripod it would be mounted on)
• Create a set of advanced and optional rules to add more tactical nuances to game play
• Make some of the strategy decks more specific to a nation and time period, e.g., early in the war versus late in the war, desert fighting versus combat in cities/towns
• Create special division cards for as many divisions as possible since different divisions had different skills and specialties"

check out the full article on thier website

I did email them about clarifying the strategy cards that are placed in the starting areas as many of these scenario need specific clarification on how they should work. Eg Sniper in Liberation scenario, for one.

You can add facing rules without making it much more complicated. I do enjoy the simplicity of the game. But the simplicity can still be kept and still introduce simple facing rules.