Attn Hold the Line Fans: Frederick's War on Preorder

I know there are some Hold the Line fans 'round here. I assumed the non-Napoleonic Wars part of the series was dead after the Mexican Wars pack seemed to die on the vine in pre-pub. Popped 'round Worthington Games' website tonight and saw a new entry in the series on pre-order and a new pre-order policy from Worthington to boot.

So first, the game: www.worthingtongames.com/detailFRED.html

Price is $45 for pre-order, but note the pre-pub bonus: The game comes with a mounted 25 x 22 board, terrain tiles, unit counters, dice, and rule book. Pre-order now and get the Highland Charge Expansion Pack for free ($20.00 retail) which will be sold separately once the game is released. The Highland Charge expansion will include counters for battles involving Highlander battles, plus scenarios. Ownership of Frederick's War is required for the Highland Charge Expansion

One notable change is that Worthington has gone to a GMT-/MMP-style pre-pub system of not actually charging your card at time of pre-order but instead charging 30-60 days from shipping [which is more or less in-line with what I get from GMT]

Details here: www.worthingtongames.com/prerelease.html

Edit/FYI: Frederick's War is supposedly shipping in March, so you can get in on the pre-pub pricing but it looks like it's charging immediately.

I totally have this on pre-order. I've played about 5 of Austrian Succession scenerios. I think the scenerios were more balanced than HtL. There's more open maps and less woods and hill in Frederick's plus the calvery is lot more powerful in Frederick. The result is fun and bloody good time.

How soloable is this system? Looks like the box says 1-2 players, which leads me to believe there is little to no hidden info. Very interested in this time period and the Highlander battles is a huge plus. Are there any other games dealing with those battles?

KingPut wrote: I totally have this on pre-order. I've played about 5 of Austrian Succession scenerios. I think the scenerios were more balanced than HtL. There's more open maps and less woods and hill in Frederick's plus the calvery is lot more powerful in Frederick. The result is fun and bloody good time.

Between this comment and your HtL vs C&C system comparison this looks like a pretty good system. Is there any kind of fog of war aspect? I always kind of liked pretending that the cards in the C&C system were my broken communication lines and general fog of war type stuff, abstracted.

And I like BattleLore! But the leaders aspect of HtL is attractive. I didn't really dig them much in C&C:A.

jason10mm wrote: How soloable is this system? Looks like the box says 1-2 players, which leads me to believe there is little to no hidden info. Very interested in this time period and the Highlander battles is a huge plus. Are there any other games dealing with those battles?

Culloden and Falkirk show up in a variety of magazine games and I think one of Clash of Arms' games covers them (probably in the Battles of the Age of Reason series, but it's a vague memory right now). I'd have thought they would show up in GMT's Mustket & Pike series somewhere, too, but I'm not seeing it. Red Lace did a series of what appear to be huge games on the period, too, but I don't know anything about 'em beyond a peek at the vassal modules.

I don't know of any game of with the scale/ease of play of the HtL system that covers the Highlands stuff though.

There is little or no fog of war with HtL. There is no cards in HtL unlike the C&C system. Actions are determined by dice rolls vs. cards in your hand. This makes the system better as a solo game than C&C. If you like C&C, M44, Battlelore, Battlecry, Napoleonics, you should like HtL or Frederick's War.

I hope somebody makes a good Vassals version of Frederick's War. I've used the HtL Vassal Mod to play the battles of Mollwitz, Casteldelfino, Chutusitz, Sahey and Pfaffenhofen and Soor. It worked ok but it's not quiet the same when you have to use American troops to be Austrian troop and British troops to be Prussian troops.

FYI: From Worthington today:

Worthington Games wrote: Frederick's War update: All materials are at the printer and they have informed us they should have completed games to us within the next 2 to 3 weeks for shipping, so get your orders in! The Highland Charge battle pack, free with Frederick's War pre-orders, will be shipping at the same time to all who have pre-ordered Frederick's War.

So, it's coming.

Same update noted that Ghost Panzer, the next game in their Band of Brothers line, is charging now [but they need you to re-order to get charged] and expect to ship in August.

Dogmatix wrote: So first, the game: www.worthingtongames.com/detailFRED.html

Something's wrong, the link above didn't take me to its Kickstarter page.

wadenels wrote: Between this comment and your http://HtL_vs_C&C-system_comparison this looks like a pretty good system.

This link didn't take me anyplace at all. Can you fix it please?

Fear not, it is here -- fortressat.com/component/myblog/hold-the...tml/blogger/KingPut/

S.

Sagrilarus wrote:

Dogmatix wrote: So first, the game: www.worthingtongames.com/detailFRED.html

Something's wrong, the link above didn't take me to its Kickstarter page.

Heh. Probably the last game they publish that doesn't use kickstarter. (Although maybe they'll go the traditional pre-pub for the first print-run of the Band o' Bros. line, too. I suspect every reprint will go the KS route just to turn the whole thing into a "forcing function"--i.e., it forces the "oh we must have a reprint of this!" complainers to put up or shut up in short order.)

wadenels wrote: Between this comment and your http://HtL_vs_C&C-system_comparison this looks like a pretty good system.

This link didn't take me anyplace at all. Can you fix it please?

Fear not, it is here -- fortressat.com/component/myblog/hold-the...tml/blogger/KingPut/

S.

Also here: http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/468205/hold-the-line-vs-cc-games

Arrived. Apparently I picked a GREAT day to take off work.

S.

Sagrilarus wrote: Arrived. Apparently I picked a GREAT day to take off work.

S.

Well fuck. I haven't even seen a shipping notice on this yet. I'd hope to see mine this week...

Dogmatix wrote:

Sagrilarus wrote: Arrived. Apparently I picked a GREAT day to take off work.

S.

Well fuck. I haven't even seen a shipping notice on this yet. I'd hope to see mine this week...

My copy came in today. Just in time for WBC. I'm stoked to be able to play Maria and Fredericks war on the same day at WBC. Along with republic of Rome and Spartacus on the same day.

I didn't get a ship notice, it just arrived. Surprised me more than a bit.

Played Leipzig this evening to try it out. The rules could use some clarification, especially on cav charges which seem to be missing a lot of material. I filled in with what I considered reasonable assumptions, but I wouldn't be surprised to find out the actual intention is different.

Nice game. I get to move the units I want to, which is a relatively novel concept in newer wargames. Once I got through the first four or five turns things started going much more quickly and the 20 turn limit on the scenario, which appeared absurd at first, started to become in the realm of possibility. The Prussians got a couple of lucky breaks early and had the Austrians on the east side of the board on the run to prevent the loss of five units. The game went 13 turns and the Austrian reinforcements, though early, didn't get a chance to provide meaningful relief. About an hour and a half which is pretty cheap for a first game.

S.

So you figure 2.5 to 3 hours or so had that scenario run the full length? I'm thinking of turning on my local opponent to this series as I think he'd dig it. We generally have about a 3.5-hour window, and we both like to actually complete whatever it is we're playing in that timeframe.