Recent news
Whats going on at Great Escape Games?
09.09.11: The Rise and Fall of Persia
The book is due in from the printers next week. For those of you that haven't been over to our Clash of Empires website to have a look at the book we have uploaded a preview to the website here.
Click on the cover below to have a look.
16.05.11 - Great Escape Games on tour.
Below is an updated list of the events that we will be attending this year. We have included all the events that we have confirmed a place at and will update the list as and when we add more. Why not come along to one in your area and have a chat?
| Date | Event | Location | Contact |
| Sat-Sun May 21st-22nd | Triples | Sheffield | Website | Sun May 29th | Partizan | Newark | Website | Sat-Sun July 23rd - 24th | Attack | Devizes | Website |
| Sat-Sun September 10th-11th | Colours | Newbury | Website |
| Sat-Sun October 1st-2nd | Derby World Wargames | Derby | Website |
| Sat-Sun November TBC | Warfare | Reading | Website |
16.05.11: RoE Tutorial
When we first released Rules of Engagement we put a tutorial up on the website for people to run through for their first game to help get them to grips with the system. It seems that the gremlins running free on the internet had removed all the links to this! Well now they've been added again, if you're new to RoE or are just interested to see how a game would play through then have a look..
17.04.11: Clash of Empires
We've finally recovered from Salute. The weekend was excellent, a special thanks to everybody who came along to see us at the show to get the new Clash of Empires (CoE) rule book, more Rules of Engagement books and soldiers or who just came along to offer support.
The new book was really well received by everybody who came along to get a copy and chat.
We have added the book to our webstore. CLASH OF EMPIRES.
We have also adjusted and updated our forum to include a large (and ever expanding) Clash of Empires section. For those of you who have just recently got a copy of the game or who would like to get a bit more information have a look at the FORUM, or go to the Clash of Empires website where we have lots of free to download army lists already; including lists from the Chariot, Classical, Dark Age and Medieval periods with more coming all the time. These lists are aimed at allowing as many people as possible to start gaming CoE immediatley with armies they already have but are not listed in the rules book. We will add to these continually, some of the lists that we will add will "fill the gap" until they are released in the relevent source book, others will cover smaller areas of interest which we will probably never release a source book for but we still want to give people who are interested in that period/area the ability to play CoE. All these lists are official but all are also a "work in progress", we invite any and all gamers to try the lists out and feedback to us either through e-mail or the forum.
11.04.11: Clash of Empires
With the book almost here we have we have uploaded a pdf featuring 8 of the pages from the Clash of Empires rulebook for players to have a look at. Click on the link below to have a look.
23.03.11: Clash of Empires
"Clash of Empires" - Rules for Ancient Battles released at Salute
www.clashofempires.co.uk
Clash of Empires rule books arrive at Great Escape Games HQ on April 14th, so we will have them at Salute on the 16th. The book is full colour, hardback and 192 pages. It is priced at £25. You can get in touch with us to reserve a copy, or you can talk to 1st Corps, Gripping Beast or Magister Militum who will likely be offering Clash of Empires army deals, as will we.
In the rulebook are lists for the Early Imperial Romans and their enemies in the West. The first army list book will cover Early Achaemenid Persia to the death of Alexander. Many army lists will be free to download from the web. They will be official, but will be living lists reviewed by us and the wargaming community. Some of these will go to print, but many will stay on the website as free downloads.
The rulebook also contains rules for four different scenarios, including elements such as terrain placement, terrain types, army initiative, and flanking manoeuvres.
21.03.11: Clash of Empires
With the book around the corner Stuart has written up a battle report to give gamers an snippet of the game in action. Click on the lick below to go to the Battle report featuring Greeks and Persians.
01.03.11:FREE Postage on all Great Escape Games Books continues!
We're continuing our offer of free postage on all Great Escape Games books! Don't be alarmed when you come to check out and it says that your PDF is shipped free, it's still the book your getting!!
05.11.10:Clash of Empires – Early Imperial Roman Army
After many years of ancient wargaming and after many army painting projects, this year I finally painted Early Imperial Romans. I had a load of unpainted Foundry figures and a box each of the Warlord Games’ plastic legionaries (their best plastic set so far in my view) and auxiliaries so, while developing the EIR list for Clash of Empires, I set about painting some soldiers. I set a target of 2500 points, the standard size battle for Clash of Empires. To read the rest of this article and have a look at Stuart's Roman army click on the image below.
New US Distributer for Rules of Engagement and Faction Wars
Warpath Games is now distributing the Rules of Engagement range to retailers in the US. They have the main rulebook and template for RoE, plus the Operation Bagration and Armoured Assault sourcebooks. Please contact the sales team at Warpath - http://www.warpathgames.com/wholesale/warpath.php?m=contact - to stock the range. Warpath also carries the miniature range for RoE.
For the time being, Operations and Objectives is out of print. We hope to reprint early next year.
Now available from the Great Escape Games website is Faction Wars. Faction Wars is a tabletop miniature skirmish game designed for 2 or more players using 28mm miniatures. Each player has a squad of around 10 to 15 models with which to beat their opponent.
We like Faction Wars because it simulates tense firefights in urban environments really well. Squads can really be tailored to act as a unit with elements that support each other. The game rewards those who coordinate their actions and combine aggression with support. We also like the sci-fi aspect of Faction Wars; it has the realistic atmosphere of the not too distant future rather than the fantasy atmosphere of other futuristic games.
Have a look at the FW website for more: http://www.factionwars.co.uk/Introduction/.
22.10.10: Following the USMC Order of Battle on the website we have now put the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) up to face off against them. Our play testers and the guys on the forum are currently working through the first desert war Orders of Battle for release on the website very soon. Being worked on at the moment we have Germans and British/Commonwealth lists for the 1941-42 period and a LRDG list. We’ll also add orders of battle for the final year of the desert war and include German Fallschirmjager for 42-43, U.S. Troops and 1943 updates for the first orders of battle.
If you’re interested in being involved in the play testing of new Orders of Battle then why not head over to the forum and get signed up, it’s free and easy and new view points are always welcome.
15.10.10:
Clash of Empires
We've had lots of conversations at shows recently about what projects are in the pipeline. The one we have been talking about the most is Clash of Empires. Ancient wargaming has always been a favourite of ours and we figured that the time was right to develop and release rules to cover battles from deepest antiquity to the advent of gunpowder weapons. We have been playtesting for about 13 months now and aim to have everything finished by the new year so that we can release the rules by April 2011. So, here are some basic outlines of what the Clash of Empires rules will achieve and what you can expect: There will be no need to rebase your figures. Clash of Empires will be just under 200 pages, hardcover and priced at £25. We will have a separate CoE area on our forum soon for any questions and you can always ask there or email us at the address from our website. 08.10.10:Here at Great Escape Games we are working on a number of projects. As many of you will know from talking to us at recent Wargames shows or through our forum our next release will be a set of ancient rules, "Clash of Empires". We have been developing these for a number of years now and have spent the last twelve months fine tuning through extensive playtesting. For Rules of Engagement we have just put the USMC Order of Battle up on the website as a free download and will follow this with the Japanese list over the next few weeks. We are currently putting the finishing touches to a series of OOB’s for the North Africa campaign which will start with the Germans very soon. If you are interested in getting involved with the playtesting of any of the new OOB’s for Rules of Engagement please join our forum and let us know. 10.09.10:In the next couple of weeks we will be talking about the new project that Great Escape Games has been working on for the past year. It’s a major project that is set for an early 2011 release and we think it’s really exciting. With one of the groups helping us out with it, the project has persuaded nearly twenty of their members to start new armies!
We mainly play with 28mm figures but the rules suit 15mm and 20mm armies as well.
There will be plenty of dice to roll.
The turn sequence is: Orders Phase, Movement Phase, Shooting Phase, Hand-to-hand Phase and Combat Outcomes Phase. It is IGOUGO but the inactive player's can at times act in the opponent's turn.
Troop morale is vital but troop discipline is a separate characteristic and can be just as important.
Generals and other characters command, they are not super killing machines. This can be a good excuse to do diorama bases for your leaders if you are so inclined.
Clash of Empires even has a use for those casualty figures you never painted!
Units have profiles to determine how good they are but may also have Unit Special Rules such as Cantabrian Circle (Skythians), Expert Swordsmen (e.g. Legionaries) and Shieldwall (e.g. Saxon infantry) to name a few.
Army lists are very expansive and you choose your unit size by individual models within set minimums and maximums (e.g. a Roman auxiliary infantry unit has 10-30 models in it).
Units within the army list are 'flavoured' for that period so that a Roman Legionary is different to a Viking Hirdman, rather than both being superior Heavy Infantry.
In the rulebook will be lists for the Early Imperial Romans and its enemies in the west.
The first army list book will cover Early Achaemenid Persia to the death of Alexander.
Many army lists will be free to download from the web. They will be official but will be living lists reviewed by us and the wargaming community.
Some of these will go to print but many will stay on the website as free downloads.
The rulebook also contains rules for four different scenarios including elements such as terrain placement, terrain types, army initiative and flanking manoeuvres.
3.09.10: The Breslau Campaign Scenario PDF has been out for two weeks now and has gone down well with everybody who has bought it. Along with the scenarios there are two new Orders of Battle. One for the Germans and one for the Soviets. The Soviet force has created an interesting modelling opportunity. In the platoon there are Soviet assault engineer squads wearing SN-42 body armour. At the moment the number of companies actually making models for these is slim. I decided a while back to make some of my own! The picture below shows a Soviet soldier wearing the body armour. It seems that the engineers wore the same coverall as the Soviet scouts. With this in mind I thought the easiest thing to do would be to get some scouts and add my own body armour. The result is the image below. If you click on the image it will take you to a hobby page where there are more images of the newly created engineers as well as a run down on how I made them. I just need to add a few more for the squad and make a flame thrower armed engineer.....
20.08.10: With playtesting now well and truely complete we have put the Battle for Breslau up on our webstore. Follow the link to go to the PDF in the books part of our store.
Festung Breslau saw some of the most intense urban fighting of the whole war. The inhabitants were besieged for almost three months as the Soviet Sixth Army fought its way through the shattered streets towards the centre until, four days after Berlin had fallen, the city surrendered on the 6th May, 1945.
Players have the opportunity to either defend Breslau as the besieged Germans, taking up arms as forces from Independent Fortress Infantry Regiment (IFIR) “Mohr” and SS IFIR “Besslein” as well as Fallschirmjager troops. Or attempt to overrun the defences as forces from the Soviet Sixth Army.
This book presents 8 scenarios that can be played alone or as part of a campaign. As well as the scenarios this book also contains two new Orders of Battle for the IFIR “Mohr” and a Soviet Assault Platoon. The scenarios are designed for Rules of Engagement but are easily adaptable to other games.
In other Great Escape Games news, we have some new images of US infantry added to the webstore – 57mm anti-tank gun, LMG team, and a sniper team.
We’re looking forward to the Colours show in Newbury on the 11th and 12th of September where we’ll have some new offers on army deals and can chat about new projects in the pipeline.
13.08.10: At the moment we're working on quite a lot of things. We've just put the new British Airlanding Order of Battle up on the website and have a whole host of other's waiting in the wings. Some are in the early stages of development, such as lists for North Africa, others, such as some for A Very British Civil War are nearing the stage where they can go out to be playtested, others including OOB's for the Pacific are out being play tested as I type and will go up on the site shortly.
As well as these we've just recently completed the final stages of play testing for our new Battle for Breslau scenario book. As with our first scenario book, Battle for the Bridgehead - Beyond Ohmaha, this new one will be released as a PDF through the website. It features 8 linked scenarios as well as two new Orders of Battle, one for the Germans representing a platoon from the Independent Fortress Infantry Regiment (IFIR) "Mohr" and one for the Soviets representing an element from the specialist assault formations that the Soviets created. We will be putting it up on the webstore next week on Friday 20th. For more details follow the link below to see a preview of it.
British Airlanding Order of Battle
We have just put the British Airlanding platoon Order of Battle up as a free PDF download. Perfect for gamers wishing to field any of the British Airlanding forces such as the famous Ox's and Bucks, it can also be used to field Canadian and Polish airlanding platoons. Click on the title above to go to the Late War OOB Download page.
Scenario Competition
A quick thanks to everybody who entered our recent scenario competition, we had an excellent response and the variety of different scenarios was incredible, some more plausible than others! The winning competition was created by Mick Graham and is called Point of Attack. Follow the link in the title to go to the downloads page where we have put Micks scenario and an additional scenario called Infiltration, by Jack Watling which features a completely different type of game than the standard platoon v platoon games that we usually play.
New miniatures
We have recently teamed up with Artizan Designs and North Satr Military Figures to provide a new range of miniatures. The new range is using Artizan Designs World War 2 range which has then been put together to match the Orders of Battle from Rules of Engagement. Each force features a core platoon, the basic building block to any RoE force, consisting of a platoon Command and 2 Squads/Sections. Added to this are additional Squads/Sections and Company Support options which are exactly the same as those featured in our various publications. Added together this makes collecting an RoE force incredibly easy. Simply pick up the core platoon and then add the Company Support options you want and you're done. We will be adding complete armies to the webstore very soon which will provide gamers with everything that they will need to game with a particular platoon in one simple purchase and will also represent additional value.
Have a look at the webstore at each force. We have miniatures for British and Canadian Infantry, British Airborne, US Infantry and Airborne, German Grenadiers, Fallschirmjager, and Waffen SS. I'm sure you'll be as pleased with them as we are.
Errata Sheet
We have updated our errata sheet. This update includes clarification for the Fanatic rule, firing template weapons against vehicles, including open topped vehicles. Click on the title above to go to the Errata page.
Armoured Assault
Armoured Assault is on sale now and availiable in the online store for £12.
Armoured Assault is the fourth source book for Rules of Engagement and allows players to field additional vehicles to those listed in current published works.
As well as this it also provides gamers with additional scenarios with rules for fielding more than one armoured vehicle alongside infantry platoons or on their own.
What tanks will you find in Armoured Assault? The majority of the vehicles you will find in the book are vehicles that were found on the battlefield during the latter part of World War Two. These are vehicles that haven’t featured in the Orders of Battle given in the rule book or Operation Bagration source book. As well as these we have also included a few vehicles which, although not in the field in large numbers, are availiable to gamers as models and thus we wanted to give people the option to field them.
Follow the link in the title to go to the Book Overview page where you can have a more detailed look at the book.
Firestorm Games demo Gaming, Saturday, May 22nd
Beyond Juno, features the Canadians fighting 12th SS. We’ll be playing all day on a 16’ x 6’ table with full companies on either side. Everyone is invited to come and join in using their own painted figures or ours. We particularly want to invite new players and those who want to find out what WWII gaming, and RoE, is all about.
Operations and Objectives
We have added a hex map to the Operations and Objectives part of our Downloads page as well as a Historical Campaign based on the breakout of Canadian troops from Juno beach. Click on the link in the title to go to the downloads page.
Operations and Objectives
To support the release of Operations and Objectives we have added several files to the Download section. These include a quick reference sheet, the complete set of Fortunes of War cards and a conversion sheet to allow Warhammer Ancient Battles gamers to use the system for their games. The WAB conversion sheet is the first of many that we will be providing as free downloads to allow gamers of other systems to use the campaign rules. Follow the link in the title to go to the downloads page.
The Operations and Objectives book is now availiable from our online store, follow the link below or click on the thumbnail on the right.
Operations and Objectives
Operations and Objectives is our third book and allows players to introduce a strategic level to their WWII gaming. Taking control of company sized formations on the campaign map, sides compete to accomplish objectives set by the upper echelons of their commands.
Follow the link in the title to go to the Book Overview page where you can have a more detailed look at the book.
Poland Campaign 1939. Soviet OOB
We have just uploaded the third of our Poland Campaign Orders of Battle to the Downloads section of our website. This OOB gives details of a Soviet Infantry platoon. Click on the title above to go to the Poland Campaign Orders of Battle Page.
Battle for the Bridgehead - Beyond Omaha
The PDF is now availiable from our online store, click on the following LINK to go to the store.
We have just finished our first scenario book, Battle for the Bridgehead - Beyond Omaha. The Beyond Omaha campaign follows the first hours and days of the 2nd and 5th Ranger Battalion’s and 29th Infantry Division’s combat experience during the invasion of Normandy. Click on the title above to have a look at the preview for the PDF. This is the first PDF that we have released for sale. The PDF presents 9 scenarios that can be played alone or as part of two interlinking campaigns: Rudder’s Rangers and Blue & Gray, each scenario gives a detailed separate brief for both the Axis and Allied players. The PDF is 58 pages long and costs £5.
Tree Making Guide.
We have had several people asking if we could create our Tree making guide as a PDF so that it would be easier to download and print. Well here you go, follow the link in the title to go to the hobby downloads page.
Soviet Infantry painting guide
We've added a quick and simple painting guide for Soviet Infantry covering summer and winter uniforms. Just click on either the image or header above to go to the painting guide.
German Low Grade Order of Battle
This Order of Battle is designed to allow players to use rear echelon troops thrown together as front line infantry. It may be used to represent scratch construction units, kriegsmarine, “ear and stomach” platoons or under-equipped Luftwaffe field formations. Click on the title above to go to the downloads page and have a look.
Operation Bagration to the Fall of the Reich
Have a look at the preview of our recently released Eastern Front source book. This book covers the same time period as the Orders of Battle in our rule book and deals with the Eastern Front.
Wargames Journal review.
Want to know more about how Rules of Engagement plays? Follow the link in the title above to read the review by Rich Jones from Wargames Journal. Rich has also written a battle report which can be found by visiting the Wargames Journal site, follow the link below.
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