Hello0O0o everybody,

As mahoosive a fan as I am of our beloved Strategy Battle Game, I have recently had a hankering for a bit of variety. I received a free copy of Flames of War Tropic Lightening and thought that it might be a fresh change. My main concerns that are hopefully unfounded are:

1. Is the game developed enough to be tactically stimulating?
2. Is there enough variety of special rules and characters to make regular gaming and long term interest viable?

I quite liked the second world war stuff as well but on a personal level I am uncomfortable playing games with Nazi's involved.

Are there any stockists with physical shops or fairs out there in the South East of England?

I'm an active Flames of War player, and I have to say, it's an amazing game!
As to answer your questions:
1. The game is the most tactical game I've played until now. You don't get these GW like overpowered units (although sometimes when an army book hasn't been pdated for a long time, it will get underpowered). Actualy, almost every well-made list is just as strong as another. But that'not the only thing. The game itself isn't only 'fair' for everyone, but all other aspects are way more tactical too. A unit of rifle-armed infantry, for example, is easy to kill for say Sherman platoon, but when the infantry is positioned behind Bocage, the infantry becomes a real danger on the sherman's way. It could, for example, get stuck inside the Bocage, and get captured or blown up by the infantry. So tanks on themselves are awesome at killing infantry, but when the infantry has gotten some AT weapons and is positioned inside terrain, I'd say it's better to let your engineers do the work.
2. You have a [word deleted] of different, historically accurate, armies. You could, for example, take the Panzer Lehr division in Normandy with the armament and support it had there, but you could also take it's Battle of the Bulge version. Most of these divisions also have their own special rules, like being able to go on when pinned down, be able to fire directly at a Russian Kommisar, instead of having your opponent choose a model from the platoon the Kommisar is attacked to so his all-important Kommisar doesn't get into trouble. But you also get lots and lots of heroes. Barkmann, for example, is able to stay hidden even when firing, and, when destroyed, is allowed to make a roll each turn to see whether or not his tank is repaired(he used to repair it during the battle and join the battle once again once finished). A good example in Vietnam is a Captain who's able to call a Broken Arrow(better known as Napalm spamming).
There is NO political influence in the WW2 version of the game what so ever. I, for example, only play germans, but nobody minds, or calls me a nazi, so nothing to worry about there.
The WW2 versions of the game are played a lot more than the Vietnam version, but I think it's going to change, as Battlefront is focussing more and more on post WW conflicts. About a month ago the rules and models for the six day war came out.
All in all, I greatly recommend every version of the game, and if you want to play WW2, but not with germans involved, you could still play japanese against russians(the japanese also came out about 1-2 months ago), and probably, when the time comes and Battlefront decides to design Pacific americans, US against japanese.

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Ours is the fury!

Don't worry about utilising Nazis. The game isn't about war crimes, its about one army defeating another, just like SBG.

I have to say that I been to a shop called Dark Sphere in London and have just bough the starter kit with two armies, the Vietnam Book and some North Vietnamese and American's.

I have to say that the gentleman at the shop (with an interesting Mohawk!) gave me a walk through the game system and has put any worries I had over Nazi's very much to sleep.

The only thing is that my wallet has taken a complete walloping, but boy am I excited to get to grips with a new game system!

Here's what happens when G.W. does not support one of its ranges!