FIRE! Modern Combat – Core Rulebook
We got pointed toward FIRE!, a modern combat ruleset from Spain, by the folks at Team Würfelkrieg. This isn't our first rodeo with modern combat skirmish systems as we've previously spent time with Force on Force, Black Ops, Spectre Operations, and Asymmetric Warfare, and now we want to share our impressions on FIRE! with you.
The game is available in different variants. You can pick up the hardcover rule book itself for 27,95 EUR (available in four different languages: English, Spanish, German and French), or as a FIRE! boxed set for 129,95 EUR, that comes with two small squads (US Rangers and Insurgents) as well as cardboard scenery and dice. SEN Games offers FIRE! markers that are available separately.
What Is It About?
FIRE! Modern Combat is a squad-level skirmish miniatures wargame from SEN Games, a small independent publisher based in Barcelona. The game grew out of designer Ricardo Ponz's own gaming group, who spent years being mildly dissatisfied with existing modern combat rulesets and eventually decided to write his own. That house-rule seed grew for roughly a decade before becoming a standalone product, funded via Kickstarter in early 2025 (343 backers, ending at 39.600 EUR against a 9.500 EUR goal).
Mechanically, FIRE! could handle skirmishes anywhere from the Korean War to today, but the core rulebook's focus (army lists, scenarios, equipment) is squarely on the 1990s to present. But as profiles and weapon lists are kept on a generic level, you could easily adapt it to various settings with a bit of research. This is one of the reasons why SEN Games does not only cover the rules, but books on various conflicts as well.
FIRE! is built for two players, is scenario-driven, and is typically played at 500 to 600 points, which translates to roughly 8 to 15 models per side. Games run around an hour on a 4x4ft (120x120cm) table, a very manageable footprint for a squad-based skirmish game.
CONflict Rhineland 2026
Last weekend, the latest installment of CONflict Rheinland took place in Langenfeld near Leverkusen. Just like in previous years, we had our own table, this time covering some retro gaming of Warhammer 40,000 2nd edition.
CONflict is a closed, invite-only event that runs from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, with some people, just like the three of us, only staying for Saturday. We covered things like the location, car park, and so on over the last few years, so I’ll skip that in this year’s coverage. If you’re interested, just check out the coverage since 2022:
As catering was expanded this year, we had more room in the car for miniatures and such, and I brought along two IKEA Samla boxes of sprues and kits for the bring & buy. Once we arrived around 10:30 am, a lot of gaming was already going on, and we did a quick browse before we set up our own table.
Right next to us, Lion Rampant was being played, covering a battle from the Italian Wars with lots of Landsknechts.
Giving Spectre: Operations a try
Depending on how you count, giving this game a try is years in the making. I've stumbled across Spectre Operations in 2016, when I saw the booth on Salute in London, and covered their miniature range in review the same year. But the rules or setting really caught my eye, on Crisis a year later, in 2017, when I saw the gaming table build by Ivan / ThreadHeadz on Lead Adventure and recognised it at the show.
Giving Black Ops a try
This is a brief battle report, that has been hiding in the draft section for more than two years, covering Black Ops.
The wargames series by Osprey covers small, compact rule sets. Usually around 12 GBP and 64 pages thick. Among them you'll find rule sets like the popular post-apocalyptic Gaslands or historical and fantasy systems like Lion / Dragon Rampant. But today we want to take a look into Black Ops. Between the holidays of 2018 and 2019, we used the spare time for a game of Black Ops. I've seen it at Crisis a few years back in 2015, was written by Guy Bowers. Not an unfamiliar name in wargaming, as he's working for Karwansaray Publishers on Wargaming Soldier & Strategy.
February 2021 review
February is over and I'm still waiting for the arrival of my UK packages ... because it is still post-brexit chaos.
Modern Combat – Humvees, Tanks and Marines
The chassis are ready, a convoy of 3 to 4 almost identical looking vehicles would be okay, but as these will be put to use in smaller games and skirmishes, I didn't want to use clones, so I bought some Black Dog resin upgrades a while back.
Casting quality is pretty wild, some parts are just broken or not fully casted. Black Dog threw some of them in there multiple times, probably to make up for that lack of quaulity. The instructions are only available for the IDF kit and even there a bit vague.
Modern Combat – Assembling the HUMVEE Convoy
Some things take up less space once they are assembled, so while sorting out items I came across the Humvee kits by Tamiya in 1/48th scale, and those would be a lot smaller when built. And it was a welcome diversion from sorting, taking pictures and dropping off parcels at the post office.
Tamiya doesn't call them HUMVEE but a more generic name, simply an 4x4 utility vehicle. I have a total of four boxes of these, three of the regular US Modern 4x4 Utility Vehicle and a fourth one as the Cargo Variant.
Modern Combat – Modern Tanks M1A2 Abrams
As I had quite a good impression of the Tamiya kits in the past, and the 1:48 scale vehicles fit well with larger 28-32mm models, I added to the 1:48 Tamiya HUMVEEs and Black Scorpion's Last Patrol a M1A2 Abrams.
The kit is usually priced around 26-30 EUR and casted in sand yellow plastic. The kit is spread across multiple sprues, giving Tamiya the opportunity to use them in different sets / variants. In addition to the decal sheet, there is an a lead bar to up the weight of the tank.
Black Scorpion – Last Patrol Kickstarter
I've been looking for some proper modern combat miniatures in 28mm for ages. Where as other theatres of war like World War 2 have dozends of companies supporting the players with miniatures, even for the smallest factions, Modern Combat in 28mm is rather scarce.
Yes, there are Empress Miniatures, but I prefer the Hicks sculpts they carry, or The Assault Group, but those didn't age that well to be honest. And Black Scorpion used to offer some very appealing modern US Marines, but didn't move them over to the new range they offer in resin. Until late autumn last year.
Black Scorpion did run a brief Last Patrol Kickstarter, and offered the whole range of 3 full squads of 10 including some stretch goals. I was one of only 52 people to participate. The initial delivery time was June 2019, so I expected to wait for quite some time and what shall I say, in early february a small package arrived.
New Modern Combat car pool
5 years ago I stocked upon some die cast cars in 1:43 at Toysrus, most modern cars for Zombie settings. As mentioned in the Modern Combat article on the humvee, I'm looking for some cars that would work with some border patrols or the era of the Gulf War up to Operation Enduring Freedom. So for that I was looking for older and more exotic cars, that wouldn't be found in western europe.
I ordered a bunch of cars at the Italian model car shop, CarModel. After roughly a week a solidly wrapped package arrived, they meant it really good with the bubble wrap.
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