thumb|right|Cover of 3rd edition, 2011
A Fistful of TOWs, often abbreviated FFT, is a series of modern warfare miniatures wargame rules first published in 2000. The first edition was self-published, subsequent editions were published by Fistful of Games.
Description
A Fistful of TOWs – TOW stands for "tube-launched, optically tracked, wire-guided missiles" — is a set of rules designed for wargames with 6 mm miniatures at a scale of either 1" = 100 metres or 1 cm = 100 metres. The rules for modern combat have specifically been designed to provide relatively fast play.
Unlike boxed set wargames like Panzergruppe Guderian or War in Europe that include a map, counters and set of rules focussed on a particular conflict or series of conflicts, FFT is not designed for specific battles or conflicts. Instead the generic rules outline how combat and movement happen in any scenario — including airborne and amphibious assaults, airstrikes, and chemical weapons — and provide statistics on various army units, vehicles, tanks, and aircraft as well as army lists so that players can design their own scenarios for any modern conflict.
In addition to core and supplemental rules, the third edition also includes 128 pages of data for armaments, armored vehicles, artillery, and aircraft from the First World War to the present. FFT has also been used by Rand Corporation in developing modern wargaming concepts for the U.S. Department of Defense.
Movement
Each unit can either move normally or strategically (double movement). A unit that moves strategically cannot participate in combat during the rest of that turn, and defensively is more vulnerable.
Combat
For ranged combat, the active player chooses a target at which to fire, and rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the Rate of Fire of the attacking unit. The die roll required is equal to the range rating of the attacker's weapon. Depending on terrain, the target may get a saving throw to negate the attack.
During close combat, the same rules are used, but the defender fires first. If the attacker survives, the attacker returns fire. This continues until either the attacker or defender has been destroyed.
Publication history
In the late 1990s, Ty Beard became frustrated with slow-moving wargames. After a particularly trying session of Combined Arms — a miniatures wargame published by Games Designers Workshop — in which only four turns were completed in 8 hours, Beard decided to design a streamlined system to produce faster-moving games. The result was a set of rules for modern combat titled A Fistful of TOWs, a coil-bound paperback self-published in 2000 written by Beard with contributions by Dave Burnett, Paul Minson, and Bob Mackenzie. In 2010, Fistful of Games released a second edition of the rules, a 204-page coil-bound softcover book written by Ty Beard that expanded the timeline of the rules back as far as 1946.
In 2011, Fistful of Games released a greatly-expanded 458-page third edition written by Ty Beard and Paul Minson that expanded the timeline back to 1915.