Bottom line up front (BLUF)…the US lists in the Fortress Europe are exactly what Battlefront said they would be. They let a player use his existing Version 4 Mid-War US collection in Late-War Version 4… and not much beyond that. I had to go back and remind myself of that goal while writing this review because honestly as a US player from Version 3 days, I was a bit disappointed that US options in Fortress Europe were not going to let me run the forces I wanted.
By Tom Richards, Scott Grasse and Christian Sorenson
Firestorm – Sicily is a new mid-war Firestorm campaign that allows gamers to recreate Operation Husky as either Axis (Italian or German) or Allied (British or American) forces.
In the traditional format, Firestorm – Sicily is played as a series of linked battles that are resolved by playing Flames of War games. The outcomes of the battles affect the larger campaign map and allow players to re-determine the outcome of one of the most critically important operations of WWII. With the material posted here on NDNG Firestorm – Sicily can be run with your local group or can be played as an online campaign.
The Huntsville Historical Gamers gathered in April to recreate the Soviet offensive that aimed to recapture Kharkov and destroy the German 4th Panzer Army. The 4th Battle of Kharkov was a series of battles between 3 and 23 August 1943, following the Battle of Kursk. After their defeat at Kursk, the Wehrmacht was clearly on the defensive, with the Soviets launching a massive offensive. The 4th Panzer Army conducted a fighting withdrawal to fighting positions around the city of Kharkov.
The Kharkov Mega-Game was the culminating engagement of our spring Ghost Panzer – Red Banner, Eastern Front Campaign.
If you play any games from Battlefront you will want to hear this episode. We have Pete Simunovich with us and he tell us about all the great new stuff coming from Battlefront. Loads of spoilers you cannot miss!
If you are interested in;
Flames of War Late War Release Schedule and what we can expect in them, Team Yankee in the 1960-70 Time-frame, Swedes and S-Tanks, T-80, M1A1, Apache, Bradley’s, Challengers, Chieftains, BMP-3s, Warriors, and some wild stuff from the 9th ID that was tested and never saw the field.
A lot of great stuff you just cannot miss!
On April 13th the Screaming Eagle put on a very special Firestorm Stalingrad day at D6 Games in Rochester Mn. Using the Stalingrad kit from Battlefront, players battled for the area around and in Stalingrad. In all, we had seven tables. Three of which were city tables, and four country tables.
Players were pledged to a side (Russian or German) and could bring a 109 point list for battles in the country and/or a 60 point list for battles in the city. I did make one allowance for Italians to be included, though, the Lancia was removed and replaced with another 88-platoon.
As FOW V4 was released, I still remember that surprise I felt when I found out just how mobile the game became. Mobile is a word that contains value based on your own point of view. In this case, I am thinking of the infantry and the amount of movement they made. In my V3 games infantry tend to stay stationary and in competitive situations, I would have a certain way I would deploy my infantry platoons to optimize my defensive position. After deployment, they would rarely – if ever – move.
Under V4 rules, my infantry will, in most of my games, be forced to move a lot. Under the V4 system, I see only benefits in moving them (in general). Standing still is an invitation for destruction. But such claims are easy to make and hard to prove. So I will try to make an example via a game I played recently.
Having played a few games with less than 50% win rate, I have decided to try and find a stronger list. One of the things that I have thought about earlier is the “Gun line”. Many of the lists in FOW MW are mobile and flexible. I find MW to be a game of mobility, but I have decided to test that requirement by making this Gun Line list.
After having all of my time the past few weeks eaten up by “real life” and “responsibilities”, I was finally able to take some time to head over to the club to play a game.
Challis, one of club members, has also been waylaid by the same things I have been and hadn’t had an opportunity to play his soviets since August of last year (Check out the battle report here ) we were fixing for a friendly throw down.
Given our mutual love for all things Eastern Front, we opted to throw down with 109 point forces from Red Banner and Desperate Defense (check out the release article here ).
Table setup before the fight. We did not have a lot of city terrain available, so we had to do with this.
One of the things I enjoy doing is to experiment. City Fight rules, found in the back of Enemy Of The Gates and Iron Cross books, were very interesting for me. I was preparing for a tournament at the time and thus did not have the time to pay much attention to them.
Going through the rules, I noted a few things before my first games.
First, smoke barrage seemed very effective. Filling a room with smoke seemed a good way to protect your assaulting units. Assaulting teams benefit from concealment and bulletproof cover when assaulting rooms, and with smoke, it could be potentially very, very difficult to stop an assault.
I really wanted to find out more about this, so I decided there and then, to make sure I would test a list that could fire smoke.
Rubble and Tree lines are suggested terrain features, and I have realized that in V4, I really love the infantry, and so I could see a chance to throw loads of infantry on the table and have fun.
D-Day is coming! In June (could be any another month?) Battlefront will publish army lists for the Normandy landings, effectively starting the Late WW2 period. After years fighting with “hit on 3+” and “test morale on 5+”, US troops will finally get much better, with tanks able to worry the German counterparts. For this reason, I began to assemble my new US army, with a mix of Mechanized infantry, Shermans, M3 halftracks, 105mm artillery, and M10s to punch enemy armour. But I also wanted a “personal” army, something really unique. Each tank with a different layout, each infantry base with a personal touch.
In this first half of the US Late Army painting guide, we will see how to customize your tanks (they can be German or Russian, obviously) with some tricks and advice to have flags, sandbags, and nets where you want.
