FoW Firestorm Stalingrad Campaign day at D6 Games

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.

The city fighting rules are of course from the new midwar books. This was a bit of an adjustment to pretty much all the players, but that also meant that everyone was on an equal footing.

For the city tables, we set up much larger spaces with the idea that players would set the area for the action based on the mission. They would between the two of them make a die roll at the table to choose between the 4 city fighting missions that are in the books.

This sort of worked, though, with a bunch of terrain moved around on the fly. We probably should have just had dedicated tables to certain city missions ahead of time, but these are things that you learn as you put on an event like this.

For the country tables, we went with something a bit more historical trying to opt for more open ground as was the case in the area. That’s not to say it was totally open as it wasn’t. We did make sure there was cover, trees and so on but I still wanted a Soviet countryside feel.

For pairings, both sides elected an overall General, who had the decision making power over the big map. They would select a zone, city or country, and then offer up a player.

As is the case for the firestorm campaign, depending on the campaign-round either side might have a die roll and on a 3+ they’d get to make the selection, otherwise, the other side was in the driver’s seat. On offering up a player, the defender would select one of their ranks and then the defender would have to decide if they were doing a static defense or a counter attack.

Overall this system worked well, and unlike a normal tournament, you’d have situations where sometimes stronger players were on stronger players or sometimes weaker players all depending on which side was risking what. This made for some great team dynamics as each side would know about the critical games going on as certain locations were being battled for.

 

 

 

 

For the first round, the Russians attacked to the south and the Germans worked to break the stranglehold on Stalingrad. In addition, there were two city fights set.

 

Round 1

End of round 1. The Russians win two of the city fights, win the western country fight and are able to successfully defend on the south side of Stalingrad as the Germans try to loosen the grip around Stalingrad. The Germans are meanwhile successful in defending and pushing north of Stalingrad.

Round 2

For round 2 the Russians decided to try to keep the western encirclement going. Likewise, the Germans decided to continue to try and put the focus on removing the pressure around Stalingrad. In the city, both the Germans and Russians initiated a single city battle.

For the 2nd round, the German counterattack was largely successful. On the far west of the map, the Germans not only won their defense battle but their counterattack roll pushed the Russians back. All around Stalingrad the Russians were pushed away. In the city, there was one German victory and the other match was a draw.

However, out in the country, one Russian attack was successful, and for round 3, the Russians would have the opportunity to attack into the zone worth 5vp.

Round 3

Referencing the map about, out in the countryside the Russians were going to attack to regain their ground to encircle Stalingrad. Within Stalingrad itself, this time there were three city fights queued up. At this point, the victory points were leaning towards the Germans but neither side had within Stalingrad had reached a milestone. With the campaign rules, when a milestone is reached it increases the victory type by one level in your favor.

And there it is, the final results.  The last phase of the campaign, the Russians really were able to pour it on, winning all 3 city fights, and two of the country fights including the clutch 5 victory point zone south and west of Stalingrad.

The Russian team was but a few victory points away from a complete runaway victory.

Summary

I do highly recommend this firestorm campaign as a store event. Do work with your store and Battlefront to see if you can get a copy. You’ll have a great time. You don’t have to do it all in a day but if you can get the numbers I sure recommend it!!

For the city battles, we recommend some tuning like going to a 4×4 play area instead of the smaller defined play areas for the missions. Generally, use the mission ideas, yes, but we were finding that because of the small map size deployment was extremely critical, reinforcements were critical, and that resulted in a very unforgiving tactical environment for the city matches.