Eastern Front

By David Garvin

Way back in 1974, Australian John Edwards released a game that remains popular to this very day. That game? The Russian Campaign. It was eventually picked up by Avalon Hill and later the L2 Design Group, worked over by such game designers as Don Greenwood, Richard Hamblen and Tom Gregario.

And as of early January, 2023, an incredible 5th edition is up for P500 at GMT Games. The hobby is filled with several games depicting the war on the Eastern Front, from the monsters “Fire in the East” by the Game Designers’ Workshop (GDW) and “Guderian’s Blitzkrieg II“, to more simple games such as “Blitzkrieg to Moscow II“.

There are of course games that cover certain aspects of the war, such as “Death Ride Kursk: Grossdeutschland“, “Stalingrad ’42” and “Panzer Battles: 11th Panzer on the Chir River“. These games all range from the Strategic to the Tactical. Yet among them all, one stands head and shoulders above the rest: the Russian Campaign

By David Garvin

With the 1977 release of , the wargaming world experienced an earthquake. The virtual tectonic plates didn’t just rattle; they shattered the gaming world!

The late , designer of Squad Leader, had developed a game like none other. Now gamers could re-fight various battles of the Second World War at such low tactical levels like never before! Not only did players get to move squads around, but also some individual and even key leaders!

Squad Leader spawned three successive games, (called gamettes by the designer); , and . These were later supplanted by Advanced Squad Leader, developed in great part by and .

By 1986, Advanced Squad Leader had released its revolutionary rule book as well as the first module in the system, . With the 2013 release of , pretty much every nation that fought in the war had a module covering its actions. And in 2017 with , the ASL universe had expanded into the Korean War.

by David Garvin

Sometime back in the mid 1980s, I went to my friend Stephen’s house for the weekend. He was one of the first people who had a personal computer. On it he had a game called War in Russia. It covered the Eastern Front in its entirety, and between the two of us, we spent hours on it, using its now quite-dated graphics. We were not strangers to games on this level; however, the designer, Gary Grigsby, found a way to have the battles resolved down to the lowest levels.

By Tom Burgess

Battlefront has released its Bagration German book.  I was interested and how, or even if, the Battlefront team could make a unique new book when so much of the standard German units seem already accounted for.  Though I was already quite content with the new book as is, it’s normally the Command Cards that take a new force book to the next level.  That is the case here as I think these new Bagration German Command Cards take an already excellent book product and knocked it out of the park with these new command cards.

Editorial Comment: We all know it will be a while before Battlefront gets around to updating every force and list to it’s Version 4 format. Far too often we see players lament that their forces are not “officially” represented in the rules yet. But in may cases, as Clive shows us with his ideas for Late War Romanians, there are many suitable analogs that, with a little thought, can let  player break out his waiting models and get in great gaming action. Even in “official” events, players could take Clive’s suggestions to expand their gaming opportunities with models they have now.

By Clive Henrick,

During the late war period, the Romanian army is far less than what it was at Stalingrad, but it can still mount a defense and with support do local counter-attacks. It’s more of a defense army at its heart with dogged defenders, good at counter-attacks, but not one that you would normally think off to clear the table of the enemy.

Even without a Late War Romanian 4th edition book, the flavor of the Romanian forces can still be captured in Late War Flames of War by using a combination of German D-Day book and the German D-Day Command Cards.

by Tom Burgess

After playing several city fights with the new Version 4 Mid War East Front lists, and I decided to turn our attention to more open field battles.

We set up an East Front looking table with few woods, wheat fields, a couple of built-up areas, and a rail line. We also increased the points we were playing at from 55 to 81 points as that’s what we’ll be playing at Advance the Colors in October.

By Players at the tourney: Johnny Vasquez, Justin Rodriguez, Hyato Tukakosi, Scott Miller and Tom Richards 

Photos by: Hyato Tukakosi and Troy Hill

Compiled by Troy Hill (Edited to include Justin R’s comments).

I recently organized the Pacific South-West regionals, a two-day, five-round FOW MW Tourney held at . No Dice No Glory and  sponsored the tourney (along with the Team Yankee tourney the day before).

Since the tournament occurred one week after BattleFront’s new books for the Eastern Front, Iron Cross and Enemy at the Gates hit the shelves, I allowed lists from the new books in the event.

Afterwards, I asked players to send in their thoughts to several questions about how the new forces affected the games they played. Below are their responses. The only editing I have done is for spelling and grammar, as well as organizing their comments by category.

Final Standings: Surprisingly, the top player fielded a force from Armoured Fist – a Death or Glory list. Another Brit list took fourth. Soviet lists were second, third, tenth and fourteenth. Germans bunched in the middle of the pack at fifth through eighth place, with one at eleventh. The fourth Soviet player, Ramses, is a younger new player in his first season of playing Flames of War. Give him some time to learn both the game and his army, and he’ll climb the ranks.

By Benny Christiansen

When you get your hands on not one, but two new books; and you have a chance to get a game squeezed in during the weekend, you have to make a priority list. What is the first thing you want to look at and test!?

For me, and my friends, it was the infantry. I am a big fan of infantry, and I love the way it can move and no longer just lie down and take punishment. They are, to me, a real asset now.

The German DAK book had left the Germans with a somewhat less than optimal infantry. I don’t play the Germans, but if the lists are less than optimal, fewer people will play them in tournaments, nor even in pick up games. So the new German book, Iron Cross, has been expected with great anticipation by players who field German Infantry. I find that the book has provided these players with a good source for good infantry choices.

by Tom Burgess

My good friend, Battle Buddy Ed, and I recently set up a City Fight game from the new Enemy at the Gates book. Ed brought his Soviets and I played Germans in “The Square” mission. The City Fight missions are played on small 3’ by 2’ boards so we decided to experiment with this new mission with 50 point forces. We also decided to keep this as an all infantry fight and agreed to take no tanks.

My Germans were based on a Grenadier Formation with an HQ, two midsize Grenadier platoons, an HMG attached to one of the Grenadier platoons, a full Assault Pioneer platoon, a four-tube 81mm mortar platoon, two 150mm infantry guns and a sniper.

By NDNG_Dane and Mitch Reed

Today, our resident Historian Dane takes a look at Street Fighting on the Eastern Front of WWII, and Mitch ties the real-life tactics into the new Flames of War (FOW) Eastern Front books.

During the summer of 1942, the German 4th Panzer Army and the 6th Army were given the task of capturing Stalingrad. These veteran soldiers were to learn a whole new level of urban fighting. The initial German offensive and invasion of Stalingrad started with 270,000 German military personnel, 500 tanks, 3,000 artillery pieces and 1,600 aircraft. The Soviet defenders included 187,000 military personnel, 400 tanks, 2,200 artillery pieces and 300 aircraft.