Flames of War

By Benny Christiansen

The typical Dane. Happy-go-lucky with a positive look at almost everything. Giving you a glimpse of the way the Danes do it.

In the first article, I focused on the Fog Of War cards in the game. In this article, I try to give you examples of how we play with the Flames of War (FOW) V4 rules. 

The Third Game of the day

Notice the minefields in the middle of the table. I wanted to ignore them

In the final game, I had the privilege to play against two of my dear friends, Helge and Lynge, who some of the ETC community may know. Helge is the Captain of the Danish FOW team and also a person who is involved in the ETC community for FOW. Lynge is a regular on the Danish ETC Team, and I see him as one of the best players in a tournament, as he never knows how to give up or give in.

Our games were to be two vs two players. In order to keep the number of players even and an equal number of Axis vs Allies, I had agreed to run two forces at a time. Against these two, I knew I was in for a challenge. I rarely win in games against Helge, and to play against Lynge and Helge at the same time… well… I decided that I would do my best, at least to give them as good a challenge as possible.

By Tom Burgess

“Battle Buddy” Ed and I had a chance to test out the new Avanti Mid War lists for Flames of War. As a diehard Italian player, Ed was particularly excited to get his miniatures on the table. We thought that the best test of the new Avanti Italians would be to throw them up against the dreaded British Crusader Horde.

Random selection gave us Dust Up as a mission. We gamed on a suitably open desert table. We chose to play at 71 points so I could also get some practice for Adepticon. Given that we were playing a fair fight on a fairly open board, I thought my chances were good.

By: Benny Christiansen

The typical Dane. Happy-go-lucky with a positive look upon almost everything. Giving you a glimpse of the way the Danes do it.

In these two articles I would like to present the Fog Of War cards used at the event and also, by going through the last game in detail, I try to give you examples of how we play with the V4 rules. 

In Denmark we have a concept called “Hygge.” Try to look it up, as the closest translation is probably “Cosy”, but that does not fully cover the meaning.

We try to keep the gaming community active by hosting one-day events, where the main focus is on meeting each other and playing. For this event, the guys in Aarhus (Denmark) had arranged one of those one-day events. The games were two vs two, with 1000 pts lists for each participant. Each game would be determined by Battle Plan Cards and then a dice to see which of the missions in the Battle Plan we would play.

Originally, I was paired with my friend Stephan. We agreed that we would field some fun lists. However, due to last-minute sign-ups,  I played as a solo-player with two lists of 1000 points alone. This way we had an equal number of teams on Axis and Allied side.

By Dennis Campbell AKA Matt Varnish

Photos by the Author

Here we have the 2nd game using the Italians out of AVANTI, this time versus the British ‘Desert Rats,’ Encounter, 71 points. Nothing like playing Desert armies when it is -40 something degrees outside! Chris Caron once again obliged me in being my opponent and hosting, this time playing the British, and he opted for a Combined Arms approach, as he usually does, with an Infantry formation, an Armoured formation, and some Artillery support.

Brit 25 pdrs, 2 on the hill, 2 off for maximum visibility, he had no OP

By Dennis Campbell AKA Matt Varnish

Photos by the Author (apart from the propaganda poster, and images by BattleFront from Avanti)

NOTE:  Preview of AVANTI & Video Battle Report is at the end of this article.

I was keen to try out the new Italians out of the AVANTI book, and my good friend Chris Caron obliged by hosting an impromptu game on a weeknight! We agreed on the 2018 Mid-War 71pts, as we are going to be attending Canadian Nationals in September 2018. We rolled Free-for-All, both of us were using forces with 1 Infantry, 1 Tank formation in each, so I rolled highest and was the Attacker. While Chris’ list is from the Afrika Korps book, he has awesome Eastern front paint jobs:

8-Rads Spearhead to allow his AA halftracks good shots at my infantry. This would force me to use the town for my advance

In our second podcast we review and spoil the new Flames of War book Avanti which brings the Italians into the Mid-War fold.