Gaming Saturday with Flames of War

Unlike last week, this Saturday was a full day of gaming. I got two games in today which is quite an accomplishment. I’ve decided to write about each game separately in case anyone wants to comment on a particular game. The first game was Flames of War which I have been anxious to play since the release of second edition.

Rather than play a standard even points tournament mission, I decided to create a scenario because I was recently musing about how tournament games often do not produce games that feel “historical”. This scenario is adapted a Combat Interactive article from the September, 2006 issue of Armchair General magazine. Combat Interactive articles describe a situation and then ask the reader to choose a course of action after which the article goes on to describe what the proper choice was.

In this scenario a Tiger tank and some supporting infantry must stop over 10 T-34 tanks. I wanted to create a scenario that was smaller than “average size” (1,500 points in Flames of War) because I thought it would be a nice scenario for those who are just starting to build armies. Which, in the case of the Soviets, includes me! I only have one infantry company painted and you normally need two in an army.

The game lasted a little under two hours and was very close. The Soviets managed to capture the objective and it was physically impossible for the Germans to contest it during their turn to the only hope the Germans had was to kill enough to force the Soviets into a company morale check which they would hopefully fail…WHICH THEY DID! Resulting in a narrow victory for the Germans.

You can download the PDF of the mission and give it a try. Let me know what you think.