Village Games, May 19th, 2009 'Flames of War' Germans vs Soviets 1650 Point Battle

On Tuesday evening, I stopped by Village Games, the closest LGS to my abode. I specifically went to watch a match of Flames of War, a 15mm based WW2 miniatures game. It's produced by a Kiwi company, Battlefront Miniatures. I've been reading about this game for awhile and decided to go watch a match.

I don't recall the specific setting, but as you can see it is Germans vs Soviets. It was a 1650 point game between John and Josh, with John as the Germans and Josh as the Soviets. It was largely an armor and artillery duel, although Josh's IL-2s tried to hack out John's forces on several occasions, but didn't fare too well.

The mission of the game was for Josh's Soviet forces to occupy John's German objective markers and hold them for a turn.

Here are some photos and commentary of the battle.


This was the table used. I don't have a great angle in this shot of Josh's forces, but you can see them a bit further down the page. You can see John's tanks fording the river in the upper left, his Elefant concealed in the trees in the center, and his command element in the lower left, consisting of a command unit, a Kubelwagon, a radio truck (John: "Useless!") and of course three Wespe (or is it Wespen in the plural?). Anyhow, these locations would pretty much be solid throughout the game. John also had forces in reserve to enter later in the game. I don't recall the exact numbers, but I believe it included three more Wespe and at least three other tanks.

In this shot you can see John's two objective markers in the form of the two black dice. The first is of course in front of the Elefant. The unit to the right of the Elefant are his artillery spotters. These guys seem to have played a big part in the game play for John, and survived a fair bit of the game despite Josh's best efforts to destroy them. But they ultimately fell to Josh's guns after a bit of hedge trimming. The other objective marker is the dice in the field in the background, which can better be seen in perspective in the first photo.

This is a better shot of Josh's forces in the back right side and back center of the table. Tanks, tanks and lots more tanks. In other words, Soviets. Very soon these tanks will be in...rubble. You can also see Josh's burning Katyusha rocket launchers in the rear.

Josh's IL-2s attacking John's artillery/command element. On this combat turn, Josh really laid it in on John's forces, but it did little more than scratch the paint. I think everyone at that table thought John's forces here were in for a load of pain, but miraculously they all survived. I don't think Josh was thrilled with the Sturmovik's performances, although late in the game I believe they did manage to destroy a tank or two.

John is the guy on the left, Josh on the right. At this point in the game, Josh was a hurting unit. Much of his force lay in ruin as you can see by the fire/smoke markers on the table (although some are also burning German tanks).

Eventually Josh had little choice but to try and take the objective marker in the field. Unfortunately for him, John's six Wespe plus the Elefant on the hill were waiting for him. The outcome could not bode well for Josh. That's one brave Soviet tanker (or crazy, depending on your feelings on such matters). Comrade tanker is hereby awarded the Order of Lenin (or at least an Order of Glory 3rd Class).

And this is pretty much the end of the battle. I think Josh had a few tanks left on the board plus one Katyusha and some ground personnel left. John had lost several tanks, mostly late in the game, but still retained a fair bit of his forces. In the end, Josh conceded to John.

I am new to this game, but there were a few things that really hurt Josh's game. The destruction of his Katyusha artillery, which occured right off the bat, undoubtedly hurt his game. They could have potentially rained a lot of fire down on John's forces. The inability of his IL-2s to cause any real significant damage also didn't help matters. But, as everyone here is still pretty much learning the game, the thing that really hurt Josh was probably the failure to capture the objectives in a timely manner. Josh's forces remained static too long, with his game objective being to take the dice marked objectives. John essentially sat there and picked off Josh's forces. In the end, all of these factors (and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting) led to the near demise of Josh's force. I smell a rematch though; shall comrade tankers perform better the next time around? Perhaps...

All in all, it was a good intro for me as a FoW newb. Both players were very accommodating to me as a newb and were good sports. Next Tuesday I'm going back, and will possibly take part in the fun. Until then!