Rolling Towards Arnhem

We got in a large FoW game this last week with 2500 points per side, Brits versus Germans. This was my second game of Flames of War with my own forces, and only my fourth game overall. There's so many things I still don't know about the rules, which is probably because I don't have a rulebook, but it's an easy enough game to learn on the fly.

I'm a bit behind in my posting, well really there were just a lot of other posts already queued up, so chances are you've already seen this battle over at Little Lead Heroes. It's not really double-dipping though, different cameras, different summaries, et al.


We played the Roadblock scenario right of the rulebook. Did I mention I don't have a rulebook yet? Anyway, the scenario lent itself well to the forces we had on hand and played it out somewhere on Hell's Highway between Nijmegen and Arnhem itself.

The table layout was great and really put them game over the top. A platoon of British Shermans started the game on board, but unfortunately so did a pair of German 88's. They got a surprise round of firing to represent the ambush, and knocked out three of the four starting tanks on the British side. This locked up the remaining tank since they were without a lead tank. They could only pivot in place and shoot, normally not the worst situation, but it was also partially behind one of the houses, so it's arc was limited.


Another good reason to check out the sister batrep is because I took way too many photos of my tanks and not enough of the rest of the battle! You can't blame me though. Here are the two tank platoons that started the game on the road.


Before and (ka-blam) after...


Dug in and deadly, the German 88's


The British had their tanks on the board, but off-board they had seven dice of air support, which is above average I think, plus a couple of units of Sexton self-propelled artillery. It was weird because the Sextons weren't actually on the board, but their Sherman observers were. Nonetheless, the British artillery seemed to play a larger role than the Shermans themselves, and I know the air support did which was kind of nice given that air support is kind of abstract in the rules anyway. Between both the British planes and artillery they were able to hammer on the Germans to some effect. One of the 88's went down, as did a couple of the Panzer IV's that came rolling onto the table as well.


On the other side of the board a fresh platoon of Shermans rolled on, taaking cover behind a copse of trees. In the distance you can see German halftracks rolling in as well. The objective on this side of the table was about to get hotly contested. This was a good thing since it seemd that Germans were going to roll up the other objective.

German Sd.Kfz. 251's, ready to unlimber their PaK 40 anti-tank guns


I learned a lot in this game, mainly about my own forces. First off, I could've/should've/would've brought on my squadron HQ platoon with any of the reinforcements. I didn't know I could do the same thing with my warrior I brought along, Señor Vandeleur, and he came on very late in the game, probably too late.

Other things, hmm, air support is cool, rolling for reinforcements each turn...not so cool. Also there were three players controlling the British, and I learned that some players choose tactics and strategies I would've never dreamed of, for better or for worse. I learned I need to learn...the rules and that FoW ain't too shabby of a game. Most of all it left me wanting some more and thinking about what I'm going to paint up next for my Guards Armored force.