Sno-King Krieg Spielers

Flames of War Demo Games
25th May, 2002 at Enfilade Miniatures Convention

Introduction

To show case the upcoming Flames of War rules, I painted up four armies with the grand idea of running two games during each of the three Saturday gaming periods at our local historical gaming convention. Each army was roughly 1000 pts and I expected each game to take about 1 - 2 hours.

Putting on two separate battles at the same time was my first problem. Believing each game would last 1-2 hours was my second mistake. The problem with two games, was that there was only one of me! I had to keep jumping back and forth between games, which slowed down each game. In hindsight, I (and the gamers) would have been better served with one large game that accommodated two players a side.

The 1-2 hours per game was also overly optimistic ... this is a convention and they were new gamers to the system ... the result, every game took over 2 hours to play. So each game was to long, so as to get in another game in the session and not long enough to fill up the game period. Other than the above, things went surprisingly smooth.

Eastern Front - Defense Scenario

The Russians were defending with two reduce rifle companies, an AT Platoon, ATR Platoon, and a Mortar Platoon. They started dug in and had minefields blocking the German Advance. The Germans would have for the attack two Panzer Grenadier Platoons (One reduced), 251/9 75mm Support Platoon & Pz IV Tank Platoon. Unfortunately, I was not able to test this one out beforehand, and found that I needed to make some changes to it.

Unfortunately, the first game did not go so well for the Soviets. Basically, once they lost their two AT guns (The ATR rifles being useless versus the Pz IV's), the Germans were able to move the SdKfz 251/9 up to the Pz IV's and blast the Russian lines. Even though they were dug in, the Russian infantry ended up being picked off one by one. Not really much fun for the Russian player.

So to spice up the game, the German player decided to attack across the minefields, and perform a mounted close assault with a Pz Grenadier Platoon versus some Russians hiding out in the woods. He only lost one half track while crossing the minefield. The Russians infantry was unable to take out any halftracks or infantry (really bad die rolling on his part) as a result the Germans were able to kick them out of the woods pretty easily. The Russian player conceded after this event, I believe the Germans lost two stands ... total

I made some changes for the second game. I snagged three SU-76's from a friend and substituted them out with the mortar and ATR platoons. This had a big impact on the next game as the AT guns and SU-76's were able to duel it out with the Pz IV's. During the second game, the Pz IV's and SU-76's basically destroyed each other, though the last SU-76 made its morale check and stuck around. The German player was hard pressed to attack in this game. Most of the infantry eventually bailed out of the half tracks and took refuge in the low lying marsh while the above duel of "Titans" was raging on.

The Russian player getting cocky, advanced one of his rifle companies out of their entrenchment's. This turned out to be a very bad move, as the Germans still had enough firepower to eliminate two thirds of the company before it was in assault range of the German grenadiers. The Germans than counter attached out of the swamp towards the last rifle company holding out in the woods. They to had a difficult time with the assault and suffered several casualties, though they were able to kick the Russians out of the woods. Unfortunately for the Germans, the Russian commander passed all his company and battalion morale checks. The same cannot be said for the Germans, not only did they fail several platoon morale checks, they failed the company morale check on the first go, forcing the Grenadiers to retire from the field. In the end, this turned out to be the closest game of them all. One SU-76 and nine stands of infantry is all that remained of the Russians force.

The third game was even more of a whitewash than the first (surprisingly neither player seemed to mind). Mainly this was because of the German's preliminary bombardment. Not only did the German hot dice the Russian player, the Russian players saving rolls were terrible! He lost seven stands from one company alone! Though it was losing the one AT gun and two SU-76's that really sealed their fate. To top that off, he brought out the AT and SU-76 (on different turns) under the ambush deployment rules, only to lose them both with out taking out a single vehicle!

This was the last game of the night and to me it seemed to drag on and on ... the German player slowly but surely systematically eliminated several Russian stands each turn. The only German loss came from a failed close assault. IMO it was painful to watch let alone play, and worried this game was really going to put off the players from FoW. But neither player seemed to mind and they both looked forward to the release of the rules ... go figure :)

Western Front - Counter Attack Scenario

This scenario was to be a German counter attack against the Americans in the first couple of weeks of the Normandy campaign. The American had two full strength Rifle Platoons, Reduced Weapons Platoon, Tank Platoon and a Battery of 105's. The Germans started with one reduced Rifle Platoon with attached mortar section, HMG Platoon and 50mm AT Gun section. Another reduced rifle platoon and a Jagdpanzer IV detachment were to be used as the counter attacking force arriving later in the game. I was able to play this one before the convention, so had a better idea on what would happen. Interesting enough only one game was close, the other two were major victories for each side.

	The first game was clearly a German victory. The American player made two very fundamental mistakes. First he drove his sermons straight up the gut of the German defense, with out waiting for any infantry support. The German AT guns immediately brewed up two of them, the remaining tanks having had enough, retreated off the table (probably did not stop until they hit the UTAH beachhead!). The second mistake was to rush the HMG platoon across open ground!!! Enough said ... the German reserves easily rolled over the remaining rifle weapons platoon. Especially since the player seemed disinclined to use his artillery.
The second game was a pretty close affair, The German were very hard pressed in this one, as their reserves ending up arriving very late in the game. In the end the American had enough troops to occupy the two buildings but were not able to get to the bridge. The key to this one for the Americans was there ability to get around the flank of the German MG's & AT guns with a couple of sermons With a few stands of infantry support, the tanks were able to systematically destroy the few remaining Mg's and AT gun with in a couple of turns. Though this did expose the flanks of the sermons to the oncoming JagdPz IV ...
	In the third game, I suspect the American player had watched a couple of the games. As he picked up the game system very quickly and had a pretty good idea on what to in the scenario. For one, he did NOT run the Sermons straight up the road. He moved them behind one the advancing rifle platoons on the right flank. Second he kept the other rifle platoon just out of sight of the Mg's and AT guns. He then crept the FO of the 105's up and began a bombardment of the German positions. This lasted for three turns, after which only one MG and a Command stand remained! The waiting rifle platoon had no problem gaining the second building and running off the remnants of the German Mg's Platoon.
On his right flank, he advance and engaged the German rifle platoon with the sermons and weapons platoon. Though he was not able to inflict many casualties, he did keep the Germans pinned down. He seemed to get tired of pinning the Germans, so launched a close assault on them. Miraculously the Germans held and threw back the Americans ... once. On the second assault the Americans rolled over them and were only stopped by the just arrived reinforcements. Unfortunately the untouched Sherman platoon was in perfect position to ambush the JagdPz IV ... once they were eliminated the remaining beat up German rifle Platoon abandon the field.

Except for one gamer, all of the other players indicated that they enjoyed the game and looked forward to its release. They found the game system easy to pick up and easy to play. Most were initially interested in the game because of the game scale as they had not found one which suited them as of yet.

Regards,

John Kennedy
Military Miniatures USA