Peter and I played out a fun game of Flames of War this evening, but boy did we make a lot of mistakes. We played the Free for All mission, which is thankfully pretty straightforward. The game was set in Italy in October 1943, just north of the Volturno. Peter fielded a 3rd Infantry Division force from the Dogs and Devils book with three infantry platoons, one of which was an assault platoon, a platoon of 105mm artillery, 8cm mortars and a platoon of Priests (armoured artillery). I went with a Gepanzerte Panzergrenadier army from Fortress Europe that comprised two mechanised infantry platoons, four Panzer IV Hs, two StuGs and a battery of Nebelwerfers.
The first mistake we make was with the terrain – there wasn’t enough of it. This really encouraged a static battle as neither side was willing to slog across the battlefield. I managed to perform a mounted assault on the left flank, but that was only because I had the terrain to maneauvre around.
The next mistake we made was forgetting to dig in with the artillery on the first turn. As this the mission had the Mobile Battle rule they did little else on the first turn, so we should have gotten them dug in.
We made other silly mistakes. When my Panzers hit the Priests, as the Priests’ armour couldn’t stop the shot we forgot to make the Firepower checks to determine if they were bailed out or destroyed. Instead we simply marked them as destroyed!
We took our time on the assault on the left, but forgot that defensive fire can pin a mounted assault as the platoon is mixed.
In the end my shooting routed Peter’s three artillery platoons and the infantry I assaulted quit the field (despite winning the assault). My assaulting platoon quit the field as it failed the Sole Survivor morale check. The game ended in a Victory Point win to me.
Next time we’ll play with fewer mistakes and with more terrain!
Owen