Tag: Rules

March To The Sound Of The Guns: Crunching The Numbers

With Chris Allen

When most Western armies conduct warfare they support movement with fires, providing artillery support and other fires to assist manoeuvre. The Soviet Army has always seen things differently and supports fires with manoeuvre. Utilizing massed artillery and the devastating effects that they can deliver to an enemy force they reinforce artillery success with unit movement. Simply put, the Soviet army doesn’t go anywhere without artillery. Lots of artillery.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is especially true in WWIII:Team Yankee.

When Red Thunder I was released I was excited to get to put down even more artillery for my Soviet force with the release of the 2S3 Acacia. Now with WWIII: Soviets dropping I’m even more excited by the addition of two new artillery units. I’m a huge fan of MLRS systems and have long advocated for the humble BM-21 as an amazing sleeper unit in Soviet forces. Many people write it and other MLRS off due to their low firepower. But with about 2.8 times the area coverage of an artillery template, they can cover a shocking number of stands. With the release of WWIII: Soviets players are offered the opportunity to include both the BM-27 Uragan and the TOS-1 Buratino MLRS systems, and the sky is about to fall.

All Soviet Formations with the exception of the Air Assault Battalion have the option to take a 2S1 battery. This gives players an amazing base artillery system that can also act as an assault gun with a direct fire AT 21 gun. The 2S1 is the artillery equivalent of a Swiss Army knife. It can do it all.

From here Soviet players have the most diverse and numerous artillery support options in the game. There are four boxes of artillery support available to Soviet commanders, an additional 2S1 battery, a 2S3 battery, an MLRS battery of either BM-21s or BM-27s and the option to take a TOS-1 battery in addition to the ubiquitous BMP-1 OP. A single formation has 5 artillery platoons available to it:  fires supported by manoeuvre.

So what do these two new systems bring us? As you can see from the support chart above, you get an extra salvo option, allowing players to drop two salvos a turn on the enemy with either a BM-21 or BM-27 salvo, and a TOS-1 salvo going down range at the enemy. The second thing it brings players is more firepower. The BM-27 is the BM-21s big brother and brings with it AT 4, enabling it to bail and damage vehicles regularly, and FP 3+ to dig out infantry teams more reliably. The BM-27 also has minelets which give Soviet players a fantastic board control option. The TOS-1 brings the heat. With its thermobaric warheads the TOS-1 has a FP of AUTO and with brutal forces all teams hit to reroll saves. It is an infantry deletion machine, and it’s armoured so ignores pinning and can consistently survive small arms fire.

So what is all of this artillery here to do? I would argue there are two basic tasks for artillery in a Soviet list: they dig out infantry, and they cover your force.

Digging out infantry is nothing new to players and is the common reason to take artillery. But while many other armies will take artillery to pin infantry so that they can be assaulted, this commonly isn’t the case for Soviet infantry or tanks. Facing facts, Soviet forces aren’t great at assaulting generally speaking. But they don’t need to be. Here Soviet doctrine calls for the use of “Posledovatel’ Noye Sosredotocheniy Ognya” or successive fire concentrations to neutralise, by artillery fire,the enemy in proximity to motor rifle and tank units.

Soviet doctrine is clear that the breakthrough is the least preferred situation, and that the meeting engagement or pursuit is dramatically more advantageous to Soviet forces. So what does this have to do with artillery? Manoeuvre supports fires. Soviet artillery is there to force people to move or die in place. With the quantity and quality of artillery and salvo fire you can put down on a position, there is no infantry force in the game that can simply sit and take it. This forces your opponent to move, changing the situation to a pursuit, something tanks and the Motor Rifle companies excel at exploiting.

So how good is Soviet artillery at digging out infantry? The simple answer is with the new MLRS systems, it just got better. Soviet players can trust that military scientists have applied great efforts to compile the following algorithm table.

The above table gives you % chance to kill a given dug in team under a template, along with the average number of teams required under a template to destroy a dug in team. The TOS-1 doesn’t have stats for normal or 6 gun bombardments because teams hit by it always reroll saves.

So how can you use a table like this? You can use it both in designing your list and during a game when faced with an enemy position. When you’re designing your list you can use.

these tables to help you prepare for situations you think are likely. Take every player’s nightmare, the British Infantry platoon. With 9 teams it’s hefty, it’s skilled and it’s covered in weapons. Even if you manage to assault them, they’ll more than likely assault back and kill more of you than you did of them. So instead of going in, burn them out. With a six gun battery of 2S3s and 3 TOS-1s hitting the position, how long does a platoon last? If you sited the TOS-1 on the objective to start and the Brits dug in there, you can expect to kill just under 1 out of 3 teams. The 2S3s wiill kill around 1 out of 5 teams as you range it in and then subsequent turns will kill 1 out of 3. This would average killing 4 teams on the first turn, and while the number drops each turn, so does the number of survivors. This essentially removes the platoon in 3 turns. So either they sit and take it or they move, at which point your vehicles move in and gun them down (the pursuit), or just take the objective.  Either way, artillery wins you the day.

The thing to note about artillery is that against any given target it provides diminishing results. Unlike a tank’s main gun or a machine gun, artillery has no rate of fire but instead has a template. This means that unless an opponent feeds your artillery more units to drop bombs on, a battery firing at any point should kill fewer and fewer each turn. Killing fewer of the enemy can seem like a bad thing, but when it’s because there are fewer alive to kill, it can be forgiven. Again, artillery makes someone die in place, or move to be gunned down on the run. Let them make that choice.

Covering a Soviet force in the advance is critical to success. NATO and other opposing forces need to attrite a Soviet force prior to it becoming decisively engaged. Soviet forces need the cover that only their artillery can provide in the advance, the defence and while on the objective. It is possible to cover a Soviet force in three ways, through concealment to fire, by fires and by providing counter mobility. You can fire smoke to cut off the enemy from shooting you; you can lay down fires where the enemy wants to go to force them to go somewhere else; or, you can drop mines on them and have them stay a while, and think about what they’ve gotten themselves into.

While terrain can assist in the concealment of a force, there is seldom a situation where it alone can provide the cover that is provided. Where the ground may fail you, artillery will not. A 3 or 6 gun battery can provide you with between 12 and 24 inches of smoke. A single battery can block off between half and a third of the table. Two batteries can basically block off the enemy’s line of sight. Smoke should reside in and be used by all Soviet forces. It helps a Soviet player shape the battlefield, and the enemy, pushing them with fear and metal from their defensive positions to new locations.

Smoke can be used to cut off fires, commonly by placing it close to your force in order to ensure that units don’t come within 6 inches to be able to fire on you. You can however use this to bait aggressive enemies into coming out of cover to shoot. By placing the smoke bombardment close to the enemy positions you can dare them to come out of cover to shoot at your forces. This can often allow you to shoot back at targets now in the open and closer to you. Smoke forces your opponent to choose between bad options and for this reason alone should be employed where possible.

While smoke cuts an enemy’s shooting off from affecting Soviet forces, there are other ways you can cover your advance. Soviet doctrine calls for the use of “nepodvizhnyy zagraditel’nyy ogon’”, or standing barrages to obstruct the movement of the enemy.  Salvo fires are amazing in that they take up a huge amount of space. 100 square inches of coverage allows a player to block off routes to objectives with salvo fire. Few infantry unitswant to risk running through the fire to help an objective in danger, and now with the BM-27 bringing AT 4, few vehicles will join in that risk. If your cutoff fires are ranged in before the enemy arrives, you’ll have the added benefit of using repeat bombardments and any infantry teams hit will be rerolling saves. Artillery and Salvo cutoffs are rarely thought about as we often try and range in on where something is and not where it will be or where it needs

to go. Using this cunningly will again shape the enemy and make their destruction that much easier.

The BM-27 Uragan now adds the options to drop mines on the enemies of Socialism, forcing enemy vehicles to either hold in place, risk moving or wait for infantry or specialist vehicles to extract them from the minefield. Few of these options end both well and quickly. Usually players have the choice between the two. In every situation Soviet artillery forces the enemies of Socialism to make choices that expose them and enable your manoeuvre forces to exploit.

Overall the new artillery available to Soviet players is exciting. First off it just looks cool. A T-72 driving around with a bank of 30 220mm rockets on top? Yes please. Secondly it just fits the army, its huge, numerous and brutal. And thirdly it’s fun to play. It all comes together in a scary amount of firepower that can now be wielded with careful planning and consideration to ensure Soviet objectives are reduced prior to arrival or protected from the scourge of capitalism.

See you on the firing line.

~Chris

The Boxer vs The Bruiser Comparing the M1 Abrams with the T-80

With Joe Saunders

On the World War III: Team Yankee battlefield the undisputed top predator is the M1 Abrams and its variants. With a front armour value of 18 ranging to 21 and a main gun AT rating of 20 for the 105mm, or 23 for the 120mm, the Abrams hits hard and can soak up massive amounts of punishment. This is made even better by a Hit On rating of 4+ and an amazing remount of 2+. But this battlefield titan is not unstoppable.

The main tactic for Warsaw Pact and Soviet players to take these machines down was always to go with quality over quantity. An M1A1HC for instance costs 18 points compared to a T-64 which costs 4.3 points. This means that the Warsaw Pact can put at least 4 T-64s on the table to every one M1A1HC. This solution however is imperfect for World War III players. Sometimes you want to play a small elite force, or the wallet just won’t let you buy the 20 T-55AMs (and the paint) you would need to begin to equal the points your opponent would spend on 4 M1 Abrams (the basic model). This has traditionally left the gamers who want to play forces of the more communist variety at a loss…until now. With the new core set and the World War III: Soviet book you can get your hands on the T-80. This marvelous tank, while remaining most definitely Soviet in design and application, has what it takes to go toe to toe with the M1 Abrams. Let’s take a closer look.

Background

The Warsaw Pact forces of the 70s and 80s were set on a very specific type of battlefield doctrine that caused the form of their tanks to follow the function of their strategy. This resulted in lighter, smaller, though heavily armed main battle tanks that did not match the size of western behemoths like the M1 or Leopard 2. Part of this was the recognition that the communist forces would maintain the edge in terms of numbers through vast armies of conscript troops.  This necessitated simple designs that were faster and cheaper to make and more easily crewed by troops with less training. Moreover, these tanks such as the T-72, were intended for widescale export so they skimped on technology in favour of ease of maintenance as they could be put in service in remote locations ranging from the desert to the artic, far from technical support.  The T-80 however was a partial divergence from this trend. Initially, not intended for export, the T-80 was loaded with the current innovations in armoured warfare, while still staying true to the Soviet strategy of having smaller more numerous tanks. The T-80, though it looks superficially like other Soviet tanks of the time, has better armour (supplemented be Explosive Reactive Armour- ERA) and a gas turbine engine that gave it outstanding speed. For armament it had the same autoloaded 125mm gun of its less technical T-64 and T-72 brothers, but it had the option for using the latest generation of gun barrel launched anti-tank missiles.

The Stats

The T-80 has the stats to contend with the other NATO tanks. The front armour of 20 outclasses all iterations of the M1 except the M1A1HC which only edges it out by 1 point. Because of this, it can definitely take a punch! (The Abrams, only has one point better in side armour too.) The T-80’s side armour has ERA making it side armour 16 against HEAT weapons.  This puts it neck in neck with the M1’s Chobham armour which also has a side armour rating of 16 against HEAT weapons (Though passengers can’t ride on tanks with ERA, because they would be blown up when the ERA goes off!)

In terms of mobility both tanks are the same in all respects and both sport advanced stabilizers for 14-inch tactical moves and have a cross of 2+. I imagine that this similarity is due to the fact that both have gas turbine engines and represent the pinnacle of tank automotives for both major super powers in the mid 80s.

This brings us to firepower, which is where these tanks diverge. The M1’s main gun can be a 105mm or 120mm canon depending on the variant and both are very good guns. They have 2 dice of shooting whether they are stationary or not, have a high AT, a range of 40 inches, and 2+ firepower. The 120mm in particular has a whopping AT of 23 due to it having cutting edge, fin stabilized depleted uranium long rod penetrator rounds! But this canon is very much maximized for anti-tank work. On the anti-troop side, the M1 comes in a little light at 5 dice of machine guns. The T-80 is different in the weapons department with a much more diverse armament. The 125mm Soviet gun has a range of 32”, rate of fire of one (whether moving or not) the brutal rating, and is AT 22 and a firepower of 2+. This makes it equally deadly against both infantry and armoured vehicles.  The lower rate of fire makes the T-80 maybe slightly less competent in destroying armour… but wait, there is also the barrel launched Sniper missile! This AT 22, fire power 3+, Guided, HEAT weapon can reach out to 48 inches (with a minimum range of 16 inches) actually giving the T-80 a longer reach than the Abrams. Being the pinnacle of anti-tank weapons for the Soviets, this missile has the Tandem Warhead rule. This means that thought the Sniper Missile is a HEAT weapon, armours such as Chobham, Bazooka skirts etc. do not cause a boost in side armour ratings. So, go ahead and shoot an M1A1HC or Leopard 2 in the side armour with this missile and you can have that satisfaction of going straight to the firepower test!

Training

So far, we have seen that the technical details make the T-80 pretty close to the other NATO MBTS but there is a difference and that boils down to training. As we discussed earlier in the article, the Warsaw Pact doctrine in the 80s was to rely on large numbers of conscript troops and use numbers to overwhelm their adversaries.  The values on the T-80’s unit card represent this. The Hit on Number is 3+, Skill is 5+. These numbers are not so favourable compared to the typical NATO ratings. The American tanks for instance are hit on a 4+ and have a skill of 4+. The difference is represented in the points values with the T-80 running at about 7.3 points each where the comparable NATO tanks cost more. Because of this the Warsaw Pact forces will always have a slight edge in numbers because of the decrease in training. The lower Hit On value may also not be such a serious issue. With the armour ratings on the T-80 being up there with the NATO MBTS, you can compensate for the lower hit on number by keeping your opponents to the front and relying on the tank’s considerable manoeuvrability.

There is also another option to adjust for the T-80’s decreased stats… you can go elite. The T-80 Shock Company in the new Team Yankee: Soviet book represents the best Soviet Tankers of the time and this brings both the statistics and points costs into line with most NATO armies. The Hit On number goes to a respectable 4+ and the skill goes to an excellent 3+. (This opens up a lot of new options, but since the T-80 Shock Company is fairly different from other Soviet Formations and will be covered in a separate article.)

Other Considerations

So far, we have looked at the statistics, but there is another, real world, consideration with the T-80.  By Soviet standards it is worth a lot of points! This means that for a World War III Team Yankee player that is either new to the hobby or who is on a budget, they can get to the 100-point limit fairly quickly by purchasing or painting fewer tanks. 10 T-80s is 79 points. (89 points if you give them missile upgrades.) That is just 2 boxes of models. Previously Soviet players would have to have relied on T-64s which would require at least another whole box with maxed out upgrades to get into the same ballpark points wise. So, if you are new to the game or just getting up to speed with a Soviet force, T-80s are your first choice to get not only modern options to take on NATO players, but also to get a bunch of points on the table with fewer (but seriously cool looking) models.

Time to Unleash The T-80

In this brief tour of the T-80 and how it stacks up to the M1 Abrams we have touched on the similarities and differences between these mighty machines. Now you should have a clear picture of just what the T-80, as a new battlefield predator, can offer the Soviet player in Team Yankee. All that remains is to get your Warsaw Pact Forces together and go forth to destroy the decadent and corrupt capitalists!

Battle for The Concrete Jungle – City Fighting in Flames Of War

With Joe Saunders

With the launch of Bagration: Soviet a lot of the upcoming focus in Flames Of War will be centred on the Festerplatz– the fortified cities that Hitler had set up while the German forces were in retreat from late 1943 until the Allies finally entered the German heartland.  These cities were converted with bunkers, fortifications, minefields and dozens of other cunning defensive measures.  The intent was for the Russian advance to be stalled against these cities so the Red Army could be pinned down and counter attacked by Axis forces.  In truth the Festerplatz strategy did not work well.  Frequently the cities were surrounded, lines of supply were cut and the inhabitants had to fight in prolonged sieges with no hope for victory.  This history, though grim, makes a great topic for us to use the Flames Of War City Fighting ruleset.  So, if fighting house to house in desperate close quarters among the ruins of a great metropolis sounds like a fun challenge (In 15mm scale, not real life) read on!

The City Fighting rules for Flames Of War were introduced for Mid-War in Enemy at The Gates.

You can check out the rules in Mikes article here…

If you have not used these rules I encourage you to check them out.  The City Fighting rules are a small addition in terms of pages of instructions, but add a tremendous new level of tactics and weapon effects to the game.  In my regular games group, we enjoy these rules so much we switched to the City Fighting City Building rules for every game that has buildings in it (which is all of them)!

Check out the City Ruins in our Online Store here…

I hear you say “this sounds good but I don’t have any city ruins or buildings in my terrain collection.”  Don’t worry…there are a large assortment of options made for Flames Of War and the new City Ruins boxed set has just been released.  It has enough terrain in it for an entire city block (I will be getting back to this in future articles)! This amazing set, which is great value, will let you get playing in the concrete hell of urban warfare fast.

So how does City Fighting work and what is different?  Let’s take a look.

Fighting in the Streets

First of all, cities have streets and in a war zone the streets are cluttered with rubble and made of concrete and brick.  This means City Fighting is often done entirely in difficult terrain and troops cannot dig in.   This presents a host of new and interesting tactical options where cover is not as easy to come by in the open.

City Buildings

Buildings in urban areas can be huge, which requires some different rules.  Within a City Fight building you can have several “rooms” which also extend upwards encompassing any floors overhead.  When battling in these buildings you need to move and fight room to room and it is possible to have several units from both sides fighting to occupy a building!  Because of the nature of the close and cluttered conditions inside a building, bulletproof cover and concealment abounds and assaulting teams can claim bulletproof cover when they charge!  I think it is needless to say assault-oriented troops become crucial in urban battles.  If you enjoy the decisive brutality of the assault step in Flames Of War, then the City Fighting rules are sure to become a favourite for you!

Note: the contents of the City Ruins boxes have changed slightly since this original document was put together

Check out the City Ruins in our Online Store here…

Barrage Weapons

Artillery is always very important in your plan to achieve victory and it remains the same in City Fighting but with some minor differences.  Because buildings are enclosed spaces, rather than attacking everything under a template, the target is selected by room (and also adjacent rooms for Salvo weapons).  The most drastic effect on artillery however is the likelihood that you will want to use a lot of direct fire from your big guns because of how the Brutal rule works with city buildings (see below).

Brutal Weapons

As World War II ground on it became quite common for commanders on all sides to bring in the big guns and howitzers to simply demolish buildings with the enemy inside them!  In Flames Of War City Fighting this means that when anything with the Brutal rule causes a hit you add a further 1d6 to the number!  A brutal weapon when it hits could actually cause damage up to 7 times!  If you find your Brumbars, AVRE Churchills, Sherman 105s and 122mm canons sitting out of games don’t worry…they are about to become very important!

Flame Throwers 

The devastating effects of flame throwers probably don’t need much explanation.  In the close spaces of the city where cover is everywhere, rerolling saves and auto firepower becomes so effective that you will want a healthy dose of flame throwers in every army. I know I always take the Demolitions Experts command card on my American Rifle platoons (which replaces 1 rifle stand with a flame thrower) and if you have any Churchill Crocodiles you will want to bring them along!

Scenarios

Though the City Fighting rules can easily be added to any game of Flames Of War, some scenarios, usually played on a smaller board size, are available for urban warfare.  This tend to be a very aggressive fast paced type of game which might be a nice change from the long-range slug fests that can sometimes play out.  Also, because tanks are limited in their maneuverability in cities, building army lists for City Fighting can become quite different from regular games.  More often than not you will want to rely on infantry with tank-based support for your games rather than the other way around! If you are planning any campaigns with linked scenarios I would suggest throwing the odd City Fighting scenario into it to shake things up.

It’s All About the Visuals

I think a great deal of the appeal of wargaming in the Flames Of War setting comes from the highly artistic nature of the game.  There is just something about recreating the real world in 15mm that not only leads to a good game but also makes it a visual work of art!  City Fighting seems to heighten this experience.  Not everyone knows how big a Tiger tank is in real life, but everyone will have a sense of how big a house or storefront is.  This makes City Fighting games seem that much more impressive and involving.  If you don’t believe me create your own city terrain board and see what happens!

More Content Will Follow

This article is just an overview of how the City Fighting rules function.  The process of doing battle in a congested city centre is a very complex topic with a lot of topics for discussion.  From tactics for your Flames Of War armies, to showcasing the fantastic terrain options available for your games, we have much more to cover.  Watch out for more articles coming soon!

Get Ready for Urban Warfare

If you want to add some variety, alternate weapon effects or visuals to your games of Flames Of War I strongly urge you to check out the City Fighting rules.  With Bagration: Soviet and new terrain sets launching soon, these will pair nicely with the historically themed city games you will want to play.  Besides the City Fighting rules give you something fun to do with all of those 122mm, Brutal IS-2 canons we will all be painting!

~Joe

City Fighting 101

with Mike Haught

We originally published this article during the Enemy At The Gates Live Launch, but it is still relevant today with the launch of the Bagration: Soviet book. Whenever Mike talks about Stalingrad you think of the cities throughout Poland that were fortified and turned into defensive positions by the retreating German army as Operation Bagration relentlessly marched on…

From the very start of the Eastern Front projects we knew that urban combat was an essential part of the story of Stalingrad and wanted to include some city fighting rules. We also knew that city fighting generally comes with some barriers to entry, so we carefully marked out some design considerations to make city fighting accessible and fun.

  • We wanted to make sure the rules played fast and focused on the action.
  • We wanted the narrative to focus the action on one or two key buildings.
  • We wanted urban table set ups to be achievable for the average player
  • We wanted to give players the ability to play city fighting games practically anywhere.

Streamlined Rules
Often city fighting rules games can take a lot of time and effort to use and detract from the fun. The terrain causes strange situations, raises questions, and generally adds a lot of administration time when you’d rather be just throwing grenades into rooms before storming it with flame-throwers and submachine-guns. So we wanted to focus on what matters in city fighting and tried a lot of things out.

The breakthrough came when we freed ourselves from the burden of measured movement inside buildings. Getting tape measures into buildings to measure movement from room to room, up and down levels, and checking weapon ranges was simply taking up time and actually causing a lot of disruption by hitting models and tipping over the buildings. What really mattered about fighting in buildings were the rooms themselves. Everything happens between rooms and the position of teams in the rooms doesn’t matter. It’s a lot easier and more narrative to just point to a room and say “I’m going to assault that room from this one.” and then just start rolling dice. It cuts straight to the action and lets you start throwing grenades, rather than measuring to see if that team in the corner could reach the doorway.

Key Buildings
When you read about Stalingrad, the stories you see are about key buildings like the Grain Elevator, the Red October Factory, or Pavlov’s House. The buildings were as much a character in these fights as the soldiers themselves, shaping the fight as well as the battle’s final outcome. We included four special missions in the Stalingrad books that let you recreate these fights. While they draw inspiration from actual fights for Stalingrad buildings, the missions are intentionally designed so that you can use them at any point in the war so you can use them for battles set in places like Leningrad, Arnhem, Cologne, Berlin, or even more remote urban areas like Tobruk.

Achievable Tables
The common temptation or expectation is to always try and cover a whole table in buildings. While tables full of city terrain can certainly be done and look amazing, for many of us gamers, this creates a huge barrier to trying city fights. Having a full table of building terrain, is typically unattainable and often impractical for the normal gamer. So we wanted a solution that would work for both types of players. The terrain goal for playing the city fighting missions in the book is achievable and reusable. We limited the essential buildings for these missions to at least two complete buildings so you can get two building boxes and be ready to play. Of course you can add more to your table and play larger urban games if you’d like.

Kitchen Table Gaming
The nature of city fighting is that it takes a lot of troops fighting in a small area to get the job done. Every level in a building effectively doubles the gameplay space below it, so you can fit a lot more troops in a square foot than you would on other tables. This means that you can still use a normal sized force on a much smaller table, which opens up an interesting possibility. The urban fighting missions are designed for a 2’x3’ (60x90cm) table, so you can play a game of Flames Of War wherever you have a table that size. For me, that includes my coffee table in my lounge or my dining room table. (Pro tip, make sure 19 month old children are properly stowed before using this product within 24”/60cm of the floor.) So if you’ve got that friend that you want to introduce the game to, here’s a set of missions that you can use at your home to push them over the edge.

So that’s it! If you’ve never tried urban fighting in Flames Of War, now’s your chance. The rules are streamlined and narrative-focused, the terrain goal is achievable, and you don’t need a lot of space to play. It’s time to grab that bag of grenades and go clear that building!

Want to try out the new City Fighting rules for yourself?
City Fighting Rules PDF (right click, save as)…

~Mike

Race To Minsk: Ace Campaign

Contains ten Story Episode Mission Cards, eight Story Epilogue Cards, ten Side Mission Cards, 16 Ace Cards, 20 Reward Cards and one Ace Campaign Rule booklet.

What Is Race to Minsk?
Race to Minsk is the second in a series of Ace Campaigns, a narrative-driven system of Flames Of War battles. Ace Campaigns are extremely flexible in allowing players to tailor their campaign to fit their playgroups needs. There are three different modes that you can play the campaign in: Story Mode, Extended Mode, and Aces Mode. Story mode is your shortest campaign that only uses the Story and Reward cards, while Extended allows you to play longer campaigns by adding in side missions. The Aces mode can be used with Story Mode or Extended Mode and allows players to create their own unique commander with special abilities that will give them an edge during the course of the campaign.

Click here to view the Race to Minsk: Ace Campaign in the online store here…

Story Mission Cards
The first thing to do is to play the current mission. In the first turn, Episode 1: Storming Forward. Read the narrative text to give you and your opponent context for your battle. Then follow the instructions on the mission card to set up your game. Once everything is ready, play your game!

Once the mission has been resolved, locate the next mission indicated on the Story Mission you just completed. That will be your next Story Mission. Then discard all other Story Mission Cards with that same Episode number as the new mission.

In this Example if the Allies win the Storming Forward mission, then the next mission will be Smash the Defences. If the Axis win, then the next mission would be A Strong Position.

Side Mission Cards
Side Missions are used in the Extended Play mode, for those who want a longer campaign. In the extended mode, more missions and rewards are added to the mix. Side missions are played between the story missions and all missions grant players rewards that they can use in future games. This mode is ideal if you want to spend a little more time playing games and earning rewards.

Side Missions are bonus games that you can play after the main Story Missions. They give you an opportunity to try out new Ace abilities (while playing Aces Mode) and earn valuable rewards. Once a side mission has been played, set it aside and do not shuffle it back into the deck, this means that you never play the same Side Mission twice in a campaign.

Reward Cards
Completing missions will earn you rewards that you can use in subsequent missions. Rewards are sorted into tiers, one for each phase of the game following a Story Mission. The higher the tier level, the more powerful the effect the reward will have.

Once used, reward cards are shuffled back into their respective tier decks.

Ace Choosing an Ace
Before playing their first game, players choose an Ace set to use throughout the campaign. This set includes two Infantry Ace sets and two Tank Ace sets. These Aces will have abilities better suited to their type, so for example, a tank ace is better off leading a tank force.When a player chooses an Ace, one of that player’s formation commanders becomes the Ace for the campaign. Any abilities and special effects granted by the Ace are limited to Units in that Ace’s Formation.

Ace Abilities
Completing missions will earn you rewards that you can use in subsequent missions. Rewards are sorted into tiers, one for each phase of the game following a Story Mission. The higher the tier level, the more powerful the effect the reward will have.

Once used, reward cards are shuffled back into their respective tier decks.

Flexible Campaign System
The Ace Campaign system is meant to be flexible, and fit your group’s needs making even easier for you and your friends to set up and play in a campaign, or to set up a story driven Tournament, the set can do that too.

The system can grow as well, as more and more sets come out you will gain more and more cards to add to your Ace Campaign sets, giving you even more Aces to choose form, new story missions, more side missions and even more Reward cards.

City Fighting 101

with Mike Haught

From the very start of the Eastern Front projects we knew that urban combat was an essential part of the story of Stalingrad and wanted to include some city fighting rules. We also knew that city fighting generally comes with some barriers to entry, so we carefully marked out some design considerations to make city fighting accessible and fun.

  • We wanted to make sure the rules played fast and focused on the action.
  • We wanted the narrative to focus the action on one or two key buildings.
  • We wanted urban table set ups to be achievable for the average player
  • We wanted to give players the ability to play city fighting games practically anywhere.

Streamlined Rules
Often city fighting rules games can take a lot of time and effort to use and detract from the fun. The terrain causes strange situations, raises questions, and generally adds a lot of administration time when you’d rather be just throwing grenades into rooms before storming it with flame-throwers and submachine-guns. So we wanted to focus on what matters in city fighting and tried a lot of things out.

The breakthrough came when we freed ourselves from the burden of measured movement inside buildings. Getting tape measures into buildings to measure movement from room to room, up and down levels, and checking weapon ranges was simply taking up time and actually causing a lot of disruption by hitting models and tipping over the buildings. What really mattered about fighting in buildings were the rooms themselves. Everything happens between rooms and the position of teams in the rooms doesn’t matter. It’s a lot easier and more narrative to just point to a room and say “I’m going to assault that room from this one.” and then just start rolling dice. It cuts straight to the action and lets you start throwing grenades, rather than measuring to see if that team in the corner could reach the doorway.

Key Buildings
When you read about Stalingrad, the stories you see are about key buildings like the Grain Elevator, the Red October Factory, or Pavlov’s House. The buildings were as much a character in these fights as the soldiers themselves, shaping the fight as well as the battle’s final outcome. We included four special missions in the Stalingrad books that let you recreate these fights. While they draw inspiration from actual fights for Stalingrad buildings, the missions are intentionally designed so that you can use them at any point in the war so you can use them for battles set in places like Leningrad, Arnhem, Cologne, Berlin, or even more remote urban areas like Tobruk.

Achievable Tables
The common temptation or expectation is to always try and cover a whole table in buildings. While tables full of city terrain can certainly be done and look amazing, for many of us gamers, this creates a huge barrier to trying city fights. Having a full table of building terrain, is typically unattainable and often impractical for the normal gamer. So we wanted a solution that would work for both types of players. The terrain goal for playing the city fighting missions in the book is achievable and reusable. We limited the essential buildings for these missions to at least two complete buildings so you can get two building boxes and be ready to play. Of course you can add more to your table and play larger urban games if you’d like.

Kitchen Table Gaming
The nature of city fighting is that it takes a lot of troops fighting in a small area to get the job done. Every level in a building effectively doubles the gameplay space below it, so you can fit a lot more troops in a square foot than you would on other tables. This means that you can still use a normal sized force on a much smaller table, which opens up an interesting possibility. The urban fighting missions are designed for a 2’x3’ (60x90cm) table, so you can play a game of Flames Of War wherever you have a table that size. For me, that includes my coffee table in my lounge or my dining room table. (Pro tip, make sure 19 month old children are properly stowed before using this product within 24”/60cm of the floor.) So if you’ve got that friend that you want to introduce the game to, here’s a set of missions that you can use at your home to push them over the edge.

So that’s it! If you’ve never tried urban fighting in Flames Of War, now’s your chance. The rules are streamlined and narrative-focused, the terrain goal is achievable, and you don’t need a lot of space to play. It’s time to grab that bag of grenades and go clear that building!

Want to try out the new City Fighting rules for yourself?
City Fighting Rules PDF (right click, save as)…

~Mike