Snipers have always invoked a lot of talk and enthusiasm around the office whenever we get the chance to update them. There is just something to be said about a one-person warmachine that can instil fear deep inside the hearts of the enemy. These legends of the battlefield always sit above the rest and so they are rightly something we all were excited about during the project.
It all started around the lunch table, when someone suggested we each get a sniper team and really get into modelling and painting. We all have large army projects on the table, and doing a simple sniper team is a great achievable distraction that we can actually use in our armies.
As we were talking about what painting and modelling we’d like to do with our snipers, I spied a set up city table across the room and I started to visualise my sniper operating in the new City Building terrain. Then, as it so often does, my mind instantly went into design mode. So we decided to up the ante a bit by throwing together some missions just for snipers and try and have our snipers ready to face off during the launch event. In the next few weeks we’ll get those missions and our snipers ready, so until then, stay frosty!
The morning has flown by. No surprises when you have a group of friends getting stuck in to some serious hobby time together.
Mike has the last of his StuGs assembled and is starting to get the base colour on,
Sean is making rapid progress on his Soviet Sniper team,
Wayne, who only has one tank to finish for his army is wondering what he will be working on tomorrow,
Andrew has his Fortnite inspired sniper hide coming along nicely,
Victor has finished his build and is wondering what infantry he would need to paint to flesh out his TANKS force to turn it into a full on Iron Cross force,
Morgan has graduated from building digital assembly guides on boxes to building her first actual plastic tank, and
Chris continues to keep adding yellow decals to Lee tanks.
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!
To go with the release of Enemy at the Gates and Iron Cross we will be having another Live Launch Event on the Flames Of War website.
Enemy at the Gates and Iron Cross both look at the hard-fought battles that took place in 1942 and early 1943 across the Eastern Front. Whilst our Live Launch will be taking place on the 23rd and the 24th Of August so make sure you tune in across the two days to keep track of all the activities and information.
If you haven’t caught one of our Live Launches before you are in for a treat as we will have plenty of things to check out:
interviews with the designers of Iron Cross and Enemy at the Gates,
a look at the double-sided game mat that features new designs with a grass field on one and the city ruins on the other (perfect for some Stalingrad gaming action),
previews of all the new models,
articles written by the Battlefront team across the globe,
and finally, we will be answering your questions about the two new books!
Your Questions Answered!
To answer your questions, you need to know what they are! Send your questions about these two books or Mid War in general through to us at [email protected]. We’ll go through as many as we can and pick out the best ones.
Previous Launches
If you’ve never seen one of our Live Launches before you can check out the link below to get an idea of what to expect and to see a full list of all of our previous events.
To go with the release of Enemy at the Gates and Iron Cross we will be having another Live Launch Event on the Flames Of War website.
