Flames of War: Stalingrad Campaign battle report

This weekend I played a game of Flames of War at the Ottawa Miniatures Gamers meeting against Martin. This was the third round of games for the Stalingrad Firestorm camapaing but it was the first that I have played in.

I wasn't really super-excited to get anything new for this campaign but I did decide last weekend I would assemble and paint the 10 Plastic Soldier Company Churchills that I had bought (I think for a D-Day campaign several years ago). I airbrushed them with their base colour and added a bit of detail and shading and I think they turned out OK. I could have but some decals on them but to be honest, I really couldn't be bothered. I do have some 15mm tanks that I have put a lot of effort into but at the moment I don't really enjoy working on them relative to 28mm figures.

To round out the force -- the 10 Churchills (3 units of 3 plus HQ) cost 90 of my 100 points so I added in a Reconnaissance Platoon to take advantage of the spearhead rule and an SMG Company in case I had to hold an objective. I also had a unit of 2 IL-2 Shturmoviks as my Firestorm unit.

I set up with all the Churchills in the deployment bubble created by the Recon troops. Looking at this picture, I probably should have just forced the fight for the near objective by the bridge but I decided to try and force the Germans to spread out a bit so attacked on a broader front.

Martin had both 8.8cm AA and Marders which were the two things I feared. I had  hoped that my planes would be able to at least distract the 8.8cm guns but they were no where to be seen in the first 2 turns.

The 88s and Marders took out 2 of the Churchills on the objective on the first turn and the other Churchill pushed back the infantry and mortars along the river line. A unit of 2 captured T-34s appeared but I destroyed one and the other failed its last man standing roll. I was really worried but on the second turn the Marders and 88s missed (there might have been on or 2 hits from the Marders but I made my armour saves).

My IL-2s finally came in and took out one of the 88s and then other failed its last man standing roll (my lone Churchill on the bridge kept making its roll turn after turn). The other Churchills were taking out the Mortars and 10.5cm guns (which in hindsight was not really a good use of their time). I was ignoring the Panzer IIIs as their short 5.0cm guns couldn't penetrate from the front (the could get a tie)

On the last turn all my Churchill were bailed out and I couldn't get enough back in to make my Force Morale and lost. It ended up as a 6-3 due to the German losses.

It was a very enjoyable game and I think it looked like it was going to either way throughout the game.

I am still not super enthusiastic about Flames of War V4 but I will play games when they are available. I should be free to play next month so maybe I will try and infantry force next time.

Progress Report Q1 2019

This year has been pretty good for painting, almost all of it for Saga.

I finished off my Late Roman Warband. This was supposed to be combined with some of my Early Romans to make a more balanced force but I discovered I couldn't easily re-base them so I have this all hearthguard cavalry force which is not really a winning strategy in Saga. Still it should be fun to play and I think the Cataphracts will work well for my usual playstyle of concentrating too much on one good unit.

Once I finished off the Romans I made some good progress on my Franks. I got base colours on them all and ordered some decals. Because I still didn't have enough to do a force with Roland (he needs 4 points of foot at the beginning and then 4 points of mounted after he dies), I have bought a 4 point starter box of Goths who will masquerade as Franks when required.

When the Age of Magic was announced I put the Franks on hold to work on the Revenants. They are still a work in progress. Half are just primed and the others have block flesh colours. If I can get through them this month and then paint the Undead Legions next month I will be in good shape for the Age of Magic event at Cangames

While working on the other stuff, I finished off the two Viking Champions I got from ordering from Gripping Beast as well as Boadicea and Cartamanda.

Finally, once I had my airbrush working again I decided to actually paint something for the Stalingrad Campaign and built a Lend-Lease Churchill force. They are only primed so far but should paint up quickly once I get the right colour.

Plans for the coming months focus on Cruel Seas terrain for Cangames and the undead for Saga: Age of Magic. After that it will be some more Saga terrain and the Franks/Goths. I might turn the airbrush on some Team Yankee Warsaw Pact forces if the mood strikes.

More Cruel Seas

Mike and Ed were over recently for a game of Cruel Seas. This was the first outing for the Liberty Ship, Minesweeper, US PT boats and Flower class corvette. The game was fun but the setup wasn't all that good so I will just give a brief report followed by some of our ideas for using the bigger ships 

Here is the setup: The Libery Ship, Tanker and Corvette are in a line with the Farmille and the two US PT boats in a line beside them. The S-Boats are coming in from the other side and the Minesweeper can enter on any long edge after the first ship moves. Having the allied boats screened by the big ships was the flaw in the setup. The allied boats would not be able to fire on the S-Boats until they had launched their first torpedo volley. Having the convoy in the centre of the map is also problematic since the S-boats were closer at the start. For Cangames, I will have a much larger separation at start.

The game started as expected with the S-Boats steering towards the Liberty Ship and launching torpedoes. The corvette also turns in to the S-Boats but the allied boats have to slow down to pass behind the big ships

The first set of torpedoes hit the liberty ship and caused a fair bit of damage.

The corvette was destroyed by the gunfire from the S-Boats.

A few more torpedo hits and gunfire from the Minesweeper finish of the Liberty Ship

When the PT Boats get on the scene they do some damage to the S-Boats but it is too late to save the merchants.

At the end most of the small ships are damaged or sunk but the Minesweeper was in pretty good shape.


Other than the bad setup we felt that larger ships were taking too much damage from the relatively small caliber guns of the torpedo boats. If the S-100 hits with all its guns (which is not too unlikely if it is firing at a huge slow target) it will do as much damage as a torpedo. It seems to me that it would take a lot more 20mm fire than that to do any noticeable damage to the structure of the Liberty Ship.

For the next game we are going to say that the huge ships will take no damage from guns 37mm or below (but they still can get critical hits). We may also try to reduce the damage that purpose built steel warships, like the corvette or minesweeper, take from an attack by 3 or 4 points. This will make MGs and small autocannons less effective but have less effect on bigger guns.

For the most part, I think we will try to avoid having larger ships on both sides (or at least set up the scenario so they are separated from each other)