Fate of a (different) Nation

This past weekend at the club Mike and I played a couple of games of Flames of War: Fate of a Nation. Being more disorganized than usual, I couldn't find all of my Israeli forces so I just brought my Egyptians -- To provide a thin veneer of "historicalness" we decided they would represent the Iraqis in the 1970 Jordanian Civil war.

My force consisted of a T-55 Commander, a platoon of 10 T-55s, a platoon of 6 IS-3s, a platoon of 5 SU-100s and a platoon of 2 ZSU 57-2s. Mike had an HQ of 2 M-48s (I don't remember the Jordanian name for them) 2 platoons each with 3 M-48s and a mechanized infantry platoon with M-113s

 Here is the Egyptian force ready for action (I hadn't brought all my SU-100s so there are some BTR50s standing in for them)

For the first scenario I had to set up in one corner of the table and the Jordanians set up in the 2 adjacent corners and the objectives were in the 4th corner (but didn't count until turn 6). Mike set up one platoon of M-48s in the town area and the mechanized infantry with the HQ tanks in the valley in the big hill. I set up my T-55s to attack the tank platoon and the IS-3s to go after the HQ and infantry.

On the first turn I managed to take out 1 M48.

In a surprise move the Jordanian M113s do a double time move across the front of the IS-3s!

The IS-3s seem to have been surprised since they rolled really badly but you don't have to roll all that well to destroy an APC with a tank!

Mikes saves for the infantry in the APCs were not all that great (and the surviving M113 fled -- oddly the infantry chose to get out before it fled).

Meanwhile, I managed to take out another M48.

One of the reserve platoons of M48s arrived in the valley but by then my force had concentrated and I had managed to destroy the command tank. Shortly after this, I wiped out all the other tanks for convincing Egyptian (Iraqi?) victory.

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For the next came we were again set up in corners but this time the objectives were in the setup corners.

Mike had only one platoon and chose to dismount his infantry around the near objective and put his HQ tanks hidden in the valley. I lined up all my tanks to charge at the infantry thinking I could wipe it out by turn 3 and win before the delayed reserves could arrive. In hindsight this was unwise

As I moved up, I lost my nerve to some extent and made a long chain of T-55s so I could leave some back on the objective. I am not sure why I didn't just move the IS-3s back and all the T-55s forward but this seemed like a clever thing to do at the time.

The T-55s that moved forward assaulted into the infantry but could go no further because I couldn't move my commander and still be able to get good shots on the reserve M-48s that were now arriving.

They managed to destroy one T-55.

And I destroyed one M48 in return

When the second reserve platoon arrived it moved through my tanks to shoot them from behind causing my moment of grief with the Flames of War rules that I usually have in one form or another each session but even now, I think this rule is a bit dumb even when I think of it just in game terms. Oh well. Mike would have won at this point but we then realized that the objective couldn't be on the edge and he moved it in (I would count this as a win for him since we played with the objective there)

We carried on for another few turns and I managed to kill the Jordanian CinC and enough stuff to force a company check so I managed to win in the "overtime".

I am still enjoying the Fate of a Nation games, which is odd because I don't really like really tank heavy games of regular Flames of War. I guess this will soon be eclipsed by the Team Yankee stuff but I think I will come back to this from time to time.

Fate of a Nation Final Round, Game 2

Here is the battle report for the second game but before I get started Mike has some comments on the games on his blog


For the second game we played a free-for-all. The Arab players added something to their list (can't remember what) and Stan and I each took out one M51 and I took the AA platoon and Stan took air support.

Again, Stan faced off against the line of T-55s behind a hill.

Someone has killed something because both players are moving their tanks at the same time!

Israeli air support arrives but sadly gets reduced to one plane due to the self-defense MGs on the M48s, I think we killed one tank.

The Ishermans rush forward to kill the M48s (or at least try)

The T-34/85s make up for their abysmal performance in the last game by taking out all the Ishermans (and the Jordanian M113s move forward)

The M48s take a plastering but the T-34/85s survive!

Another Israeli airstrike takes out some M48s and below that the Jordanian infantry has jumped out of their APCs after they come under fire.

The 2 Israeli AA halftracks are taken out causing my company to break and losing us the game. It was much closer this time.

I would like to play more of this time period -- I don't think I want to paint more T-55s though but doing some of the other lists for the Egyptians may be worthwhile and I am definitely going to paint some M48s for the Israelis so there is something better than the Isherman but cheaper than the Centurion

Fate of a Nation Final Round

We had the final game of our Fate of a Nation Tank Aces campaign at the club today. There were 4 of us so we decided to do one big 2 on 2 game. Stan and I took the Israelis against Mike with the Jordanians and John with the Egyptians.

 Stan and I had identical forces each with an M-51 ISherman company command, a platoon of 3 IShermans and a platoon of 2 Sho'ts. The Egyptians had command of 1 T-55, a platoon of 10 T-55s as well as a platoon of T-34/85s and an AA platoon with 57mm AA. The Jordanians had command of M48, 2 platoons of M48 and infantry in M113s.

This was our first time playing with the point values from the proper book (rather than the magazine supplement) and the first game that had platoons (in the smaller point value Tank Aces games, each tank is treated as a n independent team).

We rolled for the Pincer mission so we started with all the Israelis on the table attacking and the Arab forces had half their force in delayed reserve and one ambush platoon.

The game started out well with my company wiping out the T-34/85s facing them. Stan had less luck (and was facing bigger tanks) and only managed to bail out one T-55.

On the Arab turn they got air support and ranged in on my Sho'ts

This resulted in one of the Sho'ts being destroyed.

I moved my IShermans up to fire at the T-55s and destroyed one. In the excitement I forgot to spread out the tanks in case of a future air attack.

It turned out not to matter because all 3 tanks were wiped out by the Jordanian Pattons before the plane got to strike! At that point all I had left was the company command tank.

By the next turn, Stan had lost his 2 Sho'ts and we decided to call the game and play another mission.

It was a fun game, I am still not sure how the Israelis can deal with the numbers against them. Maybe taking Pattons rather than Sho'ts is part of the solution (though I don't have any painted at the moment so it wasn't really a choice for today).

I will post the AAR for the second game in a later blog.