All your blog are belong to me!

Testing, testing 1...2...3...

It's worked! I've managed to guess his password, who'd have thought it would be "my_lover_is_davidhasselhoff". All that aside, I better post this before he gets back and realises! Where's he been anyway? I remember when he updated this thing at least once a week!

Well now I've hacked his system, I might as well tell you about me. I'm James, and I know Elazar in real life. I started my own blog recently, but it just doesn't have the followers, so I thought to myself, how can I reach people that clearly don't want to hear what I have to say? The answer? Hack Elazars blog of course!

Anyway it's been lacking in Fantasy goodness since Firestorm Berlin started up, in fact we're both yearning for more Malifaux (and Warmachine for me, I'm trying to convert him!). The FoW campaign is cool, and we both really love the system, but sometimes you just need outrageously weird stuff to throw on a table and have a laugh right?

So this Wednesday Myself, Elazar and the guy who introduced our local gaming club to Malifaux are all having a game. It's going to be Elazars Dreamer crew vs my Pandora crew vs Andy's Showgirls! What I thought we needed to take us into the game, was a little story setter, so without further ado!

Colette looked down into the deserted town. She was sure there had been movement a couple of seconds ago. Maybe the fading light was playing tricks? It had all started with that damned Guild officer. Her shows were attracting more and more of them every week, and although Colette enjoyed the success and wealth it brought, the Arcanist movement was dangerously close to being found out. The Guild officer had come to bring her flowers backstage, and walked in on Cassandra fixing up a mechanical dove, and had bolted afterwards before Colette could get a chance to talk to him. Now this idiot was going to spread the secrets of her show all over the damned town. This would spark interest in just how the show was performed, and that would bring more attention from the Guild than Colette needed. Given a few minutes with the man, Colette could convince him of anything, what the hell had he come all the way out here into the desert for anyway? At least it would give a chance for her to conduct her business with him away from prying eyes. Colette waved to her troupe, it was time to go. They began walking down the dusty hill track into the town...

On the other side of town, Pandora smiled as the Doppleganger returned. Candy giggled and looked up from the cat she was slowly dismembering on the floor.
"It's nearly time" said Pandora with a slight smile.

Cassandra was annoyed. She had been caught off guard by some idiot Guild lackey, and didn't really feel like being nice enough to just change his mind when they caught up to him. The sand rolled around them in the light evening breeze, somewhere in the town a shutter could be heard banging against it's frame. There was only one main road leading into the town and that was the direction they headed in. To call it a town was a bit of an extreme , it was more like two rows of buildings with a large road like gap running down the centre, but Cassandra had seen smaller settlements out here, and she paid it no thought.

Pandora quicky looked up, "Somethings wrong" she said to no one in particular. There was something else here, not just the Showgirls advancing into the town, something else, something....wrong.
Pandora looked over at Candy who was already staring down the road. "It's him"....

Colette saw the young woman and little girl standing at the end of the road. Overcome with a feeling of sorrow and grief, she knew immediately who it was and signed to the rest of her girls to stand ready. Pandora had obviously lured them here for some reason, and whatever the reason it couldn't be good.

Colette froze as a ball bounced past her. Where the hell had that come from? She looked from building to building, only now noticing something odd. The buildings weren't right, something about their geometry was off, nothing you could place a finger on, kind of like a dream....

Pandora started to walk towards the Showgirls standing in the street, the box in her hands screaming in her mind, it was too late to back down, she would have to fight here and hope for the best. Who knew what he would do when he arrived, but that wasn't a problem for now, she would take Colette and her girls down here, and if needed, him too....

As Colette and Pandora faced eachother in the street, neither of them making the first move, a door swung open in one of the buildings. Both women looked in equal surprise. Standing in the doorway was a little boy, hugging onto his blanket and dressed in a nightgown.

He walked as if floating into the middle of the street and smiled at the pair. "PlAy TiME?" he whispered.......

James.

Firestorm Berlin - 2 Days In To Turn 1

Our Firestorm Campaign for Flames of War has kicked off now at my gaming club. We've had two days worth of battles and the frontlines have already moved quite a bit. The Allies have pressed their advance and so far for this turn have won all of their battles. Hopefully that trend will be corrected on Day 3 of the battles for this Turn which will see the defence of Köln and SS Totenkopf attempting to break out of the 'Amsterdam Encirclement'.

Some pictures of the campaign map so far then:

 

The two Axis Firestorm Counters out in the sea represent those that have been destroyed and are now in the Reinforcement Pool waiting to re-enter play at the end of the turn. The SS breakout of the Amsterdam Encirclement will be the first game so far in the campaign to use the Out of Supply rule. The grey supply lines have to travel unbroken through friendly territories to keep an area in supply and since the Allies control both Zuid and Noord Holland Amsterdam is completely cut off. The potential results of being Out of Supply are quite interesting...

Morale Reduced: For the duration of the battle all Fearless platoons count as Confident, Confident platoons counts as Reluctant and Reluctant Platoons only pass a Motivation Test on a roll of a 6
Strength Reduced - Before adding Firestorm Counters to your force you must reduce the size of your force by 20% e.g. if you would have fielded a 1500pt force, you now have only 1200pts for the battle. Firestorm troops are not affected by this and are chosen as normal in addition to the adjusted army points total.
No Effect - The boring result
Fight To The Death - For the duration of the battle all Reluctant platoons count as Confident, Confident platoons count as Fearless and Fearless platoons pass all Motivation Tests on a roll of 2+

Obviously, I'd love to see a Fight To The Death result as the men of SS Totenkopf accept their fates and launch their attack. I'm sure the Allies are hoping for Morale or Strength reduced...

Campaign map made with a great deal of assistance from the awesome Battle Chronicler software!

Firestorm Berlin - Sample Turn

I put together an example turn of Firestorm Berlin for the players in the campaign and thought I'd share it on here.

Firestorm Berlin - Turn 1 (Example)

Axis
Player A
Player B

Allies
Player D
Player E

Battle Plans

Allied Battle Plan
The main thrust of our assault on Berlin will be via the south. We'll first move on München and then push north towards Berlin. We'll do our best to hold our ground towards the north and a secondary priority will be to capitalise on any gains we can make there. For this turn our priority should be Baden as it brings us one step closer towards München and can be used as a staging point for our assaults next turn.

Axis Battle Plan
The Führer demands that we recapture France from the Allies. They now have a strong foothold on the continent and we have to disrupt their plans to advance further or Berlin will fall. If we begin by attacking the Ardennes area to drive a wedge into their advance and force them to divert the resources pushing for Berlin to defending their own lines then we will be off to a good start. After the Ardennes, Brussels and Flanders are our priorities so that our forces will be able to keep in supply once they begin the push to retake Paris!

The Generals can make their battle plans as simple as this or they can use maps etc to show help explain what exactly they'd hope for the players to do. Like all good plans it'll have to be adaptable as there's no guarantee that you'll win the initiative so might well spend the turn fighting battles on your opponents terms and it's the General's job to make sure that his Commanders are able to capitalise on any advantages that present themselves by being informed of their ultimate goals throughout the campaign.

Battle Phase

Player A & Player D arrange a game against eachother and agree to play the campaign standard 1750pts in their game. They will then roll off to see who has the initiative and that player will decide where the battle is fought. Player A rolls a 3 and Player D rolls also rolls a 3. Throughout the campaign the Allies win tied Initiative rolls. This is to represent the impetus the Allies had over the Germans at this stage in the war so Player D wins the Initiative.
Having read the General's Battle Plan for this turn Player D knows that Baden is a priority and chooses to attack there from Saarland so that he can use both Firestorm Counters there to help ensure his victory and to advance the Allies' goal of an assault on the Supply Depot at München in the coming turns.
There is only one Firestorm Counter in Baden so Player A uses this in response but knows that he'll be up against the odds in the coming battle.
Both players check that their armies are In Supply which they are as the Supply Lines run through both territories from Supply Depots in other territories without a break in the line through enemy controlled areas. This means that both players will be playing with an army of 1750pts. In addition to their 1750pts army Player D will have an additional 600pts to spend on Support Platoons and Player A will have an additional 300pts to spend on Support Platoons.



Player B & Player E also arrange a game and they roll for initiative. B rolls 6 and E rolls 4. This means the German Player B has the Initiative. The German General has stated that the Ardennes and Flanders are to be the main focus of their assaults this turn so Player B chooses to attack the Ardennes from the Rheinland. Player B uses both Firestorm Counters in the Rheinland to support his attack and Player E uses both in the Ardennes to create a level playing field and give him a chance of victory and with it a counter-attack into the Rheinland.
Both armies are In Supply and will play with 1750pts plus have an additional 600pts of Support Platoons.

The players all play their games of Flames of War.

It's really important to work out the VP at the end of the game. The rules for this are in the rulebook but are 1 VP for each platoon destroyed. You can roll off to destroy Firestorm Counters after completing your battle.

Player D beats Player A but Player A made him pay steeply for the victory and Player D finishes with 5 VP to Player A's 4. The players roll to destroy Firestorm Counters after the battle. Player D rolls once to destroy the Firestorm Counter that Player A used. As his VP were 5 he needs to roll a 5+ to destroy the counter. He rolls a 4 so Player A's counter will survive as it can safely retreat to an adjacent friendly territory of Player A's choice, and does so, fleeing to Pfalz. Player A rolls twice, once for each counter that Player D used and needs a 6 to destroy each one due to his 4 VP in the battle. Player A rolls a 2 and a 6. This means that one of the Firestorm Counters is destroyed. As the counter wasn't surrounded (there were friendly territories adjacent to it) it goes to the Allies' Reinforcement Pool.
Player D captures Baden for the Allies and chooses to advance the surviving Firestorm Counter into the newly acquired Territory.



In their game Player E manages to beat Player B. This means that Player B's offensive has failed and Player E counter-attacks into the German territory capturing it for the Allies. The game was very one sided and Player B only managed to earn 2 VP so doesn't get to roll to destroy Firestorm Counters at all. Player E scored 7 VP against Player B so needs to roll twice, once for each of Player B's counters, and only needs 4+ to destroy them. Player E rolls a 4 and a 6 destroying both of the Axis' Firestorm Counters. They were adjacent to friendly territories so are not surrounded and removed from the game entirely and instead goes to the Axis Reinforcement Pool.
Player E decides to advance both of the Firestorm Counters from the Ardennes into the Rheinland.



All the battles for this campaign turn have been played so the Campaign Turn moves on into the next phase

Strategy Phase

This phase is carried out by the Generals. The Allied General first will declare his exploitation moves. Then, the Axis General will do the same. Next the Allied General will bring on their Reinforcements into whichever Supply Depots they choose and then the Axis General will. Finally the Allied General will detail all of his Strategic Moves as he prepares the Allied army for the next Campaign turn and then the Axis General makes his Strategic Moves. Once this is done the Victory Points for the campaign so far are added up by the Campaign Organiser and then then next turn can begin. Each turn will last for 2 weeks and will start on a Sunday. This means the Generals will be busy finishing their Strategy Phase and preparing their Battle Plan in advance of each turn beginning so that their Commanders know what is expected of them.

Exploitation Move

The Allied General makes his Exploitation Moves first. He makes these moves to seize more territory from the opposition. He can move up to two Firestorm Counters that are In Supply into adjacent enemy controlled areas that do not contain a Firestorm Counter and doing so captures those areas. The Allied General begins by moving his first Firestorm Counter from Baden into Württemberg. This is a potentially risky move as it leaves Baden prone to exploitation from the Axis General which would also cut off the new acquired Wurrtemberg territory from Supply. This risk is mitigated by the Allied General's second Exploitation Move which is to move a Firestorm Counter from the Rheinland into Hessen. This leaves one Firestorm Counter to defend the Rheinland and importantly cuts of Supply to the German Firestorm Counters in Pfalz, leaving them unable to exploit from there, cut off from Reinforcements and in a weaker position come the Battle Phase in Campaign Turn 2.



In response the Axis General exploits into the now vacant Ardennes territory with a Firestorm Counter from Zuid-Holland. The Axis General is unable to make any other Exploitation Moves this turn as the rest of their counters do not have a valid territory to exploit into or are Out of Supply.



Reinforcements
Both Generals bring their reinforcements back on in their Supply Depots.

Strategic Moves
Both Generals makes their Strategic Moves to reinforce their front lines with Firestorm Counters. The Firestorm Counters can move any distance along Supply Lines as long as they start in supply it's an unbroken chain through friendly territories all in supply. They could instead move to one adjacent friendly territory, this type of movement need not be along a Supply Line and need not begin or end in a territory that is In Supply but must be between two adjacent Friendly territories. Firestorm Counters are unable to make Strategic Moves into or through territories that have just been captured through an Exploitation Move.



As they prepare for Campaign Turn 2 the Allies find themselves in a very strong position early on but the Axis players can quickly turn this around with a few well placed victories!

Victory Points
The Victory Points at the end of this turn are:
Allies - 310
Axis - 200
If the game ended at this point it would be a Tactical Victory for the Allies.

The Campaign Map at the start of Turn 2



Things to keep in mind on Turn 2 would be:
Köln, Pfalz and the Ardennes are all Out of Supply so any battles fought in these areas will see the Axis Commanders having to roll on the Out of Supply chart and potentially having weaker or poorly motivated troops.
Hessen is Out of Supply so any battles fought there will see the Allied Commanders having to roll on the Out of Supply chart.
Both sides have brought their full quote of Firestorm Counters to the front lines so a lot of battles will be fought with additional Support Platoons on each side.
Pfalz is currently surrounded so an Allied Victory there will see the Axis Players losing 2 Firestorm Counters that will be Captured by the Allies and removed from the Campaign Map for good. This would also net the Allies an additional 10 VP in the Campaign.

Campaign map made with a great deal of assistance from the awesome Battle Chronicler software!

Firestorm Berlin - Flames of War Campaign

My Firestorm Berlin Flames of War Campaign is ready to get started at my gaming club. We've got a mini-tournament this weekend and then following hot on the heels of that will be the opening of the campaign. I posted a picture of the map previously. This latest one shows the positioning of the Firestorm Counters etc at the start of Turn 1 ready for us to make a right mess of everything!

 

Firestorm Campaign Map - Tokens added using the awesome Battle Chronicler software!

So what are Firestorm Counters you're probably asking? Well, the Battlefront Firestorm Campaign boxes contain plastic minis to represent Firestorm Units in the campaign. These are support platoons that are added on in addition to the army fighting in the campaign. These are great but one thing I wanted to do with this campaign was to keep all the admin side of it online on my wargaming club's forums. I also wanted to open up the choice as to what was in support a bit more, so instead of a counter representing a specific load-out of a platoon I wanted it to represent an additional 300pts of support platoons that can be taken. I also opened this up so that they could be any Support Platoons for the respective sides from Fortress Europe or from the Intelligence Briefing being used by that player. This still gave you the chance to use units in the campaign that you might not normally get the chance to. Up to two Firestorm counters can be used in a battle so you have the chance to seriously overload your forces in an assault on a key area etc. They'll certainly make things very interesting!

Another little tweak I've made is to limit the German players to only being allowed to take Sporadic Air Support in their lists to represent Allied Air Superiority at this point of the war. Also, Allied players that take Air Support can make Fighter Interceptions on a roll of 5 or 6 and not just 6s. The campaign is slightly weighted towards the allies as they were obviously the eventual winners. This is much the same in the Battlefront Firestorm Campaigns. Especially in Bagration where the Soviet forces have a huge numerical advantage over the German forces to really capture the feel of that constant desperate withdrawal and I wanted to keep a similar under the kosh feel for the Axis players at my gaming club (that's me included see, so I wasn't just being mean!)

I'll be keeping a log of the campaigns progress here on The Glorious Works for anyone that is interested!

Firestorm Berlin Campaign Map

Well it's taken a bit of work but I finally have my Flames of War campaign map drawn up!

Now all that's left to do is make up all the counters etc and we can get things underway!

Flames of War Campaign - Firestorm Berlin

Currently working on a Flames of War Campaign that I'm calling Firestorm Berlin. It's going to use the Firestorm rules from the Bagration and Market Garden box sets with some tweaks of my own to make it work for me and my gaming club.

One thing I'm changing is swapping the set Firestorm troops for generic counters. There are two reasons for this change. One is to make it a lot easier for me to represent the custom map in digital format. The second is to make it easier for my group to game. Instead, each counter will count as a set number of points chosen as 'free' support platoon from Fortress Europe. This way, the players can squeeze something extra into their list without having to buy models specifically for that purpose. It increases the flexibility and potential fun of the campaign for everyone.

The campaign starts in December 1944 with the front lines set as they were before the commencement of the Ardennes Offensive. This seemed a great point at which to start as across the map of France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany etc. things are fairly even. The allies are going to have the advantage to represent the fact that they were on the offensive at this point.

I'm going to have a few more posts about this and go into greater detail soon. The map will be finished shortly and once the campaign is underway I'll be posting reports up on here to show it's progress. I'll also make the rules sections that I write available for others to use but for obvious reasons Battlefront Firestorm rules will not be appearing on here!