Each side had one player who took a list from a non-market garden list which was balanced.
You remember the Pershing and King Tigers at Arnhem... right?
We also allowed air support. Allies had priority and Germans had sporadic. Having said that my only good rolls in the battle was air support. With sporadic support I managed to drive off three rounds of ally fighters and have the plane come in twice. Became a joke by the end.
The end of Kampfgruppe Hummel
During most of the campaign I played using Kampfgruppe Hummel. This was a unit put together quickly by the Germans to aid in Arnhem. It consisted of 14 run down tiger tanks. Which made a good excuse why my tanks failed so many rolls, they were old and run down. It also made a decent reason why my reserves never came in. In the end of this battle I had but one tiger left. Hummel was the only survivor.
Hummel starting with Jagtiger allies
Either way the game was a lot of fun. My main part was to keep allied reinforcements from crossing the board. A double wide rocket template does help with that. Only a few allies got by so mission success?
As I've often seen in flames of war, tanks lost to infantry. Unfortunately the lose of one players entire tank company the first turn meant that little amount of reinforcements was enough to give the allies the edge they needed at the objective regions. I actually thought it was nice since the campaign ended in a draw so everybody wins and everybody loses.
Overall I enjoyed the campaign and hope we do another. I'd say even more than that I really enjoyed the big battle format. While the board was a little too small, it was fun having multiple commanders fighting over different parts of the board yet still all connected.
If we do another campaign I do think some limits to books are needed.
Managing Expectations
So, Market Garden is one of the campaigns I am highly interested in. As I mentioned before, when first getting into Flames I decided to buy both a German and British army from this (in case the game didn't take off I could make a diorama). This meant the idea of doing this as Firestorm was great.
As I said I enjoyed the campaign but I wanted more in a way. Probably more building up things in my head. Missions weren't really specific to what you were doing. If you were attacking it didn't change things, same with a lot of locations not playing a part. Missing some of the map days didn't help. (One time the group started early and one I couldn't make).
The allowing of any book also had a bit of an issue. Most games I played were against Market Garden. One was against a Normandy list with the cruiser of doom. Which is bad enough in a normal game (battlefront is even changing its rules) but a battle where no one should have air power, your AA options for defense is limited. Add in poor reserve rolls, random location, it definitely put down the campaign for me. I should point out my opponent didn't do anything wrong, we were just both playing the game in a different way.
The bigger issue is FOW is still a point based competitive game not a historical game. That isn't a bad thing but when you think of it as the other it will be a disappointment. People told me modify your list to make it a front heavy list. Which is a great game advice but makes you wonder why bother with the rule to begin with? Is it to make an interesting mission or make list building the priority? A lot of people like it that way so not a problem, but I need to think on what I expect from the game.
Like I said overall I had a lot of fun, but have to think on what I expect from a game.
Next time, Summer Projects - French Indian War and Reaper
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