Halloween Game at the Club: Very Serious Stuff

 Last night I ran a very serious military simulation at the club, set in Normandy during WW2.  We used Flames of War (version 3!) for this truly academic exercise in WW2 military theory and practice.  The scenario was a meeting engagement in the quiet little French town of Clermont.  Both sides had orders to investigate a crash site in the town.  The Germans thought it was a crashed allied transport plane while the Allies thought it was a crashed V2 rocket.  The tranquil town of Clermont is very close to the Swiss border and both sides had an alternate victory condition to liberate as many of the 1,400 gold bars in the bank of Clermont and make a run to the Swiss border.

Upon entering the town, it was clear there was something amiss as all the townspeople were missing. The first few turns were played with limited visibility but on turn three, as the fog cleared it was revealed that the crash site was.....

Aliens!  Yes, those "Get Away from her, you B*****!" type of Aliens and lots of them.

5 egg catches were hidden in the various building which acted as spawn points for swarms of the monsters.

General hilarity ensued and even some of the club grognards who despise Flames of War on principal seemed to have fun.  Truces were made between the Americans and Germans and then just as quickly broken and general carnage ensued.

Oh, Ed really hates it when you blow up one of his Tiger tanks - something for all of us to remember.

 Of course, I forgot to take a lot of pictures during the game but did manage a few.

 The Germans got the win by looting the bank but the American won a moral victory by destroying 3 of the 5 egg sacs.  Sherman tanks lived up to their reputation of blowing up - a lot.

 The Building are from Ed's collection and are a mix of Crescent Root and Total Battle.  They are superb.  He also loaned me the game mat which is from Cigar Box.

This was my first test run a planned convention game and I learned a lot.

- The stats I used for the Aliens worked well - they were not over-powering but still posed a challenge.
- - the Aliens stats where essentially tank like with infantry close assault.  It worked surprisingly well.
- - I do need a more refined set of rules to govern alien turns - the attack the closest unit isn't the most interesting

- The table needs to be bigger for the forces used,  maybe 8x6 rather than 6x4.  I did want a large mix of unit types but it was just too crowded and did play to the stereotype some people have about Flames of War rules (tightly packed groups of tanks)

- I use area movement chits for the first few turns which speeded up play but needed a lot more space before it made sense

You'll see this game again at a convention as I'm working on a small selection of easily transportable games to put on.

It was fun to get the FOW minis out again and brush off good old Version 3 of the rules.