First Foray into the Flames of War

Although I have bought some Flames of War stuff months ago, only recently have I actually been able to play it!  And even then it was the smallest of skirmishes, as I only had a short time in which to play, little time to refresh myself on the rules, and only the barest of armies ready for the tabletop. 



World War II is a big subject, so I had to pick a theater, and the armored battles of North Africa appealed to me and my usual gaming opponent, Badelaire.  So I decided to field some Panzers of the Afrikakorps while he took the British.

The battle was to be small and simple, as neither of us have played FoW before.  I took a pair of Panzer IIIs while Badelaire took five Honey Stuarts.  The battle itself was pretty straightforward, taking place on a flat desert battlefield.  My Panzers advanced into range, while Badelaire moved to meet them with three of the Honeys and attempted a flanking action with the other two. 

From there it became a straight gun battle.  I knew my Panzers had the gun and armor advantage, but I had a scared moment when in a single turn fire from the Honeys caused both my crews to bail out.  Apparently this got the crews mad however, as they climbed back into their machines a moment later and went on a shooting rampage, destroying all five Stuarts! 

The combat resolution for the armor was pretty simple, although it took a while for me to get the hang of it because I'm so used to the 40k method of roll to hit, roll to penetrate, roll save, whereas in FoW is more roll to hit, roll armor save, roll to penetrate, and the armor save itself felt backwards.  The rules were fast and fun and I'm looking forward to playing larger battles in the future!