Campaign Fighting

I had a go at playing the Flames of War "A Bridge Too Far" campaign system the other night. We (me, Shaun and Tom) played the historical version. This involved me trying to take the bridges from the Germans. The system involve declaring moves which result in several simultaneous battles. It is complex, covering things like supply routes, terrain types etc. For instance Falsheemeger Flashimiger Fishmonger German paratroops have better ability on certain terrain. So you may beat them in a conflict because your units were better on that sectors terrain, but it may not be wise to pursue them as they may fall back to a different type of terrain where they have the advantage.


You really have to think about what units to advance with. Shermans do well to reach the bridge areas, but are the a bit vulnerable in towns, so you need to bring other units for support. There are also aircraft to consider for ground support and supply drops. Also, there are reinforcements and the fact that some unit strengths are unknown until encountered (i.e. roll a dice to see if they are elite troops or just a sentry with a dog!).

The real strength of this system is that you can play it as a self contained game or use it to support a table-top campaign. At any time, any of the individual combats for a sector can be played out with models for a few hours on a table, or played quickly on the campaign table. We managed about 2 turns consisting of about 15 sector battles. The campaign board was left set-up, so that next week we can carry either for a whole evening, or just to declare the sector conflicts and then perhaps play out one of them on a full size table with miniatures and scenery.