Sir! Are those Russian tanks?

This morning I was over at my local club, Livingston battleground, accompanied by one of my son's school friends, Ross, who was keen to get his first game of Flames of War.

Ross had joined my son, Cameron, and I to the Edinburgh 'Claymore' show a few weeks earlier - his first introduction to the hobby. He was enthralled with the many varied traders and large number of impressive demonstration games on offer, a couple of which he participated in. Having already done some research, he came away with his first purchases - a FoW British Parachute company with support options.

So, today, I arranged for some of the experienced FoW players at the local club to give Ross his first game, using my British Paras whilst Ross gets to grips with the painting side of our hobby. He was up against two platoons of Russian tanks, so we set-up a defensive scenario with the Paras dug-in within a small village waiting for their Delayed Reserves - an Airlanding 6pdr platoon - to arrive. The Russian tanks approached the town via a small hill, making use of elevation and Line of sight, taking some early, but ineffective, pot-shots at the well entrenched enemy. The Paras kept their powder dry though during these early turns, making good use of Concealment and Gone To Ground.

The Russian Tank commander, anticipating the imminent arrival of the British Delayed Reserves, ordered his platoons to fast move around the other side of the village to give them a clearer line towards their objective, however before they could get away the 6pdrs arrived on their flank and the opening exchange of cannon and machine gun fire ensued. The British 6pdr platoons survived the return fire, knocking out and bailing most of one Russian tank platoon.

The remaining Russian tank platoon finally got underway, quickly getting out of range of the British 6pdrs. Next a couple more turns of manoeuvring, with the man-packed 6pdrs giving all to try and catch up and get in range of the Russian tanks now on the other side of the village.

Eventually, the battle concentrated around a fierce fire fight with the British Paras attempting to repel multiple tank assaults near the Russian objective. The 6pdrs did their best, but mostly it was the dug-in positions and terrain that was the biggest weapon in the Para's arsenal, as the Russian tanks had to deal with lots of Bogging checks to get into assault range.

In the end, despite the valiant and brave British resistance, the few remaining Russian tanks managed to clear the relatively lightly armed Paras from the village objective.

And that was Ross's first game of Flames of War.