Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden

Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden

Amsterdam Wargamers:
Firestorm Market Garden

When I started playing Flames Of War in March 2013, I was really interested in the systems that Battlefront had to offer. One that immediately caught my interest was the Firestorm campaign system.

Learn more about Firestorm: Market Garden here...

Why Firestorm: Market Garden
While other war games offer campaigns it’s mostly just a map; Battlefront however gave the option to play a campaign with a little more depth and tactical possibilities. When I saw Market Garden I immediately felt like there was a chance to replay a campaign that always had my interest because my family at that time lived there. 
Preparing for the Campaign
With my friends I realised that we could organise an event with three Germans and three Allied players. However, at that point I felt that it would really make the scope of the campaign really small and I wanted to try and get more people involved. Mostly because it would make the game flow more and the joy of the Firestorm system is that it has no real limitation it’s very flexible.

Left: Just a few of the Firestorm troops acquired for the Market Garden campaign.
Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden
Another problem was however that we lacked almost all of the Firestorm troops. As I was quite keen, I immediately ordered a load of Firestorm troops. We did have the idea of just allocating the points and allowing players to just boost their companies with a platoon of their choosing I felt it would undermine the entire point of Firestorm troops as it would remove the strategic part of deploying nearby Firestorm troops. This however meant that I would have to start buying a lots of Firestorm troops.

Thankfully Subcultures; a Flames Of War retailer in the Netherlands was able to help with acquire hobby materials and more importantly the necessary troops. Over a three month span I bought every single Firestorm troop and even some duplicates to ensure that the campaign would feel as authentic as possible.

Thankfully I had a lot of help from my friend Andrejs Skuja who helped painting the Paratroops and also worked on the German troops. The goal was to have a lot of troops painted and finished before we would play the event. It’s always important that when you want to get your players motivated is to try and have fully painted armies on the table. It adds a lot of depth that otherwise would be missing.

Getting More Players Involved
At first I used Dutch websites to find wargamers that played Flames Of War, but I wasn’t limiting myself to just one resource. So I contacted Gareth Richards at Battlefront and quickly it became obvious that we could also involve the British players and make the campaign an international event. For this, I built a quick and dirty website (www.dalmijn.com) for campaign which allowed me to keep the information centralised and also provided people who wanted to join a valuable resource for trading information. This also meant that I would have to keep track of how the campaign was progressing on my magnetised board and on the digital copy of the campaign map. The Firestorm game is very asynchronous all I had to do is just process the turns and upload the map and the General step after all the players have finished their moves.  This gave everyone involved the flexibility to play a game whenever they wanted to do it.
Below: The Deployment map.
Below: The campaign map after three battles.
Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden Turn One
The Allied General started the deployment with the following the allocation of the Firestorm troop.

Battlefront HQ hosted first kick-off for the campaign and when I heard the results it become obvious that the Allies managed to lose all the important battles (namely the battle to break out to the roads!). There were three battles in total and it seemed like a good start for a campaign that was done over the internet. Two were won by the Germans resulting in them attacking the Allied supply depots and netting 20 victory points. Thankfully the American Airborne managed to take an important bridge making the map look a little less shocking!


Tip: Click on each map to view a larger version.
On Sunday, it was the turn of the Netherlands to join in the fun. And I prepared my house for the inevitable chaos of having three hobby tables set up in my living room, office and kitchen.
Below left & right: The gaming switches to the Netherlands.
Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden
After everyone saw the map and received their orders it was obvious that people took the game far more seriously than just a regular game of Flames Of War; winning would mean advancing your army forward. Our first day was successful but we wanted to complete six battles but two of the games took five(!) hours to complete due to how close they were. The results however meant progress was made on the Allied side. With help from the Firestorm platoons, the Allies managed to punch their way through the defenses and head towards the cut-off 101st Airborne Division.
Below: More gaming tables. Below: The magnetised campaign map.
Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden
  Below: The updated campaign map.
Below: The colour-coded map.
The battle for us was a lot of fun and it also made it clear how much dynamics the Firestorm troops added to the game. The resulting changes were quite entertaining.

As the campaign gained more traction so did the need for a more sturdy and reliable map. So we started to color-code the map to ensure no mistakes could be made. The Battlefront HQ club was up again that Thursday and with the Allies whopping the Germans 4-0 resulting in quite a significant change in the map. The battles where all really close matches with a lot of important warriors being killed during the battles.


Tip: Click on each map to view a larger version.
Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden
Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden
That Sunday however, we had only one match-up as a few players were not able to join us. The battle resulted in another Allied victory and things were beginning to look quite bleak for the Germans at this stage.

The Firestorm troops were really giving the Allies quite an advantage in the beginning of the campaign, providing two extra platoons. But as more ground was covered the more spread out the Allies become. I think this really captures the essence of the Market Garden in itself.

Although the Allies had quite a significant superiority in tanks and troops they had to keep the entire corridor open. The Germans were therefore allowed to concentrate their troops in the battles where they could overpower the Allied. 

Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden
Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden The next battles we played were starting to become less one-sided. The Germans managed to repel an Allied assault against Deelen airfield and losing Wolfheze in the process. This was however recovered by the Allied troops attacking Son Bridge and capturing it resulting in another bridge falling into Allied hands.

For the final four battles; one was a draw but quite exciting where the Airborne troops had to repel a company which had two platoons of Tigers it was very close. The Germans managed to counterattack on the bridge and recapture the important Helmond Bridge. Another close battle was fought where the Germans managed to repel an Allied attack resulting in the loss of Boekel. So far the campaign seems to be quite close as the Germans have already managed to strike twice at the Allied supply depots giving them a 20 point win. However, since the attack, the Allies are managing to break-out and are heading towards Nijmegen. Everything will now depend on the strategic choices of the Allied and German Generals.

Conclusions
The first turn has ended and it was a fun beginning to the start of the campaign. A that still today creates heated discussion if it really was a bridge too far or that it was all worth the risk. We however as gamers have really enjoyed the resulting battles and are looking forward to seeing more people joining and seeing where all of this will take us.

Tip: Click on the map to view a larger version.
Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden Amsterdam Wargamers: Firestorm Market Garden


Last Updated On Thursday, December 5, 2013 by Blake at Battlefront