Firestorm Market Garden: Your Questions Answered Over the past few weeks we asked people to add their questions about Firestorm Market Garden to a thread in the forum and we were quite surprised by the number of responses, that is there were less than we expected. We chose to take this as a sign that people had the majority of the questions answered by the various articles during the lead up to the release and that most people had a good feel for what we were trying to achieve with our second Firestorm boxed campaign.

Question: Over the span of about a year we saw the release of Firestorm Bagration and the Firestorm Warsaw PDF. Is it the intent of BF to try to produce one boxed campaign set and one PDF campaign each year? Answer: Good question…and we wish the answer was simple. Firestorm Warsaw came entirely out of Mike’s passion and interest for this particular part of history. When we saw what he had put together we were so impressed we almost decided to make it a small boxed product out of it, but keeping in the spirit of providing great content on the site we ended up giving away to everyone for free. Hopefully we will see more of these in the future either through the website or Wargames Illustrated, but only time will tell.

As for a boxed campaign every year, the answer is we definitely want to however it is also largely dependent on how the market embraces them. We see Firestorm products as being a great way to inspire people to play more games and hopefully paint a new army. As a project they are one of the most intense things we do, requiring significantly more time and involvement from every member of the Studio (not to mention the complexity of multiple 3rd parties for the production of the physical contents). They are also one of the most rewarding projects that we undertake and we are already excited about getting stuck in to Firestorm Africa (of course we still might come up with a snappier title).

Question: In Firestorm Bagration we could get away with having American forces fighting on the Eastern front (Lend-lease equipment, etc) - however none of the group have any British forces… Answer: We feel the most important thing is that you have fun and whilst we would obviously like you to buy a new army we are not going to force anyone to. As it happens in one of our internal Studio campaigns we let people bring whatever force they wanted. Soviet tank companies fighting to capture Arnheim might seem strange to the purists, believe it or not but not every member of staff has a German or British army (or US Para for that matter) and their inclusion was more important to us. However, there are many people that want to run a pure campaign style and if that is what your gaming group wants to do, we encourage that and hope you have fun.

Question: Are the “Out Of Supply” effects the same as in Firestorm Bagration? Answer:  This was one of the most debated topics during the whole process and in the end we kept the same chart. Whilst it can make some fights particularly difficult for players that are out of supply, it also discouraged “spoiling” attacks from unsupported positions.

Question: Will there be an option to re-enact the parachute drops as Flames of War missions? Or will American and British Paratroopers start where they landed in real life? Answer: The landings themselves were fairly unspectacular so the game starts with a small number of Airborne troops already “on the ground” – although it could be fun to play out some “what if” games where a small number of Germans were actually near enough to a drop zone to have an effect.

As for where they will start you can choose to either drop them in their historical locations, or alternatively we have labeled the map to show all the drop and landing zones, so you change your strategy and place more emphasis on capturing other areas – perhaps the Uden Road from Eindhoven to Nijmegen is your priority, not capturing Arnhem and the bridges.

Question: If I buy Firestorm Market Garden, is there any point in me getting the Bridge Too Far Board Game? Answer: No. The Boardgame contains a cut down version of the Firestorm Market Garden rulebook with a focus on just the Board Game (Generals Wargame) aspect. The physical products inside are almost exactly the same. If you play Flames of War, we recommend Firestorm Market Garden. However if you want a good gift for a friend who is not a Flames of War player then you cannot go past the Bridge Too Far Board Game! Check out the Firestorm Design Notes if you have not already done so here or the Firestorm Un-boxed article by clicking here. Alternatively go to the Flames of War Forum where we have an entire section for Firestorm discussions. Visit the Firestorm section on the forum here...