Flames of War: Doubles Event at Kingston Bunker Rats

The Bunker Rats put on a two day event for teams of two players, each with two companies totalling 2,500 pts.  Early war in Africa. on 8'x6' tables.  2 rounds each day over the weekend. There were 5 teams entered, so each played 3 games with a bye.  Only three Camp Cromwellians were available this weekend so we entered one British team with Leigh playing all games with his Infantry coy & Jim & Chris taking turns with a Crusader coy. 

Round 1: Breakthough Mission v. Afrika Korps:  It was tough fight, but Camp Cromwell, as defenders, secured both objectives on turn 6 to win. 

Round 2: Surrounded Mission, Camp Cromwell attacking British in Blue on Blue.  We made  a concentrated attack down the far side of the table & were within 1 move of victory when time ran out.  Only 4 turns had been completed due to the slow play of defenders, but we still lost because the scenario rule is that the attackers have to take an objective to win. 

Round 4: (Round 3 was our bye).  Dust Up mission v. British in another Blue on Blue.  The enemy had hordes of armoured cars on a table with vast areas of hard desert floor that gave them many opportunities for rapid manouvre.  The enemy took advantage of this to make a rapid strike around our left flank into the rear of the town to attack an objective defended by just our artillery battery.  Our Crusaders out of reserve raced to catch them & the artillerymen held on just long enough for the cavalry arrive.  Then Camp Cromwell went on the offensive, but the enemy attack had soaked up so much time that while we had gained a material advantage with no platoons lost to 3 we didn't have enough time to clinch victory.

We only play FOW once or twice a year to support the Bunker Rats events so we find remembering the rules a bit of struggle, but Leigh still plays it often & took care of the tricky tactical details of infantry & artillery while Chris & I simplified our task by taking a list of 3 Crusader platoons.  FOW looks good & I enjoy the wider strategic options you have with the larger scale of action than Bolt Action, but Battlefront lost their way by adding too many special rules to sell supplementary books in v3 & then made it worse with v.4.  The Kingston players use v.3 with a selection of the v.4 rules they like, which is fine for them playing all the time.  The end result is an over-complicated set of rules that is confusing for occasional players.  The FOW fanboys seem to thrive on tactical exploitation of complex rules, but personally I prefer strategic level decision making with simpler rules that don't make my head hurt.  But a team situation with Leigh on board worked well for us & it was a good weekend's wargaming.