Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week, in the eleventh article, I talked about the fifth scenario, “Purple Heart Lane”. This got us into artillery and multi-deck scenarios. All this pales in comparison to this week though, where we only have one thing to cover before our scenario: Armor. Almost every scenario from here on out will feature vehicles in some capacity so they will be important to understand.
Only the German Infantry still in the trucks is unspotted.
All French not Hidden Units except PzIIIF #3 are spotted. None of the Hidden units are spotted.
German Commands – The forward-Most Tanks are firing. The rear most tanks are moving. At least one unloaded infantry is firing while the other ones will move and possibly close assault. The H-39s will fire while the Loaded infantry will move.
Ah, good day to you once more, young Inventor.
I am happy to see you once again.
And you have brought your copy of the Inventor’s Vade Mecum with you.
May I see it, please?
Hmmm, I notice it is now a very worn and much-thumbed work.
I am proud of your diligence.
What benefit is a book of knowledge if you don’t use it from time to time, eh?
However, there have been several updates since this copy was printed.
The section on Power has received significant editing.
Oh, good.
I see that there are still unused endpapers in your Vade Mecum that you can use for note-taking.
Let’s make an update to your edition on the subject of Power, shall we?
Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week, in the tenth article, I talked about the fourth scenario, “About Last Night”. We looked at exciting new mechanics introduced by that scenario, like mortars and snipers. This week we will be moving on to one of my favorite scenarios, “Purple Heart Lane.” Purple Heart Lane is our Carentan scenario, and it adds a couple more new mechanics: multi-deck scenarios and off board artillery.
Welcome back to Firefight Fridays. Last week in the ninth article I talked about the third scenario, “Shot in the Dark”. I covered a couple of new concepts like reinforcements and night combat, neither of which are too different from what we have seen before. Well, buckle up, because this week we are jumping into “About Last Night”. Scenario 4 adds a few interesting new experiences to the game: multi-front scenario entry, snipers, and mortars. Multi-front scenario entry is pretty simple to understand, but let’s talk about snipers and mortars a little bit first and after we will jump into the details of “About Last Night.”
Over the years, Fields of Fire has proved to be quite tricky to learn for a lot of people. As a solitaire wargame, the usual method of a finding an experienced opponent, or even a club of experienced players, to guide you through learning this new, complex system is a non-starter. This leaves you at the mercy of the Internet and its hidden pearls of wisdom amongst an awful lot of noise.
For Fields of Fire Deluxe, we address this in a few different ways:
We intend to offer up our design notes regarding our simulation of the 2nd Russo-Ukrainian War, Defiance, beginning with Volume 1: Miracle on Dnipro: Kyiv & Chernihiv Campaign, from time to time. Given that we are designing a simulation regarding an ongoing conflict, it’s a first draft of history. Consequently, at least you’ll get some insight into why we got some items wrong 🙂
In our fourth article in this series, our developer, Bob Heinzmann, pipes up. As always, feel free to break out a beverage of your choice. We always include a recipe for a cocktail, mocktail, or appetizer at the end of each of our Defiance Design Happy Hour articles. This time, we go with a mean RED RAZ Martini.
In the early days of 2020, as most of us were in confinement because of the COVID-19 pandemic, I found myself diving deep into Volko’s COIN series. My journey into the COIN system began somewhat by accident. I had played a couple of games, only with two players, and hadn’t enjoyed the experience. But as I discovered a new Discord server dedicated to the series, full of young and fun players, I finally wrapped my head around the genius of Volko’s system. There was a lot of enthusiasm and creative energy in this online space, and we all had a lot of time on our hands. One of the people that struck me the most was Joe Dewhurst. I tried and thoroughly enjoyed the early version of his prototype of The Pure Land. You might say it was love at first sight.
Three Days of Gettysburg Deluxe Edition’s design is picking up pace and is now moving through both alpha and beta testing of the current scenarios.
These include the traditional first-day battle. However, multiple scenarios have different starting times for the whole July 1st fight. The first scenario begins at 7 AM and is designed with the optional Skirmisher rules to cover the small unit fighting and maneuvering before the Union infantry arrive. While the original 3DoG first-day scenario was fun and exciting with a slow-moving Southern infantry division facing a nimble but smaller Union cavalry force, it had little to do with the actual history of the morning fight before Reynold’s Union infantry arrived. The typical competitive play focused on the threat of cavalry charges against the flanks of the Rebel force and had no resemblance to the fighting early on that July day.
All the French Tanks can be seen. Most of the Germans can also be seen.
French Commands – The Tanks have Fire commands while the infantry, coming from off board, have Move commands.
