Note: All images are of playtest art and not final

Volume 3 of Fields of Fire brings three campaigns – the Battle of Arnhem in 1944, the Falklands War in 1982, and Helmand Province, Afghanistan in 2008.

Although I can’t necessarily speak for a non-British audience, ‘Operation Market Garden’ and the battle of Arnhem is pretty well embedded in the mind of the public; mostly through repeats of the film ‘A Bridge Too Far’ every Christmas! But who can not be interested in the audacious operation to seize a route through the German-occupied Netherlands in an attempt to bypass the heavily defended ‘Siegfried Line’ along the German border? It’s a tale of daring, bravery, stubborn resistance and, ultimately, hopelessness, as the British Armoured Corps racing northwards to link up with the paratroopers dropped 60 miles behind enemy lines never made it in time.

The Campaign

In the Arnhem campaign you, the player, play the part of Major Digby Tatham-Warter, a 27-year-old Major in command of ‘A’ Company, the 2^nd Battalion of The Parachute Regiment (2 PARA). Remember the officer in the film who carried the umbrella? He was based on Digby (but he didn’t die I real life!)… Allegedly it was because Digby could never remember the passwords, and figured he wouldn’t be accidentally shot by his own men, as no German would ever be mad enough to carry an umbrella!

In the first missions you will lead your company from the drop zones to the west of Arnhem, where 10,000 British troops would eventually arrive by parachute or glider, and follow the river past the small town of Oosterbeek towards Arnhem. This is where the majority of the Airborne Brigade would become held up in bitter fighting. 2 PARA were the only battalion to reach the town of Arnhem itself, though subunits of some other units also found their way through to join them.

Once you reach the town, you will conduct a night assault on the famous road bridge, in an effort to dislodge the Germans from the pillboxes that defend it.

These first missions are played on Terrain cards that owners of previous Fields of Fire volumes will find very familiar. But the Arnhem campaign has two different decks. Half of the missions are played on cards similar to Volume 2’s Hue terrain deck – representing the streets of the town itself. The Urban cards have been based on historical aerial photography of Arnhem in 1944 (much of the town was destroyed in the fighting and rebuilt after the war), and basically forms a 5×10 map ‘jigsaw’. Not all of this area is used in every Urban Mission though.

The first urban mission will see you in confused night fighting around the northern end of the bridge, as German defenders try to work out exactly where the British defences are. Then, the next morning, you will spring a devastating ambush on the column of German armoured reconnaissance vehicles that attempt to cross the bridge. In the remaining missions you will be organising an urban defence, with the British being squeezed into an increasingly small perimeter, with dwindling men and ammunition.

So what’s new in Volume 3?

Well, aside from the (correct!) British spellings of armour and colour throughout the Mission Books, and the fact you have Stretcher teams rather than Litter Teams, there’s a whole lot of new stuff!

The cards in the Urban deck for example will be double sided. One side will show the buildings complete and barricaded, whilst on the back will be the same building area, but reduced to rubble – damage to the town in one mission will be carried through the whole campaign. How do the buildings become rubble? There are Campaign Special Rules covering the chance of buildings collapsing due to, for example, tank fire, artillery, or demolition charges.

Buildings may also catch fire, either through being hit in combat, or by being deliberately set on fire by Germans using Flammenwerfer (flamethrowers) to flush the defenders out. There are rules and counters to cover the ignition and possible spread of the fires, and for the effect it has on combat – desperate troops may re-enter collapsed buildings or even fight from within burning buildings, but it’s not that advisable!

Whilst being on the defensive and on the receiving end of an enemy attack is not new to the series, being attacked in urban terrain is. A new Enemy Hierarchy chart has been developed to ensure the Germans make best use of the urban cover when necessary, whilst still advancing, and attempt to breach and enter fortified buildings – in Volume 2’s Hue campaign it was always the American side attacking into urban terrain. Urban combat is about as complicated as the Fields of Fire system gets, but it brings a very new dimension if you’ve not tried it before. To help you, there will be a full Starter Guide and Field Manual to walk you through the processes.

As well as all this, you will get to use iconic British equipment such as the Bren Light Machine Gun, the Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank (better known as the ‘PIAT’) and a bugle. Yes, a bugle! Major Tatham-Warter had served in the Light Infantry prior to the war and British Light Infantry units were (and in fact still are, for foot drill purposes) trained to respond to different calls played on a bugle – something harking back to Napoleonic times. Tatham-Warter had trained his own company to do the same, and this turned out to be highly useful when the paratroopers found that their radios were very ineffectual in and amongst the dense buildings of the town.

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