First Game of Fireball Forward.

Played a nice new World War 2 Game. Gus and I played this one while Bruce was the umpire and game teacher. Thank you for bringing out the game pieces and the stuff to play, Bruce!

In this game of Fireball Forward, I played as the British and Gus played as the Germans. It was a 1944, late war scenario based out in Livry, France. The objective of this game was to get my Cromwell tanks through to the otherwise of the board past all the German defences, or destroy the German 75MM Anti-Tank PaK gun. It starts out with the lead Tank destroyed before the game begins and the surviving three tanks with infantry support are to try and make it through - or to take out the German Anti-Tank gun and survive 6 turns with 2 Cromwell Tanks. The game started up with me setting my infantry units out on the left side of my board and heading forth, getting into positions - one infantry in open ground was shot at and the German position was revealed (The Germans had Fog Of War! Sneaky army!) When I brought my first Cromwell on to get behind the destroyed one, Gus immediately surprised me by blasting out the Anti-Tank Gun right away - he had deployed it up close and personal and I lost a second Cromwell. This meant the only option was to take out his 75mm gun and have two Cromwell survive. I did this with the other two tanks, and on the first turn the British were minus a second Cromwell, and the Germans lost their 75mm. On the second turn I backed my tanks out of any shooting range before sending some infantry packing and unfortunately both my tank's guns jammed or maybe they ran out of Ammo. In any case, they took no more shots the entire game as I tried to fix it each turn, but they failed to get the damn cannons to fire. Meanwhile, the infantry division met heavy German advancements on the left flank and despite some heroic efforts and rallying back into combat, the German's overwhelmed my defences and in the end Gus was able to get a Panzerchrek team on the flank of one of my Cromwell's and take it out - winning on the 6th and final turn of the scenario. It was a great game and it was very close! The British looked to have a win if the Germans didn't make it, but failure for other British variable reinforcements to arrive and jammed tank cannons gave the Germans with their Fog of War the edge and with skill and determination , they avenged their fallen Anti-Tank gun team and most of the British Infantry were utterly destroyed. The Germans won this and the British will have to obviously double their efforts to get through Livry. What I liked about this game was that it was completely scenario oriented. It also makes use of random variables and events which can make each and every game special and unique. Fog of War and movement speed coupled with terrain cover affecting shooting really added a touch of realism to the game. It also uses the full Polyhedral dice sets, which I don't see in many games. The game is meant for 15-28mm figures, and while I don't have any 15mm I could see myself adapting these rules to my 28mm tanks and infantry for some really good games. Thanks again Bruce and Gus for the game!

Finally - three elements that did not make it to the field - the German Armored Car, the Allied Jeep, and the allied Carrier which I took pictures of anyways. Whether they made it to the field or not was determined by dice rolls prior to deployment and starting the game.