Thursday, January 31, 2013

Crete Campaign for Flames of War

A few years ago, I had started trying to put together a Crete Campaign for Flames of War.  I had finished the campaign map and had started some of the basic rules and listed the firestorm platoons.  Then, after trying to drum up some interest in the campaign, I realized that not enough people would be interested in playing, because it would mostly be an infantry campaign.  Seem most of the gamers prefer playing with tanks.  So my plans were torpedoed.

I came across the map today on my computer and thought maybe someone out there could find use for it which I will link to below.  I couldn't find the other stuff I had written up, so I'll try to list it off the top of my head.

First off, I was designing it after the Flames of War Firestorm campaign "Operation Market Garden" and you should refer to that for the rules.  Just remember to flip the sides around in that the Germans are the attacker and Allies as the defender.

2nd, there was very little armor in the campaign.  So little in fact, that I wasn't going to allow anyone to buy armor and instead regulate armor to the Firestorm platoons.  The Allies would have the following as firestorm platoons: 3 Matilda II platoons of 3 tanks each, 4 Light Mk VIB platoons of 4 tanks each, and 4 universal carrier platoons of 3 carriers each.  If you wanted to, you could add a few platoons of trucks and a few infantry platoons to your firestorm list.  Also, all tank (but not the UC) will be unreliable.  The allies shouldn't have any aircraft.

The only armor that the Germans had was 2 panzer II that that landed about half way thru the battle.  So add a small platoon of panzer II to their firestorm list.  However, before they are allowed to deploy them, the Germans must capture the city of Maleme in the Northwest of the island.  The Germans should get 7 x priority air support for their side.  Some other firestorm troops you can add are Fallschirmjager infantry platoons and Mountain infantry platoons.  If you wanted to be really historical, only allow platoons and equipment that can be transported via airplane (with the exception of the panzer II.)  I wasn't going to do that, but its up to you.

3rd, how to design terrain of the table.  I'm no expert on Crete's geography, but from what I could find on the internet there should be only a few trees and a whole lot of hills.  The map is divided into three colors the describe the terrain.  Light green should be some what hilly, light brown should be really hilly, and dark brown should be extreme.  And now that I think about it, I was going to make dark brown impassable.  And, of course, the gray hexes are cities and towns.

The map has several parachute symbols in various hexes.  This is where the Germans start.  I debated on weather to assume that the Germans had already captured the hex or make them do an air assault to capture it.  Or maybe half are already captured and the other half you have to assault.  I'll leave that up to you.

For the Germans to win they need to capture hexes that have a point value and the British need to keep them from doing it.  I used 5 turns because that's what "Market Garden" uses.

I think that was about as far as I had gotten in designing this campaign.  I don't plan on doing anything else with it so please feel free to use what I have or add (or subtract) to it.  All I ask is to not use it for profit.  If you do take up the challenge of finishing it, please let me know what you came up with.  I would be very interested to see how it was received.  You can take the map to Kinkos and print it off.  If I remember correctly, it was going to cost around $35.

When you open the link below, make sure to download the file to your computer.  For some reason google docs isn't displaying it properly.
Crete Campaign Map Updated.pdf