Firestorm: Greece

 Firestorm: Greece

Firestorm Greece:
Mini Campaign

The Italian and German Invasions of Greece.
By Jökull Gislason

With the publication of Burning Empires I would like to bring the Battle for Greece out in a larger context. The fierce resistance of Greeks against the Italian attack and the ill fated British Expeditionary Force against the powerful German invasion from a great background that can be played using the excellent Firestorm system.

Italians invade Greece

One of the good things about Firestorm is how simple the system is and how easy it is to twist and tweak it to what is required. With this in mind there are a few differences between Firestorm: Greece and the two previous versions, Bagration and Market Garden. One is that it is smaller in scale than previous Firestorms and can easily be played by as few as two people. In fact I call it a mini campaign since it is best suited to a small group and can be played far more quickly.

Secondly the game is spilt into 4 turns that resemble the entire Campaign. The first three turns focus on the Greco-Italian War, while turn 4 is known as the Battle of Greece and sees the overwhelming German Invasion. First turn is the initial Italian Invasion – Emergenza G (“Contingency G[reece]”). Turn two sees the Greek Counter-Offensive, Turn three the short Italian Spring Offensive – Primavera, led by Mussolini himself.

Lastly in Turn four, the German Invasion – Unternehmen Marita (“Operation Marita”). To best represent the Battle of Greece each turn is played a little differently and guides you through the conflict trying to capture the essence of each stage. It also gives players a good opportunity to field their respective armies and have the best playing experience with their Italian and Greek armies that should centre in the Campaign.

Italian infantry move through a forrest
You don’t need Firestorm–Bagration or Market Garden to play?
Firestorm: Greece is mostly self-contained. We have included all of the rules you will need to play, so it is not necessary to own Firestorm: Bagration/Market Garden. Downloadable tokens are provided although you can easily substitute them
with other models.

For those who are familiar with Firestorm, what is different?
There are a few fundamental variations and differences between Firestorm: Greece and Firestorms Bagration and Market Garden. To help players out here is a list of the major differences:

Aircraft: Unlike Bagration and Market Garden players do not receive Aircraft models on the table like other units, but have a number of sorties available to them. You can allocate
a sortie to an attack or defence although the Aircraft can only be the second unit allocated to each attack. Sorties are provided for each turn so there is no need to roll for losses,
you always get what is allocated for the turn. Once used they cannot be used again that turn.

Greek Artillery defend their lands

Attacker: In Firestorm: Greece, the player with the initiative automatically becomes the attacker in the Flames of War game, this supercedes any other special rules, both in missions and army lists.

Attacks: In this version of Firestorm only an attacking player can capture a region. If the defender wins, he has done just that, successfully defended. Also in order to make an attack you must commit at least one Firestorm unit to the battle which effectively means you can only attack from regions containing Firestorm Troops. Empty areas can still be
attacked into and defend.

Mini-Campaign: Unlike Bagration and Market Garden this is not a large scale campaign and can in fact easily be played with only 2 players. If you have a larger group then I suggest you play more than one battle as part of the same attack and then the side with the most Victory Points wins. Work it out yourselves and be flexible.

Turns: Each turn plays differently with regard to two things, determining initiative and number of battles. For example, Turn 1 has only 2 battles as the Royal Italian Army (“Regio Esercito”) was sent into a war it was unprepared for. Turn 4 on the other hand has between 8 and 12 battles with the Germans having a strong lead in initiative. There is a reason to this suggested number of battles and that is to keep the campaign running efficiently and within a reasonable timeframe. I have played many Firestorm games and found this crucial to a good outcome. But feel free to adjust this to your needs.

German recon search for the stubborn Greeks

The History
The history is based on three major sources, Burning Empires itself, Crete by Antony Beevor which includes a section on the Battle of Greece and Wikipedia as well as a few other internet based sources.

Where is Crete?
The Battle for Crete is a separate campaign. More importantly it uses different game mechanics which makes it hard to incorporate the two Campaigns. Possibly there is a Firestorm: Crete in the future. Maybe an enthusiastic gamer might wish to try his hand and make one?

German Kradschutzen drive through the mountains of Greece

What Forces Should I Play?
The Greek, German and Italian from Burning Empires and British from Hellfire and Back. In fact the British Forces in the Campaign were New Zealand and Australian troops and an Armoured Brigade intended for the desert and are quite fitting!

German armour tries to break the Greek defensive line

Report Back!
All feedback on the game is happily received and I would love to hear from you gamers as to how you find the Campaign. You can write your reports and comments on the forum under the Firestorm section.

Jökull

 Firestorm: Greece

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Last Updated On Thursday, March 22, 2012 by Blake at Battlefront