Rangers Lead The Way: Boots on the Ground in Europe

Rangers Lead The Way: Boots on the Ground in Europe Successful Rangers events have been happening all over Europe and North America. Here are just a few of the event held recently in Europe. Learn more about upcoming Ranger events in Europe here...

Comics & Collectibles Chesterfield held 7 May 2013 Tony ran the first 'Open Fire' demo games at the store on Tuesday evening from 7.00pm to 10.00pm. The evening was a great success; we had two full demo games during the evening with five new players to Flames Of War trying out 'Open Fire'. At one point during the second game there was a group of several other gamers from the stores existing gaming group looking on and expressing an interest in trying out the game, so much so Tony has been asked to go back and run more 'Open Fire' games at the store in a couple of weeks and to run regular demo sessions in the future.

Rikas One-Day Tournament held 11 May 2013 The Ranger Group Rikas in Lituania recently held a one-day tournament. Above are some pictures of the tournament in full swing. Congratulations to Karolis on winning the tournament.

1. Karolis Jankauskas (GER): 17 Victory points. 2. Michail Grasevich (GER) : 12 Victory points. 3. Tomas Jakubaitis (GER) : 11 Victory points. 4. Balys Narbutas (UK): 9 Victory points.

5. Rimantas Černiauskas (UK): 8 Victory points. 6. Vitali Vasilus (US): 6 Victory points. 7. Valius Vaitkus (GER): 5 Victory points. 8. Vytautas Podolianka (CCCP): 2 Victory points.

Acme Games held 24 April 2013 Alex at Acme Games ran their first Rangers event with seven new players trying out Flames Of War for the very first time.  The following day and evening was spent helping out the new players with which armies they are looking to collect. They will be looking to run another event in the near future, so that the players can get to try out their armies in a small event.

Ranger on Tour Last week I spent the week up in Iceland; whilst I was there I caught up with Einherjar, which is the Icelandic gaming group that does most of their gaming at Nexus. Jokull and his gaming group do a lot of playtesting for Battlefront, and this Sunday I was invited to play a game against Jokull to test out a Russian Tankovy list. So taking to the table with a SS Totenkopf Tank Company my mission was to stop the advancing Russian Tankovy.

So seizing the iniative I advanced on both flanks trying to take out the two advacing lines of T-34/85s. The three Panther Gs on the left flank followed orders to the letter and over the next three turns, stopping the Russians dead in their tracks and started to make inroads to the objective at the far side of the table.

However, on the right flank things did not fair so well for the StuGs and the two Tigers they put a slight dent in the flanking force but soon found themselves out gunned and losing ground on the right flank.

My Company Commander distracted by the events on the right flank failed to notice the four ISU-122s advancing up the center. The ISU-122s made short work of the two Panthers and with nothing left to contest the objectives the Russians advanced past the remaining Panthers to claim the objective. A great game of Flames Of War and I think you will agree Jokull looks great in his Russian uniform. If you are ever planing a trip up to Iceland then drop into Nexus you will find it a store that has a fantastic range of wargames, board games, comics and DVDs. Also get in touch with the Einherjar, and I am sure they will be more than happy to arrange a game with you.

Thanks to Jokull and the gamers of Einherjar for their warm hospitality and for showing me some of the World War II sites in Reykavik. I know I am going to be back next year, and hoepfully come away with a victory this time. ~ Gareth.

Rangers at Salute 2013 held 20 April 2013 The four Rangers from the Chelmsford Bunker ran Flames Of War demos using Open Fire through the course of the day. Two more Rangers taught visitors how to play Spartacus and also the new supplement Serpants and the Wolf. Tim from the Reading Wargames Assocaition, using the Vietnam board, took visitors through Tour of Duty, showing experienced Flames Of War players, the delights of helicopters and armour from the 1970s. New players to Flames Of War were also shown how to play.

Throughout the course of the day, the American forces managed to defend the Firebase three times, and the North Vietnamese captured the Firebase four times so a narrow win for the Forces of the Republic. A big thank you to the Rangers from Chelmsford Bunker and Reading Wargames Association.

Escuadron 201 Reporting In! It’s been an exciting few weeks in Mexico City, as boots hit the ground running and Ranger Club Escuadron 201 has been demoing and recruiting. Our strategy has been a two pronged attack in two of the prime gaming facilities in the city; Quest Hobbies and Kallisti Juegos. Kallisti is located in the western side of Mexico City, it has great gaming space and people. Demo night at Kallisti was held on 4 April 2013 with several people rolling in to try the game for the first time. We’re very proud to have a couple youngsters approaching us to try the game who absolutely loved it.

One of them was so excited with the game that he’s now the proud owner of a fairly large Late-war Soviet army!

After the demonstrations at Kallisti, another player decided to order a copy of the Open Fire! box set.

Demo night at Quest Hobbies was held on 13 April 2013. Quest Hobbies caters a bit more to the experienced gamers in the city and our event was full of people that had some previous experience with the game but had dropped out for some reason. They have four gorgeous gaming tables and even repainted one especially for the event to include some marshes!

We got to walk everyone through the game fairly quickly and got four players face off against each other with an Open Fire! set and two Africa themed armies.

All of the players already had started armies of their own, so getting together and making sure everybody could play a basic game was great to get the community back on track. There’s talk in the air of running a Firestorm campaign and we will start forming team to get the campaign rolling next week.

One of the veterans in the group recently made his mind up to get an Open Fire! box set to expand on the army he is already developing.

All in all, the past few weeks have been fantastic. The Flames Of War community in Mexico City always has a lot of fun and the involved players are always interest in new ways to grow the hobby and enjoying the game.

Kallisti Juegos is located at Calzada de los Leones #145, loc 103, C.P. 01710, Mexico City. Telephone: 5680 0373.

Quest Hobbies is located at Calle Empresa #91, loc A, C.P. 03920, Mexico City. Telephone: 5598 9278.

Footfall at Shadow Our first Ranger event really has gone with a bang today. Footfall at Shadow was immense during the morning and we got to speak to several members of the wider community who were all keen to observe or take part in our demonstration games.  Interest in the club as a whole was also high and I look forward to welcoming all the new visitors to the club over the next few weeks. Although it calmed down in the afternoon, Ben, Alan, Adam C and myself were all able to get a game in against both the new and old faces.

The scenery provided by the team at Shadow was excellent (as was the free caffeine and sandwiches! Thanks guys!). Tabletop gaming is truly alive and thriving in Rugby!
	Lots of players were taking part in the many events on offer during the course of the day, but Flame Of War proved to be a popular draw with both existing and new potential members showing interest in purchasing Open Fire and playing at the club. Now that all the infantry are painted to a reasonable tabletop standard and the tanks done too, anybody will be able to use the set whenever they like as it will be kept at the club for communal use.
I finally made it home after six and was still promoting the club right up until leaving, with customers still coming into the store right up until I left. Flames Of War is a fast paced game compared to other systems and I believe that it will gain more support going forward.

Overall, I consider that there is a good future for events like today; promoting both Flames Of War and the club as a whole and engaging with like-minded individuals.  Thanks to everyone who turned out today to support the club at large; you all made the day the success it was, especially Alan who turned out despite feeling poorly.

Anyway, if you didn't get or haven't had the chance to try out something different get down to the club soon and get your Shermans out! If only the day had been better for poor old Jerry - who got soundly thrashed by the Allies for most of the day and narrowly lost in a down to the wire game right at the tail end of the afternoon. Next time it'll be different I'm sure. Learn more about Outlanders Gaming Club here...

GothCon 2013 At the yearly gaming convention in Göteborg the brave souls from the club Yggdrassil organised a successfully run a Flames Of War tournament. Thirty players were keen to answer the call to arms including no less than seven players for whom GothCon their first ever Flames Of War tournament. With varied tables and missions together with many well painted miniatures and some of the most polite players I've ever met it was, as always, a pleasure to umpire.

Big congratulations to Per Engström (Best General), Klaes Edlund (Jolly Good Chap), Stefan Salomonsson (Best Painted) and Andreas Isaksson (Best Newbie) as well as the other winners.

The Rangers were on hand running Open Fire demos and Vietnam for those that had not tried it before. GothCon will be back next year on 18-20 April 2014. Keep an eye out for more information nearer the time.

All Quite On The Easter Front held at Vanguard Wargames Vanguard Wargames in preparation to their Rangers event ran a tournament over the Easter Weekend on the Saturday using a three game format with a few secret objectives thrown in. All Quiet On The Easter Front was a 1750 point, Late-war tournament with any of the Late War books and PDFs available for the entrants to draw their forces from. Missions were chosen beforehand (with some feedback from the community; everyone has their favourites).

Mission One: Started things off very simply to shake out the early morning sleepiness: Free-For-All. Mission Two: Stepped things up with Breakthrough. Mission Three: Closed proceedings with Surrounded. As a bit of a quirk, and something that has been buzzing around the Bristol community for some time, I threw in some Secret Objectives. These were selected before the battle started, but after deployment. They affected the outcome of the games by adding a Victory Point to each side and acting as a tie-breaker in the final scoring. Over three games, the odds of a tie were quite high. As it happened, despite my attempts at avoiding it, there was still a tie for second, which was only broken by the fact that second place had beaten third place earlier in the tournament! Here are the secret objectives (feel free to use the idea or even these exact objectives!):
	Objective One: Destruction! Rumours floating around that the enemy has infiltrated your ranks; maybe because of spy sections like the Skorzeny Commando group, inflated after-action reports, or just plain old propaganda. Either way, your combat group will gain a moral boost if you manage to smash their infiltration unit. Select one enemy support platoon. That platoon must be completely destroyed at all costs! Causing a platoon morale check that fails counts, and aircraft do not. If the opponent has no support platoons, choose a combat platoon.
Objective Two: King of the Hill! Nothing beats an against-all-odds story! Whether you hold the hill against wave after wave of attacks, or forced aside an overwhelming defence, claiming that hill will inevitably make good propaganda, and make for a great movie script in the future. Select one piece of terrain NOT in either side’s deployment area. You must get one of your platoons in that piece of terrain and hold it as if it were an objective. Objective Three: Survival! Rumours have been circulating that one of your platoons has become a primary target for the enemy, whether that's down to successful propaganda campaigns or those dastardly spies once again, no one knows. But morale will receive a huge boost knowing that despite the enemy throwing everything at this platoon, they survived against the odds. Select one of your support platoons. That platoon must survive the battle, even if it only as one team left! If the platoon fails a platoon morale check, it is destroyed. If you have no support platoons, select a combat platoon.

Proving that his reputation for winning every game system he plays is very well deserved, using a list that was not in any way optimised for tournament gaming - he bought is American Infantry company with both Mid and Late-war in mind, meaning that the stand out units of his force was usable in both eras, such as the M10s. Ben Edgar was the winner of the tournament, finishing five points clear and only two points short of the maximum available.

Finishing joint second were John Philips with his Panzerkompanie and Liam Hall with his British Armoured Recce company. With both scoring a 6-1 win, a 5-2 win, a 1-6 loss and achieving two of their secret objectives, things were evidently as close as they could get between them, but as there are no ties in Flames Of War, the only tie-breaker between them was that they'd played each other during the event. As John came out on top in that game, he came out on top in the final standings.

Best Painted army also came down to a tie between John Philips and Sebastian Reid after all the other gamers had voted. After looking at these two armies very closely, I gave the award to Sebastian and his British Paras. It came right down to the tiny details on the models. Sebastian's army was fractionally better, so he picked up the accolade.

Painting and Gaming Day at Dragons Lair held 23 March 2013 The stores in the Dragons Lair chain had a successful day of painting and gaming here is a selection of pictures from their stores.

Cannon: Stepping Into The Breech held 24 March 2013 Unfortunately Tony from COGS spent two days digging out his car from the snow in his area. However, a club from Lincoln stepped into the breach to run Flames Of War demo games on the day as they had brought their copies of Open Fire with them. Unfortunately the show organiser did not manage to get any contact details for them. So if you were the gamers or you know who they were could you please get in touch with me (gareth.richards@battlefront.co.nz) as I would like to thank you for running the games. ~ Gareth.

Rangers At 6s2Hit held 15 March 2013 With the store having an emergency on the day of the Rangers event; Jason had to quickly put together a new set and use what terrain could be found. The owner from the store upstairs thankfully let him run some games in his store for the evening.

A series of demo gamers for new players were ran at the Games Hub in Edinburgh for four hours. A total of seven people took part and it went well with all players enjoying the game and two seriously interested. Another event will be booked in soon, so keep eyes open for a new date in the 6s2Hit store.

Rangers at Strategos in Murica, Spain. held Saturday 9 March 2013 A great day of gaming was had by all as a group of new players were shown how to play Flames Of War,  many of which expressed interest  in a league that will be formed later in the year. Having Flames Of War rules now available in Spanish certainly made it easier to demonstrate the rules to the players and explain how the game works. Strategos Calle del General Mola, 34, 30120 Murcia, Spain.

Below: Some of the action for the Ranger event held at Strategos.

Janco Toys This is our first Rangers event at Janco Toys and we all had a great deal fun. We set one table up with the new starter set and it looked great with all the miniatures painted ready for people to try Flames Of War for themselves. Our other tables were set up too including one in a winter theme to match my German winterised army. Right: Young and old fight it out Flames Of War style.

The Janco Toys club members came out in force to help out the new players, and a lot of the kids from the Saturday club that Janco Toys runs also attend and were keen to learn how to play Flames Of War. It was a great weekend and with so many new players getting into Flames Of War it was hard to tell who was more excited, the kids or the adults. It was nice to see a good range of different armies but sad to say I got beat twice but I’ll get my revenge for the next Flames Of War weekend which is already in planning. Left: Winter is coming!

The next big event for Flames Of War will be to commemorate the anniversary of D-Day which we will be hosting on 8 June 2013. Big thanks to Battlefront for coming up with the Rangers program; it was a great idea. Janco Toys 51 Park Road, Worsbrough Bridge Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 5AA United Kingdom http://www.jancotoys.com +44 1226 208654

MARMPA held 23 February 2013 The club members at MARMPA opened their doors last week to the local gaming community and showed any new comers how to play Flames Of War, a great deal of interest was shown and similar events are already planned for the future. Right & Below: Some of the action from the days play.

Northern Warlords  held 26 February 2013 We had six new players last night for introductory games so we were able to run three games, in the first game the Germans took up a strong defensive position behind a wall and begun a long range gun duel in an attempt  to knock-out the Shermans before storming onto the objective. The Shermans pushed forward to try and assault them but were cut down by the combined firepower of the Pak40s and StuGs. Left: What's my next move?

In the second game, the Germans tried to push forward with the infantry with the StuGs and PaK40s providing supporting fire. But this time they were cut down by the MG fire from the Shermans which reduced them to half strength, the survivors successfully dig-in but it was only a matter of time. The StuGs tried to push forward to assault the Paratroopers but despite bouncing a Bazooka shot off the Schürzen they failed to crush any Paras under their tracks and were bailed out in a hail of Gammon Bombs.
Below: The two armies clash.
For the final game of the night, the Americans tried to push forward with the Paratroopers covered by the supporting fire from the Shermans. This was a marginally more successful and they were able to dig-in on the objective. The Germans had no option but to assault with the Grenadiers in an attempt to push the Paratroopers off the objective. However, despite repeated attempts they were repulsed every time by American Defensive Fire.

Boots on the Ground at Mythika, Spain. Flames Of War Valencia landed at Mythika Games to run demonstration games using of Open Fire. The table was set up a with the contents of the Open Fire box set before we demonstrated the basic principles of the Flames Of War before running them through their first game. The event proved very popular, with several games of Flames Of War running at once over the course of the afternoon.  There were plenty of onlookers who either just watched or took part in the games. Many of which were keen to take up Flames Of War.

Below: Some of the action from the event at Mythika, Spain.

Practise Landings for the Austrian Rangers To ensure they would be ready for the event being held at HGM Heergeschichtliches Museum being held 9-10 March 2013, the Austrian Rangers ran a practice demonstration day where they played Flames Of War late into the evening. With two new recruits playing for two hours after the demonstration had finished. If you are in Austria on the 9-10 March or live near the tank museum get yourself along to the show.

Battlefront Europe HQ held 14 February 2013 Braving the fury of wives, girlfriends and other loved ones, intrepid gamers arrived at Battlefront Europe HQ for our second Rangers event. Three new recruits were able to play their very first games of Flames Of War. Tom, brand new to wargaming was told to go out and by a lottery ticket on leaving, as he had the unnerving ability to roll whatever score was required as Kevin's StuGs soon discovered.

In the second game of the evening, another new gamer Richard was also the receiving end of Tom's unnerving dice rolling ability despite defending the objective to the last and suffered a narrow loss after losing both his remaining StuGs. Our next Rangers night is on the 28 February 2013 were we will be expanding to 1000 point forces. But do not fear, if you have never played a game we will have a table set up and ready to take you through your first game.

Generation X Valencia Store held 16 February 2013 Rangers from the FOW Valencia Team were in the store to show new and experienced Flames Of War players the finer art of painting tanks and infantry.

There was no rest on the Sunday as they helped in the setting up of a new club FOW Chiva, who will be joining the Rangers program in the near future.

The club will be based in the cultural association La Mutua de Chiva. C/ Antonio Machado nº 6 . Meeting on Friday afternoon. More Info: Juan Arturo Muñoz Barros  E-mail: armuba@hotmail.com If you are local to the area and looking for a Flames Of War gaming club then send Juan an email.

Hammerhead Newark held 10 February 2013 Hammerhead is a show jointly run by the GCN (Gaming Club Networks) and COGS (Chesterfield Open Gaming Society). Our ethos is that all games must be participation to allow as many new players to experience or try out the games on offer. The 2013 show saw 33 traders selling all manner of wargaming goodies. We had 33 full participation games covering all manner of historical periods, genres and gaming systems. Flames Of War was well represented with an Open Fire game and a massive game set on the Russian Front, both games run by COGS, this was their first Rangers event.

Open Fire We ran games on the day and had around a dozen players joining in, all the players were new to the show and had never tried Flames Of War before.  Every game went down a treat and all the players left very happy apart from one father whom Germans force was comprehensively beaten by the Allies under the command of his eight year old son, who according to Dad was apparently going to have to walk home after the show.

Onslaught at Orsha This was a huge game with three companies totalling 6000 points per side set up on a 10’ x 6’ table.  The game saw the German 78th Sturm Division trying to stop the Russian forces from re-taking the city of Orsha on 26 June 1944.  We had a good portion of the city of Orsha represented on one side of the board and loads of rural scenery and buildings from Battlefront on the other.  We had numerous fortifications and obstacles for the Russian forces to deal with before they reached the city itself.  Two of club members were on each side of the table to direct the game and were joined throughout the day by a large numbers of attendees at the show. The only argument we had with this game on the day was between two friends who wanted to go and get an Open Fire set after playing on the Orsha board for about four hours as they and could not decide who wanted which force!

Battlefront HQ held 31 January 2013 We ran our first Rangers night at the Battlefront Europe HQ and had 6 new faces to Flames of War. 3 of which had never played a table top wargame before and the other 3 being new to Flames of War. Over the course of the night we ran games that taught the use of tanks to start off with to show the basics of the turn sequence and rules of the game. Then we added in Infantry so that the players could then start to learn combined tactics with Tanks and Infantry. Right: Ben deep in thought pondering his next move whilst Joaquin watches on.

Meanwhile on another table Anders with his Russians took on Pete using Germans in closely fought came both players ground out to bloody draw. Left: The German make good use of the fields to give their troops some cover.

Our next Rangers night will be on the 14th of February, where we will run more Intro Games for those new to Flames of War and also look to start a Tank Aces Campaign for those players how have played a few games. Contact Gareth at Gareth.Richards@battlefront.co.nz for more information. Right: The smoke from the T34/85 wrecks can be clearly seen.

World at War Livington held 2 Feburary 2013 Our first Flames Of War Rangers Day was a great success for the Worlds at War and for our customers. We had demos and intro games running all day. Several new players enjoyed an Open Fire demo and we sold out all but one of our Open Fire box sets. For the more experienced new players we had company sized games running and even a Vietnam intro game. Our new recruits discussed lists, nations, tactics and modelling with our Ranger and veteran players so that they left not only with their Open Fire box sets but also the inspiration to get their Open Fire miniatures assembled, painted and on the table. The consensus of all was that the Rangers Day was a great stepping stone to getting more people playing Flames of War. All in it was a great day for all our customers who can look forward to playing more fantastic games with more gaming friends. Bookings for our regular Flames of War tournaments and sessions at the shop are up already! ~ Frank Keist, Store Owner.

Crusade Penarth held 26 January 2013 The demo gamers braved the bad weather in South Wales to ensure that the Flames Of War demo table was fully manned throughout the day. Unfortunately due to the bad weather attendance was down on the year before. Whilst running one of the intro games Jones the Dice was beaten by possibly the youngest gamer at the show at the age of 6.

Museum L'Iber del Soldadito de Plomo: Valencia, Spain held 27 - 28 December 2012 The Valencia Team Flames Of War Group used their freshly painted Bocage table and  demonstration set to run intro games at the Museum L’Iber del Soldadito de Plomo. The over the two days plenty introductory games were run and players who had not previously tried Flames of War showed great interest and will be popping to their local stockist to pick up a copy.

Onslaught Games: Brighton & Hove held 1 December 2012 Lee from the Brighton Warlords ran games of Open Fire on Saturday 1st. Existing regulars in the shop who had not tried Flames of War before had their first games; a few gamers bought copies of Open Fire and are now trying to work out which nation that they want to play. Brighton Warlords will be holding their annual Brighton Bash on the 12 - 13 January 2013.

Freakshow Gorona held 1 December 2012 The pre-orders for Fuego A Discrecion (Spanish for Open Fire) have been going well in the store and with the Christmas festivities coming up, players from CAWA Girona set up in the store after the siesta and ran a large demo game of Open Fire where players were welcomed to join in and learnt how to play. There will be events planned for the New Year at Freakshow with the release of Fuego A Discrecion.

Valencia Team Flames Of War Group The guys in the Valencia Team Flames Of War Group have been busy over the last few weeks on their latest project. With the recent release of Normandy Battles the guys have been inspired to start a campaign in Normandy. Check out the pictures of the gaming mat they have made.