Early-war Campaigns: Making The Most Of Your Early-war Forces with Jökull Gíslason With the Early-war sale fast approaching, it’s a good time to examine your collection and find ways to improve upon it. One thing to explore at is getting the right force for a campaign. Currently there are two Firestorm campaigns available for Early-war; Firestorm Greece and Firestorm Norway. The Early-war sale will allow you to field forces for these campaigns at up to a 33% discount. These campaigns are free to download as a supplement to Early-war Games here on the Flames Of War website.

Learn more about the Early-war Sale here...

Why play a campaign? Well, it takes your regular Flames Of War games to the next level; fighting with the armies in their historically correct setting. Both Norway and Greece are fascinating campaigns and are well worth the effort in re-fighting. Both campaigns are designed in a way to make them run as close to the actual events as possible, although there is room to still change history! In fact, I have heard complaints that Firestorm Greece is very hard to win as the Greeks and Allies. Well, that is exactly how it is intended to be. These campaigns are not intended to be equal match ups. The same as with real fighting the advantage is usually with one side. This is represented by the Firestorm Troops. You may find yourself fighting desperate battles with one side possibly having a numerical advantage. Remember to have fun and hopefully learn a bit of history as well.

Firestorm Greece This is the perfect companion to Burning Empires. Its primary focus is the Greco-Italian War on the border of Albania and Greece 28 October 1940 to 23 April 1941 followed by the German Invasion on the 6 April 1941 until the Allied evacuation on the 30 April. The first three turns it is a slugfest between the Italians and the Greeks, both ill prepared to fight a war in rocky mountain terrain. Turn Four brings Unternehmen Marita or the German invasion and on the Greek side the forces of British Expeditionary Force (or BEF) comprising of the 6th Australian Division, New Zealand 2nd Division and the British 1st Armoured Brigade. While the British sent a small force, the Germans planned their offensive on a grand scale (5 German Corps against 2½ British Divisions). The hapless Greek Army was already tied up in the fighting with the Italians and could do little to stop the Germans. Meanwhile the BEF was forced to fight a fighting withdrawal making a stand a Thermopylae where Leonidas and his men made the famous stand more than two thousand years before. Firestorm Greece is an excellent game to make the most of the following Early-war forces: ■ Italians ■ Greeks ■ Germans: Gebirgsjager and SS–Leibstandearte or any other German Early-war forces ■ British from Hellfire and Back fighting in the Greek mountains and passes.

Download Firestorm Greece here...

Firestorm Norway Norway is another fascinating campaign. Prior to invading France and the Low Countries, the German High Command decided to invade Denmark and Norway as part of Operation Weserübung. The French and British had plans to invade Norway themselves and saw this as an opportunity to divert the fighting from their own countries. Denmark capitulated the first day but in Norway the battle lasted 62 days (longer than the battle of France). The Allied response was too little too late and even then it was poorly organised leading Churchill to comment “A muddy waddle, backwards and forwards.” Firestorm Norway is a first in that it includes a complete Strategic game as well as the standard Firestorm game as it is impossible to separate the naval and air actions from the fortunes in Norway.   The Norwegians were ill prepared for the war but fought bravely for their country. As with Greece the Germans made their plans on a grand scale and committed seven divisions and supporting elements to which the Allies only responded with Brigades and battalions.

Download Firestorm Norway here...

Even though Norway was considered ill-suited to armoured warfare the Germans committed tanks such as the Panzer I and Panzer II which since the Norwegian defence lacked anti-tank weapons these light tank become miniature Tigers in battle. The entire campaign is four turns and gives you great modelling opportunities as you model the Gebirgsjager, French Fusiliers, Norwegians and BEF Rifle Platoons in wintery colours and bases. Firestorm Norway is an excellent game to make the most of the following Early-war Forces: ■ Norwegians (See the official Norwegian Early-war briefing here...) ■ British, French and Germans from Blitzkrieg  ■ German Gebirgsjager from Burning Empires. ~ Jökull.

Learn more about other Flames Of War campaigns here...