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Firestorm Market Garden Artwork Battlefront Plays Its Firestorm Market Garden Campaign
by Phil Yates

When the team at Battlefront finished their new Firestorm campaign for Operation Market Garden, they tried it out on the rest of the staff. The result was five weeks of gaming fun. Phil served as the German general (despite fighting on the British side!) and kept notes and wrote up the highlights of the campaign and its battles.
While Ken and I had played a lot of the General’s Wargame (a two-player boardgame adaption of Firestorm— Market Garden) and had run a campaign with the playtesters during development, we had never had the chance to run the whole of Firestorm—Market Garden through from beginning to end. When the opportunity came to run the campaign for the Battlefront staff, we leapt at the opportunity.
FJ assault
US Airborne attack Market Garden

Firestorm—Market Garden is a campaign based on Operation Market Garden, the Allied attempt in September 1944 to gain a crossing over the Lower Rhine after the break out from Normandy. The operation was divided into two parts: Operation Market, the biggest airborne landing of the war, and Operation Garden, an attack by 30 Corps to link up with the paras holding the bridge across the Rhine at Arnhem.

Operation Market used two American airborne divisions to take and hold critical bridges across the rivers and canals between Eindhoven and Nijmegen, and a British airborne division to take the bridge across the Lower Rhine at Arnhem.
Operation Garden sent the Guards Armoured Division on a 64-mile (106km) advance through enemy territory, across the bridges that the US paratroopers were to take, then on to meet up with the British airborne division at Arnhem.

What is Firestorm?

Firestorm—Market Garden is Battlefront Miniature’s second Firestorm campaign following on from Firestorm—Bagration. Like Bagration, Market Garden is a map-based campaign where the battles are fought out using the Flames Of War miniatures game.
British armour
British armour
The generals (in this case Ken for the Allies and Phil for the Germans) operate at the strategic level on the map, while the players fight the tactical battles where they think they will have the most effect (hopefully following the orders of their commanding generals!)

Flexibility

The goal in developing the Firestorm campaign structure was to allow players the maximum freedom in how and when
they play games, while ensuring that the outcome of every game has a dramatic impact on the campaign. Whenever two
players get together to play a game, they look at the campaign map and decide where to fight the battle. The map tells them what extra troops to add to their normal Flames Of War forces, and suggests the type of terrain that the battle would be fought in. The players fight out the battle and then move the pieces on the map to reflect the outcome.

When they want to fight another battle, they just pick another area on the map and fight away. Players can play as much or as little as they want, whether it be three or four games per week or even just one game in the whole campaign.

Strategy

The overall structure to the campaign is created by the strategic phase that happens once per campaign turn. We
decided to play one campaign turn each week. With five campaign turns, that gave us a five-week campaign—short
enough that everyone was eager to play and willing to commit the necessary time—and at the same time quick enough
that they didn’t get distracted with other things before we finished.

At the end of each week’s gaming Ken and I got together to play out the strategic phase. This is where we got to display our strategic brilliance (or perhaps lack of it in my case). This is where the Allies conducted their airdrops, and both sides manoeuvred to exploit openings left by the enemy and to reinforce their troops
where the battle looked most critical.
British Airdrops
American Airdrops
The Anatomy of a Turn
The Opening Turn
Turn 2
Turn 3
Turn 4
Turn 5
Total War - The Final Battle

After four weeks of hard-fought gaming, things looked grim for the Germans after Saturday’s games. They had lost every major objective on the table, and were over 200 Victory Points behind the Allies.

Nothing but the recapture of Nijmegen and Arnhem could redeem their field commanders in the eyes of Hitler. The
situation was desperate! After talking things through, Ken and I agreed to stake everything on one last battle. Whoever won this would win the campaign.

Total War Gaming Table
Looking at the campaign map, there were four German and five Allied Firestorm units in a position to dispute
the key Arnhem and Nijmegen bridges. The Allies had two parachute units on each bridge and an armoured brigade
on the Elst Road between them. The Germans had the Panther tanks of 107. Panzerbrigade and Von der Heydte’s Fallschirmjäger regiment west of Nijmegen and 506. Schwere Panzer Abteilung (heavy tank battalion) and some security troops from SS-Kampfgruppe Spindler east of Arnhem.

We set up a long table with Nijmegen at one end and Arnhem at the other. Normally Firestorm troops add bonus units
to your regular force, but for this game, we wanted to model the Firestorm units themselves, so we then told each player to form a company based on a Firestorm unit. We used the Total War multi-player rules from Battlefront’s website to keep everything moving smoothly in a big game.

The German counterattack
When everyone was ready, we set to for a gigantic battle that lasted until midnight. The fighting split into separate battles for each bridge with the Armoured Squadron trying to support both. In the end the attack on Nijmegen drew most of the tanks and ended in a bloody German defeat. However, they did buy just enough time for the Germans to retake Arnhem, changing the outcome of the campaign from a clear Allied Strategic Victory to merely a Tactical Victory!
Airborne artillery position

Ken’s Thoughts

I asked Ken about his strategy and how he fought the campaign. Here are his thoughts on Firestorm—Market Garden:

My strategy was threefold. First we needed to secure the road to Eindhoven as that is the best way to push 30 Corps’ armour forward. This we did on turn one, though it was a bit dicey over the next few turns in keeping the supply routes open and the troops moving forward.

The second objective was to secure the bridge at Nijmegen. The playtest campaigns seemed to be won or lost on whether or not the Allies can get the Nijmegen Bridge and hold it until the final turns. Once you have it, having
both armour and paratroopers in the area allows you to defeat most German counterattacks.

Finally, the third goal was to build up the British paratroopers north of the Rhine for a final attempt at securing the Arnhem Bridge. The victory points for Arnhem are really the difference between a strategic and operational victory. The Allied players did really well in winning so many battles, and if we could have held both bridges in the final big battle we would have won a strategic victory, ending the war by Christmas!

Download a PDF version of this article here...

Want To Know More About The Firestorm Series?

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The Firestorm Bagration Design Notes...

A summary of the Firestorm Staff Campaign...

A day in the Life of a Firestorm-Bagration Commander...

Firestorm: Warsaw, the little brother of the Firestorm series...

Total War, rules for bigger games that featured first in Firestorm Bagration...

What is Firestorm Market Garden?...

Firestorm Market Garden Design Notes...

Firestorm Market Garden – Your Questions Answered...


Firestorm Plastic Tokens...

Firestorm Un-Boxed...

Preview of Firestorm Market Garden...


Last Updated On Thursday, June 10, 2010 by Blake at Battlefront