Road to Rome Campaign Event Cancon 2015 With Joel Williams Road to Rome was a team based campaign centred on the battles around Cassino and Anzio, with a strong emphasis on historical accuracy for terrain and army lists. If you would like to participate in something like this, the campaign event at Cancon 2016 will shift to the Western Front with Breakout to Ardennes, covering battles from the breakout from Normandy through to Battle of the Bulge but excluding Market Garden. The discussion on the forum is here...

The standard Flames Of War victory point scoring was supplemented with ‘campaign points’ for taking or holding set objectives and ‘glory’ points based on results of battles and taking or holding high profile objectives that affect public opinion – which might not be the best military outcome! Think Mark Clarke heading towards Rome instead of cutting off the retreating Germans from the outflanked Cassino area. There were 7 campaign rounds with the C-in-C rotating each round. Commanders could bring up to three 1250-point lists containing only combat and weapon platoons and Divisional and Support options that were not available in the Divisional/Corp Support Pool. Lists were further restricted by only allowing weapons available at the time of the Cassino and Anzio battles. No Fireflies, M4A1 76mm Shermans or Panzerfausts.

The Support Pool mostly comprised of preset Divisional/Corp artillery, air support, and naval support platoons and heavy or rare combat platoons. So no player could bring a list including artillery, air or naval support. Nor could they include the rare options, such as the Schwere Panzer Platoon with Tigers or a Panzer Platoon with Panthers as these were also in the Support Pool. The German C-in-C could allocate up to another 500 points to a Commander from the Support Pool. Whilst the Allied C-in-C, who were nearly always conducting offensive operations, could allocate up to 1,000 points.

The effect of this is Commanders having to play with their standard list and never being quite sure what support they would receive from battle to battle. They might also find themselves in a battle with a clear points advantage – or disadvantage – depending on the will of the C-in-C! There were also strategic forces. For the Germans it was Anzio Annie, and for the Allies strategic bombing. The table top battlefields used custom built terrain to replicate some of the major combat zones. Often tables were joined to create a larger multi-player game or a multi-round game with a variable front line based on the result of the previous battle.

The Cassino operations area included: the struggle for the Cassino and Snakeshead Ridge; Cassino town, and; the crossing of the Gariglione River made all the more difficult by extensive flooding of the area by the defenders. The Anzio operations area included: Anzio North and South beach landings; the breakout from Anzio centering around Carroceto featuring the vicious fighting over ‘the caves’, ‘the flyover’, and ‘the Factory’, and; Highway 7 and giving the Allied Commander the choice of trying to take one objective representing a race to Rome for maximum Glory points or the go the other way and take an objective representing cutting off the retreating Germans from Cassino for maximum Campaign points.

You can read about how the great terrain for Road to Rome was created here...

The Campaign round consisted of Commanders finding out what battlefield they were to fight on, requesting what support they want to the C-in-C, the C-in-C allocating platoons from the Support Pool and allocation of strategic forces. The Campaign round was conducted 15 minutes before the scheduled end of play of the previous round. This meant the Commanders had to consider their next battle whilst playing their current battle. Another interesting twist is using double length tables with a variable front line, for example on the Carroceto Station table. The Allies start at one short end at the edge of Padigleone woods and will attempt to take various objectives over the two tables including Carroceto Station, ‘the Caves’, ‘the Factory’ and Anzio Annie at the far end.

At the end of each battle, a front line is marked based on where the Allied combat platoons reached. This is the jump off point for the next Allied player. German players also mark their front line based on where their platoons are at the end of the battle. The next German player may deploy up to their front line.  This might mean a very small distance between the next opponents. However, the player moving first in the next battle is not able to conduct Assaults in the first turn.

So what happened?  Overall, the Germans won on campaign points. The Allies generally found the German defenders too tough to push back on the winding road to the Monastery and equally tough trying to scramble up the steep massif in an attempt to take Snakeshead Ridge. Likewise, few of the Allied players were able to successfully cross and form a bridgehead on the other side of the Garigleone River. On the other hand the Allies generally made successful landings at Anzio and in breaking out along the Carroceto table. The battles swung either way in the Cassino town and Highway 7 battles. Perhaps not surprisingly, the effects of Anzio Annie and the strategic bombing were mixed. In some games they had a big impact, in others, not so much.

If you would like to try something like this, have a look at the Players Pack and Support Cards for Road to Rome.  ~ Joel.