Fireball Forward - Slims defeat, East African 1940

 It's been months since I got a game on table due to the intrusions of life. I managed to line the ducks up however and get the planets aligned and made it over to the SWWG Xmas all-dayer for an afternoon of gaming with my long time gaming buddy Nye. 

Nye had received the Fireball Forward Rules for his birthday and invested in some of the scenario supplements and we were both keen to give these rules a run as they would fill a gap in our rosta for a mid sized company level WW2  game to sit between the Battalion sized O Group and the Platoon Level games of Chain of Command. 

Our first game is from the The East African Campaign of 1940-41 and represents an action that took place on 6 Nov. 1940 at Gallaba Fort, in Sudan. The border crossing fort had been taken by Italian forces who had built a defensive wall outside the fort to form a secure perimeter.  It was decided that British offensive operations would begin here with the aim of opening a supply route

Initial Deployment 

The British start the game with One Company of infantry and a Platoon of MK VI vickers tanks deployed in the scrub to the west of the fort, A second British Company can arrive on Turn 2 or 3 .  The Italian forces are all deployed within or on the walls of the perimeter. As we had no  referee available we deployed using blinds which would require successful spotting rolls to expose. 

As the British begin to advance they are spotted moving out of the scrub,  A firefight with an Italian MMG see's the British  MMG silenced temporarily. 

Having been spotted the British Armour dashes forward to establish a supporting firing line.

The British MMG recovers and is able to put some ineffective fire into the italian MMG

The wall means it's very hard to spot the Italian forces as they move around it takes the arrival of the British 2nd Company on the flank to finally force the Italians to reveal themselves.

2nd Platoon of 1st Company attempt to lay down covering fire,

as the 1st Platoon of the British 1st Company try to advance to the wire

On the flank 2nd Company succeed in cutting the wire and one section makes it into close combat with the italians at the wall.

Withering fire from the emplaced Italians drives the Britishadvance to the wire back

The battle concludes with the British failing to achieve any of their victory conditions within the time limit for the operation.

The bit at the end.

So for a first game with a new ruleset that went well, I think we may have missed a few bits but it's a really fluid fast ruleset in play . The card activation keeps you on your toes deciding who to activate and in what order. We'll be playing a lot more of this I'm sure (I'll take notes next time for a proper AAR), 

I'm already starting to put together a British Army force for this to go with the Soviet and German forces I use for O Group whose basing is compatible with Fireball Forward.