TANKSgiving 2013 – Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm AAR Part 1
Scenario: A Test of Wills
Author: Jim Zabek, 28 November 2013
Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm has done something for me that no wargame has done for a long time. I am wholly absorbed in it. It’s the only game I want to play. I’ve been addicted to other games (just ask around the forums about Orcs Must Die! 2), but it has been quite some time since a wargame really grabbed me like this. Strange? Perhaps. But there it is.
Normally when I select an AAR I like to choose one I’ve never seen before. It adds to the drama as I don’t know what’s coming and I think it’s a more authentic story to give to an audience. However, With this particular scenario in Red Storm I have played it at least a dozen times and continue to love it. The AI always keeps me guessing. Although I’ve beaten the AI each time I’ve played it, I never feel like I’m winning until after the game is over. The crush of the Soviet horde is hair-raising to the NATO player. The come on almost like a zombie apocalypse: incessant and seemingly innumerable.
In this particular scenario, A Test of Wills, the player is tasked with fending off the Soviets at night. The scenario opens with a heavy rain that limits visibility to 500 meters – one hex. Eventually the rain will lift. But when it lifts can make an enormous difference to the NATO player. In one game it didn’t lift for five and a half hours. As a result the Soviets crawled right into my defensive positions before I could see them, negating my advantage of seeing at night and using ranged weapons like the TOW. I won that scenario, too, but it had me sweating the entire time – I had placed my defensive units in solid overwatch positions to take on the Soviets at range; when they failed to appear I had left some of the roads to the exit points unguarded for an approach in zero visibility. It was probably a worst-case scenario.
In most games the rain lifts sooner – sometimes by the third turn. But the weather isn’t the only thing tossing me curve balls. There are three major avenues of approach for the Soviets. The southern approach has the most victory points and always sees the most action, but the middle of the map also gets a lot of attention, and the northern end sometimes gets heavily tested, too. The AI seems to never do the same thing twice, which keeps this scenario fresh for me every time I play it. And that’s why I keep coming back to this scenario. It’s a mid-sized scenario with lots of uncertainty. So far I’ve won every game I’ve played but I’ve never felt any confidence until the last shot was fired. There simply aren’t enough NATO troops to go around and once their artillery starts to rain too many units get destroyed for anyone to feel confident.
So here I go again. We’ll see what happens.
