Discovering Flames of War and other things...

I played Flames of War with Joe Collins (Sapper Joe), Steve Hood (Combat Colors), and Curtis Turner (Hostile Contact) last weekend at Wargamers Cave in Granite City, IL.  It's basically WH40K for WWII.  I am not a fan of the Second World War.  But the FOW rules are easy to learn.  I like them.  I broke down and want to Waffen SS vs. British Paras for 1944 Holland.  The FOW games Steve runs are scenario driven.  My games will also be scenario driven.  I'm not interested in doing tournament games.  There are other things I'd like to focus on.  15mm late WWII is not one of them. 

I am interested in getting a company of Waffen SS along with a Company of British Paras and support weapons for each side.  I had the old Avalon Hill "Storm over Arnhem" game.  I was also a sucker for "A Bridge Too Far".  I thought about late war Eastern Front.  That is evil vs. evil.  I can't really cheer for either side.  If I'm going to game war-criminals, let me do Hitler's SS.  It's like playing Chaos in WH40K.  You know you're evil.  You're supposed to revel in it.  I find little redeeming features in people like Felix Steiner or Joachim Peiper.  They served as the elite body-guards of a fascist regime who tried to conquer Europe and the Middle East.  The German war machine spread untold destruction and death throughout the Continent. 

Likewise, I'm not going to glorify the Allies when WWII could have prevented numerous times.  There was no need to fight it if Russia, France, and Britain had showed some spine at Munich in 1938 and prevented Germany from invading Czechoslovakia or Poland in 1939.  That said.  The war was fought to prevent the world from sliding into another dark age of tyranny.  In that sense, it was a crusade for freedom.  But it was made with a tacit understanding Soviet Russia would get Eastern Europe after the war.  Central Europe had to wait another fifty years before it could truly be free.  Churchill and Roosevelt made a deal with the Devil when they allied with Stalin, the biggest mass murderer in modern history. 

I'm not fond of the Americans.  And I didn't feel like painting up lots of Russians.  So I went with British Paras.  As you can notice, I have definite feelings about WWII.  It's something I game.  But I thought I wouldn't collect anything for it.  I'm much safer playing Cardassians vs. Klingons.  That fight with Don Cox went downhill today.  My Cardassian Galor Cruiser got torpedoed twice.  I lost most of my systems on critical system rolls.  To add insult to injure, my ship got blown to pieces before I could get off the board (I'd lost most of my batteries, shields, warp drive, and conventional drives when I finally exploded).  That was the result of my recent Star Trek Full Thrust game today...