Review Red House fan-created scenario

By boersma8, in Tide of Iron

Played this scenario yesterday with a friend of mine. It can be found here: www.brummbar44.com .

When setting up the game we noticed that it appears to be necessary that two copies of both the base game as well as FoTB are required to play this one.as the scenario lists 18 German elites and 11 or so expert tokens. Well, the extra components can actually easily be substituted by e.g. American elites and/or e.g. fatigued counters instead of the missing expert specialization tokens if one only has one copy of FoTB. however, we were both wondering if perhaps an error was made in the scenario components list, and as I didn't have my American troops with me, we decided to fill up the remaining spaces with regulars.

The scenario is certainly very enjoyable and adds a lot to scenarios already out there, as it has some nice innovative elements to it. Most notably that both sides'reinforcements can turn up from any direction, which means that the battle can rage all over the map and that suddenly enemy troops might threaten your rear area where more often than not e.g. mortar squads are often positioned which the become quite vulnerable. Another nice element is the addition of city ruins terrain which also allows for entrenchments to be placed in it. This grants a cover of 5 which is quite formidable but not "broken".

In our game the Germans eventually lost without a chance, but this also had to do with some poor dice rolling on my part, some very fortunate rolls on the part of my opponent and some poor tactical choices. If the set up as listed is correct, those 6 additional elites certainly would have come in handy too in the opening phases of the game. I was overly and unncessarily respectful of the barbed wire obstacles as well, which slowed me down too much while I still had a troop majority. It is certainly one worth trying again as the scenario's author also recommends.

Good job and I'd appreciate an answer to the questions regarding the listed forces.

You are correct, more miniatures and components are required than provided in the base game and one copy of the Furry Bear.

I tend to forget the component limitations because I play with painted metal miniatures and alternative bases.

KlausFritsch said:

You are correct, more miniatures and components are required than provided in the base game and one copy of the Furry Bear.

I tend to forget the component limitations because I play with painted metal miniatures and alternative bases.

OK. That clears it up. Should have made a difference those extra six elites. Will use American elites next time or I might even buy an additional copy of the base game.

I have two copies of FoTB already, so the expert tokens weren't really a problem.

Thanks for the great scenario! Will try it again in February against the same opponent!

So to play this scenario you only need one example of the base game, one example of fury of the bear, a few extra tokens for the expert and a few more elites for the germans?

Grand Stone said:

So to play this scenario you only need one example of the base game, one example of fury of the bear, a few extra tokens for the expert and a few more elites for the germans?

That's affirmative!