Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm

[Spurious]

I feel somewhat compelled to point out that this wonderful gem of an unconventionally turn based hex&counter WW3 game is now on steam, and actually on sale, dropping it’s price from a scary nearly £40 to a far more reasonable £18 for the next week. I’ve had it for months now but the price point has been high enough to make me really hold off on recommending it in the hope that this would happen. And it finally has. Yay.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/330720

And it’s also still more expensive on Matrix http://www.matrixgames.com/products/471/details/FlashpointCampaigns:RedStormPlayer%27sEdition even with the discount. (£25.19 in the UK).

As for the game:

The twist it has going for it over so many wargames of this type is a very tight focus on what you command, limited capability to command (organization and electronic warfare interference), and most interestingly the variable turn length, which alters as the game progresses due to the influence of various factors, but lose a few commander units and watch it rocket right up. Commands are issued at the end of turns, and then the results play out themselves. Units also do not instantly react either, and take time to begin doing what you order them too, and may be delayed by various things, not just enemy action lowering their readiness levels but also roads getting clogged with traffic if you try and push too many units at once down a certain path.

The focus on regiment level command is something that could not really be replicated on tabletop in the same way, as it’s a very hands-off approach. Units, once set on their path, will use their own abilities to locate and attack enemies. What helps this is that much of the numbers are hidden (though they are easily viewable if you wish to check things) and so you’re not getting a face-full of dice rolls thrown up every time something happens, but rather audio cues, arrows indicating exchanges of fire, and explosions for artillery and counting off casualties, which lends itself greatly to the atmosphere.

 

 

Speaking of which, the atmosphere for the game is a kind of intense tension; with fog of war in place as intended (there’s an option to remove it) contact with enemies is fleeting unless a real slugging match is taking place. This helps amazingly as you sit and watch a turn play out, making mental notes of enemy positions to direct artillery to and hoping your plan was good enough, or that you can adapt it in time to exploit an opening or counter a move.

When it comes to the armies themselves you do get the best results by playing them to their general doctrine. Brits cannot (most of the time) be used in fast armoured counter attacks like the West Germans, who in turn cannot normally successfully emulate the Soviets and send massive stabbing attacks of armour and mechanized infantry, shrugging casualties to envelop and breach their target objective’s defences. Whilst most scenarios as they come feature relatively high quality Guards units of soviets with a myriad of BMP-2s and T-80BVs, a huge mass of equipment sporadically appears and can be used in creating your own scenarios (having fun fending off Leopard 1A1s and reserve infantry with second line motor rifle units with T-55AMVs and BTR-70s for example). There’s also included in scenario designer nuclear and chemical weapons and the ability to designate areas of contamination by them, should you wish to challenge yourself to fight through that particular nightmare.

And if the game’s default maps are kinda ugly for you, there’s a great selection of fan-made higher quality maps over in the mods and scenarios section http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tt.asp?forumid=1197

I use these ones: http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=3510379

 

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