Fire and Fury Games' Battlefront WWII Historicon 2000 After Action Report- Battlefront WW2 debut

Fire and Fury Games We give history a second chance.

Historicon 2000 after Action Report

Our game made its first public appearance at the Historicon 2000 wargame convention in Lancaster PA. Everyone seemed to enjoy it and we received many favorable comments. We put on more than 10 demonstration games. I attempted to make photographs of two of them with little success (see below). These were a Russian assault on a fortified position and an abbreviated version of our Marnach scenario. Our special thanks goes to Paul Bernadino, who showed the flexibility of the system by creating a sculptured 10mm bocage battlefield. Mark Hayes hosted another German/Polish scenario, and had two larger scenarios based on Kursk: a battle for the town of Ponyri (Northern Flank) and an impromtu all-armor battle based on a much scaled-down Prokhorovka. Rich Hasenauer said that the latter battlefield was distinguished by the number of destroyed vehicles. Everyone had a good time and we came away with good feelings about "our baby" as it entered the real world...

Some poorly photographed images from our demo games at Historicon. These could be subtitled "webmaster learns object lesson on how NOT to do candid photographs".

Click on the Thumbnail for a full-size photo	Description
Marnach 1	German commander gives orders to his troops.
Marnach 2	German troops move out toward Marnach.
Richard Hasenauer	Rich explains the rules.
The Hill 1	German Players contemplate their fortified positions.
The Hill 2	A blurred view of the German fortified position.
The Hill 3	Russian T34s on the attack.
Purple Heart Draw	Purple Heart Draw.

After I saw how photos 5 and 6 turned out, I decided that my talents lie more in web design than photography, at least until I get a better (and digital) camera. My poor photography did not affect the enjoyment that all of the players expressed with the rules and the battles in which they were used. My thanks to Paul Bernadino, who had a friend with a better camera, who took a picture of his excellent 10mm sculptured terrain board used in the "Battle of Purple Heart Draw".
One of them (Rob Pruden), gave me permission to paraphrase his thoughts as follows:
"Battlefront is an Historical simulation rather than just a wargame. It allows the recreation of battles where the emphasis is on combined arms tactics as opposed to just penetration vs armor. Morale and command are integrated well into the system."
We received a lot of comments like this and are starting to realize that our many years of work is finally coming to fruition.

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