Patrik ran a third and last mega battle event for Flames of War set in the desert this weekend - and I didn't really take any notes or planned on writing an AAR as I was both very tired and even went home early for the first time ever. Those interested in the pictures can jump straight to that, but I thought I could go into a bit more detail about my FoW fatigue which has been growing in the background for a couple of months now....
Starting with the mega battle game, I wrote my name on the list and paid the entry fee a few weeks ago but had actually started to lose interest in FoW by that time, and when this even was played I just couldn't care less about the game or the outcome.
I did warn Patrik about it beforehand, though I did not want to back out of it for a couple of reasons even though I considered just letting someone else take my place so I could drop in for a short while to have a chat and then leave without playing. However Patrik had busted his ass to put these events and the terrain together, he also had some cancelled events earlier this spring and I didn't want to rock the boat by dropping out on this one. We also had another player drop out a few days before this game, and that was a player on the same team as me (Allied) so dropping out would make it harder to find two Ally replacements.
At the end of the day I think the guys had enough fun poking fun of my excessive tiredness (never felt I would fall asleep during a game in my life before this day - a combination of going to bed late and going up very early) and just plain boredom.
There was really nothing wrong with the game played, I guess it was just a combination of having played the event two times previously which made third time a bit less exciting. It was still "desert warfare" which is my least favorite front (which doesn't say a lot because I would clump a lot of campaigns in the same bottom of the barrel group according to my preference and how I would grade them as "working within the established FoW rules and along with the way nations are portrayed). But mostly I had just grown increasingly frustrated with FoW over the last couple of weeks without even having played a single game as weird as it may sound. The guys have been playing their Market Garden campaign down at the club and as I was sitting in the room next door playing other stuff I could not help but feel a real nuisance having to listen to their whining and complaints about the army lists, how frustrating the Market Garden campaign system was, watch the the proxy of models (German tanks used as US tanks and vice versa), unpainted models even though the campaign was nearing its end etc. It just really annoyed and pissed me off more than it should have.
Having seen and heard the mayhem I have convinced myself never to run a FoW campaign at the club. And honestly since no one else plays Early War anyway except for Thomas and David on very rare occasions the thought about selling my EW FoW stuff crossed my mind. But I figured I may yet get some mileage out of the miniatures with other systems. I don't know, maybe I will get back to FoW in the future, right now it just feels really uninteresting and unenjoyable to play it, and when I say that you have to take in mind that I don't really even follow the whole "rules circus" that is constantly going on over at several forums where changes, interpretations and suggestions are being discussed with burning participation of the FoW community. Reading those threads just make me feel tired and old.
Some of you may scratch your heads about this since I put like something like 300+ hours into writing the September Campaign and Poland in Flames PDF books. But that was more something spawned out of sheer frustration and sense of duty towards history. I just could not leave EW gamers remotely interested in the Polish campaign with no alternative to the "Blitzkrieg" book which I did not think did justice to the subject matter.
I can listen to people at the club talk in a super excited way about some army list or unit or whatever they are going to use in the game and just think "yeah I don't really care about anything you just said". A clear sign that I should move on and leave the game be at least for the next couple of months or else I might end up ruining it for those still enjoying it.
....
Anyway, here is the picture dump from the mega battle which shows FoW at its best, with fully painted armies, fantastic terrain and "fog of war" surrounding the objectives of the two sides. You can learn more about this event by reading older posts about previous games HERE
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