Final Combat: Little Stalingrad

The next my occasional series on scenario books from Britton Publishers is their latest offering - Little Stalingrad.  This book contains 37 scenarios based around the Canadians at the Battle of Ortona, Italy in 1943.

The booklet comes in at 116 pages and the pdf is just over £9.  As with some of the other books this one has some very brief publisher's notes and a table to help you translate the stats from Final Combat to Arc of Fire, Battleground, Disposable Heroes, Face of Battle and Nuts!  This is followed by around 9 pages of historical material on the battle and the opposing forces which provides the background for the scenarios.

The scenarios are broken down into 10 separate sections and, in my view fall into three broad categories - firstly there are tiny scenarios, often only in a single building with a couple of troops, then there are the moderate sized infantry scenarios and finally there are the large scenarios which require multiple Shermans etc.  (roughly 7/20/10).  Each scenario starts with a brief introduction, the specific setting, an order of battle for each side, the victory conditions and the historical aftermath. The final section of the book has the maps for each scenario - this time they have been created using some software called Campaign Cartographer and are functional and each is accompanied by some brief GM notes.  Since the scenarios cover the urban fighting most of them require buildings of varying sizes, some ruined.

This is a battle I knew little about and so have found reading the booklet rather interesting and the variety of sizes of scenario means that if you have some buildings suitable for Italy and some suitable figures (both of which I have access to) there should be something here for you.

Final Combat: Ardennes

The next scenario book from Britton Publishers I want to look at is Final Combat: Ardennes.  Published in 2008, the book contains 12 scenarios based around the German Ardennes Offensive in 1944.

The booklet is similar in size to Chef-du-Pont, coming in at 70 pages.  After a page and a half introduction there is a single page of publisher's notes and then a rules translation table followed by the scenarios.

Each scenario starts with the historical situation, campaign options (if the scenario is being played as part of a campaign), a description of the mission, orders of battle for each side (followed by any reinforcements), the set up, any special conditions e.g. movement restrictions, artillery/minefields (if any) followed by a brief summary of the historical aftermath and a map (colour drawings of the table layout).  About a third of the scenarios are around a reinforced platoon of infantry or less but the balance require some significant numbers of AFVs and so might well be a challenge in 28mm (unless you have an extensive collection or money is no object!).  It would appear, from some of the maps, that a couple of the scenarios are actually intended to be played at a smaller figure scale.

As you might expect the terrain is expected to be snow covered and around a third of the scenarios require quite a few buildings but otherwise are pretty straightforward with roads, trees and the like; however, one scenario does require a train.

As I'm interested in this particular aspect of the war I found the booklet interesting but have yet to actually play any of the scenarios as I don't have quite the right mix of kit as yet.  The pdf comes in a little over £7.60.

Final Combat: Chef-du-Pont

The next scenario book from Britton Publishers I want to look at is Chef-du-Pont.  Published in 2009, Chef-du-Pont contains 10 scenarios based on some of the US airborne engagements on D-Day supporting the landings at Utah beach.

The booklet is smaller than the two previous ones I looked at, coming in at 66 pages but the pdf is around £7.50.  Unlike the other two books this one only has a single page set of publisher's notes and does have a table to help you translate the stats from Final Combat to Arc of Fire, Battleground, Disposable Heroes, Face of Battle and Nuts!  This is followed by around 9 pages of historical background material which helps place the scenarios.

Each scenario starts with a contemporary photograph, the historical situation, an order of battle and mission briefing for each side and then a set of Game Master's notes including battlefield conditions, deployment, victory conditions and some author's tips.  This is followed by a map and, unlike the other two books this isn't a photo of a wargames table but rather a purpose drawn colour diagram.  The US forces are typically a platoon or less and the Germans a single or couple of squads with some support weapons - although they do get a platoon sized set of reinforcements in one of them.  The scenarios don't require any vehicles (unless you count a crashed glider) and most of the terrain is straightforward (although a couple do require several buildings) so seem manageable in larger scales without a huge "investment".

This is all rounded out with a concluding section recounting the historical outcome.

Whilst this has less scenarios that either Operation Jupiter or Unternehmen Lüttich they all seem eminently do-able with a sensible amount of figures and terrain and provide some interesting challenges.

Final Combat: Unternehmen Lüttich

Unternehmen Lüttich is another in the series of scenario books from Britton Publishers for Final Combat.  This book contains a whopping 50 scenarios based on Victory at Mortain: Stopping Hitler's Panzer Counteroffensive by Mark J. Reardon which describes how the US 30th Infantry Division held off elements of 4 combat hardened panzer divisions in Normandy in 1944.


The book is 128 pages long and, as with Operation Jupiter, is available as either a perfect bound hard copy or a pdf via lulu.com through the links on the Britton Publishers website.  The pdf is around £9.

Unternehmen Lüttich is produced in a single column format and, after 11 pages of contents (there must be a more efficient way of doing this) starts with a set of Publisher's notes which provide a bit of background to the production of the book, sources and notes associated with the Final Combat rules.  Once again, and unlike some of the earlier booklets, this one doesn't a table to help convert the Final Combat stats to other rule sets; however, this is relatively straightforward for Nuts! which is my preferred set for this scale.

The Publisher's Notes are followed by a brief introduction to the historical engagement and then we move onto the scenarios themselves.  The scenarios are broken into six sections and, as with Operation Jupiter, each scenario starts with a contemporary photograph, a very brief background piece, a list of the US and German forces, the victory conditions and a brief description of the historical aftermath.

The final section of the book contains the "maps" for the scenarios and some umpire's notes (once again the "maps" are, in fact, colour photos of actual wargames tables along with a few added annotations; however, the actual scale of the terrain isn't actually stated this time as far as I can see).

The scenarios are generally smaller than platoon level but most do require quite a few vehicles and a couple of them are actually ground to air engagements including an air supply drop.

With 50 scenarios, even if you drop those with too many vehicles and the ground/air ones, you have plenty of interesting material here.  Again, I would have preferred actual maps in addition to the photos but overall I think this is a useful addition to my scenario collection.

Final Combat: Operation Jupiter

I recently spotted that Britton Publishers had released Operation Jupiter, the latest in their series of scenario booklets for their Final Combat rules.  I had previously picked up a couple of their books and thought this new one might be a good addition to the collection.

Operation Jupiter is a set of 30 scenarios surrounding the fight for Hill 112 in Normandy in 1944.  Bennett Lacy, the author, states that the scenarios are taken directly Normandy: Hill 112 - The Battle of the Odon by Major Tim Saunders which is part of the Battleground Europe series from Pen & Sword.

The book is 88 pages long and is available as either a perfect bound hard copy or a pdf via lulu.com through the links on the Britton Publishers website.  The pdf is currently just over £7.

Operation Jupiter is produced in a single column format and starts with a set of Publisher's notes which provide a bit of background to the production of the book, sources and notes associated with the Final Combat rules.  As an aside I don't actually have a copy of the Final Combat rules themselves but the level of the scenarios and their presentation is such that they are easy to convert to other sets of rules; however, unlike some of the earlier booklets this one doesn't have a translation table.

The Publisher's Notes are followed by a brief history of the engagement before diving into the scenarios themselves.  The scenarios are broken into eight sections but each can be fought independently.  Each scenario starts with a contemporary photograph, very brief pieces of general and specific background, a list of the British and German (mostly SS) forces, the victory conditions and a brief description of the historical aftermath of the engagement.  The "maps" for the scenarios are all together in the final section of the book.  I say "maps" as they are, in fact, colour photos of actual 5' x 6' wargames tables using, what to my eye, looks like 20mm terrain along with a few added annotations and umpire's notes.  The majority of the scenarios are at platoon level or lower but some do require quite a few vehicles which may make them expensive to do in 28mm.

I think the book is rather useful and having 30 scenarios means that if you don't have the kit for some you still have quite a few to choose from.  Whilst I found the wargame table photograph approach to the "maps" interesting I found some of the angles of the photos unhelpful and overall I would have preferred to have a proper map instead or in addition.  I'm planning to get some Waffen SS to enable me to play some of these with my 28mm figures.

Whilst writing this up I realised that I hadn't done an overview of any of the other Final Combat scenario books I have in my collection - so expect to see a few more posts on those in the near future.