First off, this series is being done as a bit of a lark as wargaming has absolutely nothing to do with Christmas so if anyone is offended, please just stop reading now. Also, I know that traditionally the 12 Days of Christmas happen after Christmas Day (starting on December 25th and ending on January 5th also known as Twelfth Night) but I want to do this in a lead up to the holiday.

On the 8th day of Christmas War Gaming, my true love gave to me…

8 Reloads of Machine Gun Ammunition

Fields of Fire is a solo tactical wargame where the player commands a U.S. rifle company through historical campaigns such as WWII, Korea and Vietnam against an AI-driven enemy, using cards for terrain and actions, not dice, to simulate small unit command challenges like communication and uncertain enemy encounters. The AI card-based system generates enemy actions and battlefield events, creating a dynamic, challenging solo experience of leading a company facing tough decisions. The game has a rap for being a bit complex but after recently playing with an experienced player I was able to get the major concepts down and understand the flow and have confidence that I can do the game on my own.

In Fields of Fire, ammunition management is a key element of the simulation for specific heavy and special weapons such as Light Machine Guns (LMG’s) and Heavy Machine Guns (HMG’2). Ammunition is tracked and units with limited ammo must expend an ammo point whenever they fire. This ammunition it tracked on a counter placed near the team on the card they reside on and at maximum loadout the counter has 8 rounds of MG Ammo. Only certain weapons have individually tracked ammunition, primarily heavy weapons and one-shot devices. Standard rifle squads, for instance, generally have an abstract, unlimited supply of small-arms ammunition. When a unit runs out of ammunition for its special weapon, it is marked as Out of Ammo (S-C, or Supply-Concern) on the counter and can no longer use that specific weapon. The concept of resupply is handled abstractly, often through specific mission rules or Higher Headquarters Events. For example, some missions may state that all machine guns are resupplied at a certain turn, which involves removing the Out of Ammo marker. Ammunition can also be represented by specific ammo markers that are transported around the battlefield. I really like this level of granularity in the game as it makes it feel more like a simulation and really gets the player into the mindset of asset and team management.

While I have only played one scenario of Fields of Fire Deluxe Edition, which I would highly recommend as it comes in a larger box with a lot of additional aids and counters, I very much enjoy the game and feel that it does a fantastic job of making you feel you are there on the battlefield and confronts you with lots of choices about how you use your men and your limited resources. I am definitely going to dive back into this one and would recommend it to anyone that is looking for a good solitaire wargame.

If you are interested, we posted a RAW video after my first play of the game with Alexander refereeing and you can watch that at the following link: