The Operation Bagration Firestorm Campaign was the first ever Firestorm campaign released by Battlefront, lets see how the re-release stacks up!

Launched on June 22, 1944, Operation Bagration was the Red Army’s massive summer offensive against Germany’s Army Group Centre in Belarus. Through well-planned deception and overwhelming force, Soviet fronts shattered the German line, liberated Minsk in early July, and rolled west into Lithuania and eastern Poland. The offensive destroyed or routed dozens of German divisions and is often cited as one of the Wehrmacht’s greatest defeats, decisively shifting the Eastern Front in the Allies’ favor.

Firestorm: Bagration (4th Ed) contents

Battlefront’s current Firestorm: Bagration campaign set (SKU: FW267F) is built for 4th Edition Flames of War and includes everything to run a club or shop campaign on the Eastern Front. The box contains:

• 1 campaign map
• 1 campaign booklet
• 51 Firestorm troop tokens
• 21 Firestorm unit cards
• 10 battle arrows
• 27 additional tokens

These components support two campaign variants (main and extended), four–to–six turn structures, supply and rail considerations, and city objectives, letting players link their tabletop games to a strategic map of Byelorussia

The contents are of decent quality, the map in particular is a nice touch. In the initial release the map was foldout cardboard but in the latest release its a plastic mat making transport much easier. This edition also trades in the metal troop tokens for plastic ones which makes a nice upgrade.

The Campaign Booklet

Here is the biggest downside of the set. The booklet that comes with the release is barely 20 pages long and contains the bare minimum for running a campaign. Let’s compare that to the original book that comes with the 2nd Edition set:

• The above rules to run the campaign
• Rules for a special river crossing mission
• Rules for fighting city battles
• Rules for fighting large group games, called Total War missions
• Rules for fighting skirmish games called Partisans and Poletzei
• Rules for fighting the campaign as a board game called the General’s Game

Some of these exclusions are understandable. The river crossing and city battle missions are currently packaged in a separate mission bundle that is still for sale. The skirmish game requires special minis and would need to be overhauled for 4th ed. However the adaptation of Total War wouldn’t be hard and the absences of the General’s Game rules is absolutely inexcusable. The Generals Game rules would take up only 4 pages, there is no reason they shouldn’t be included in this booklet.

Even the rules that are in both books have been dialed back. The fortification options in the 2nd ed book have been stripped out for a single option of a few minefields. It’s hard not see a GW-esque flavor reduction at work here too.

Final Verdict:

I really want to like this product. The campaign is an interesting one and also one that is criminally unknown in the west. However I can’t ignore the fact that the old, 2nd edition book is roughly the same price and you can fabricate the other materials yourself. While this set does travel better then the 2nd edition version it has few other virtues to recommend it.

And remember, Frontline Gaming sells gaming products at a discount, every day in their webcart!