Tank Aces - Flames of War Mini Review/AAR

Tank Aces - A Flames of War Mini Review and AAR


Tank Aces is a character driven small point level series of games that sees your "Tank Ace" playing in a series of games. As these games go on your Ace gains skills that can help him or his company. Overall there is a larger Campaign element, in this book it charts the battles around Lorraine, France.


The Campaign is played out over several turns. Each turn sees more points being available for your Company. You start at 500 points and progress to 700 and then 900. At the end of the campaign everyone gets together for a mega battle.




For our Tank Aces event


We had six players total and  played two 500 point games, three 700 point games, one 900 point game and then the final "fog" scenario. We included blue on blue missions so that each player would get at least one game in with everyone.


While Tank Aces gives you dozens of potential skills to take most players followed what was essentially the same tree. Some skills are practically useless and others are so much better that they become a no-brainer. For example most players, including yours truly, took the "Re-roll" a miss skill.







Some of the participants have added their thoughts on the event, their Aces and on the Tank Aces campaign as a whole.

 Mark F (Bullyboy)

Wilhelm Ghast,

Captured Firefly

21st Panzer Division.

12 kills

"My tank ace decided to take captured firefly as his trusty steed. It soon proved to be a good choice as he cautiously took up firing positions as he had witnessed from the tank's former owners. Throughout the campaign he survived each engagement until the last where his tank was shot out underneath him and he had to take over a nearby Tiger :)

I was also actually impressed with the lowly pz IVs accompanying Ghast who racked up an impressive number of kills for themselves.

Overall, I think the Firefly was a perfect choice of tank for the Ace to use. It maintained good mobility while still having the punch to see through most enemy armour. I also couldn't resist painting up the tank the night before the battle (along with a regular captured sherman)

As for the Ace campaign itself, it needs some work. There seems to be little objective to the games. This could be improved with better deployment of the tank edges (so not attainable turn 1) and for actual mission objectives."

Jacob D

Elefant

Ace: Archibald Kingsly Haberdasher

Total Kills:  15

"Tank aces was a definite change of pace from the normal battles, though I think the rules are a little vague and most games devolved into a shooting match with little strategy.  I chose an Elefant company just to see how it would fare and if I could keep people off my sides.  Overall I had a good spread of 2 wins, 2 losses, and 2 ties.  All of my games were interesting, and I was outnumbered at least 3:1 in every game!  The heavy hitting power of AT16 and a front armor of 15 meant that people were rushing for my sides.  I wasn't able to stop them all the time (Darn you Jon!), but it was fun to take pot-shots at the enemy tanks as they closed the distance.  The two highlights of the campaign were popping one of Jon's Jumbos and wiping Jake Halter's force with just my ace!  "

Jake Halter
Major Sharpe
M4 Sherman Firefly




"For the tank aces campaign I decided to take my favorite reluctant veteran 7th Armored cromwells and for sure my ace was going to be my firefly. My firrst couple games were pretty good.


 My favorite battle hands down was with my father and lets just say it sucks to fight jumbos. That is the only tank I couldn't dispose of within the time limit,even with a firefly pounding on his side for two turns! However I did kill his ace which I'm pretty sure killed all of my tanks!Next I played Mark Francis this was also a pretty intense game he had Panzer IV accompanied by an evil firefly. In the very beginning it was looking good for me I rushed and killed one tank when Mark returned fire took out half my army I was down 3 tanks like that. Later on in the battle my firefly evened the odds(semi-indirect fire is amazing). However this battle also concluded before we could have our aces could have a throw down.Once this was over my day went downhill from there.I had to fight the Russians at night so my advantage of speed disappeared it also helped that my opponent, I think he only missed 1 shot and never failed a firepower so that game was very quick. I WANT A REMATCH SAM!Any way then I played against elephants and did the stupidest things in the world should have been smoking him the whole time but wasnt, although it didnt help that he bounced 3 firefly shots from the side. All it all I had a great time, not a big fan of tank aces there is too much sitting back and just having a shoot out. There are no objectives worth while to capture so all players begin to bottle up.I will say though it is fun to have a firefly with a 40inch range and ignores concealment with semi-indirect fire :)"

Jon Halter
"Ace" McKraken
M4A3E8 Easy 8
Kills: 10

"I had a good time with Aces overall. I did find the rules to be a little confusing and not laid out in a very consistent manner. I found the 500, 700 point level games more fun then the 900 and final mission. 

 Despite that I had a blast. Ace McKraken did well though he did get his tank shot out from under him a whopping 5 times!  The Highlight for me was having my Ace rush Jacob's Elephant Ace and take him out on turn 1. I also can't say enough things about the Jumbo. Having that in my force saved my bacon more than once, It even managed to bounce a AT16 shot (once)!"

Sam C

T-34-85

Jeff Stalin

Total Kills: 8

"Tank aces presented me with a rare opportunity to field T-34s in mass. I figured I would outnumber any veteran tank army by a significant amount and, since each tank is an independent team, I could envelop them in Soviet steel. After all even an At 9 shot to the side of anything (other than an elephant *grumble grumble*) is nothing to laugh at. I chose the skill set that allowed me to attack at dawn, which proved very useful at getting up close and personal with panzer IVs. While my ace didn't rack up all that many kills the army as a whole fared rather well, only losing the last 900 point game to a well timed ambush+reserve influx of panzers.

Over all I was a little disappointed with Tank aces. I understand that the game is supposed to be a goofy scenario with no basis in reality but I feel like it would have been more rewarding if there had been some sort of objective. And the last mega battle scenario was clumsy, with too many rules that added very little to the game.

Over all it was a fun day of gaming with some of my favorite opponents and some good food."
































And here are some random shots of the Action!

British versus Soviets in the Lorraine? Madness

Elephants and T-34s dance in Lorraine

Sharpe and Bengo plot their next moves

The Final Battle!

Easy 8 takes out an Elephant!

Two titans of gaming

Jacob D -consulting the rules