Why do I travel for Flames of war and what do I like to play with.
Hey everyone, this is Gandri here. I want to talk about what interests me more in the hobby of Flames of War is it Historical gaming or Competitive gaming and also talk about why I travel for the hobby.
I started playing Flames of War many years ago when I saw the Open fire starter set from V3 for sale in a local hobby shop here in Iceland. The only reason why it caught my eye was because of my interest in history in general. I have an interest in all history and WW2 history is of course a big part of the worlds history that interest me so much.
My first army was built around Wiking so I had a lot of Panthers, Panzer IV. Why I choose Wiking was because people from Norway and Denmark were serving in that division for Germany.
In version 3 it was a lot easier to build historically accurate lists and the books even made it easier with backstory about the units and divisions. This all changed with version 4 of the game.
My gaming style is simple, I don’t like meta lists and will always choose something historical over meta. That being said of course some lists I make for ETC-H for example can be considered meta as the tournament itself is solely based on playing and winning and is not a historical tournament.
But there are historical tournaments out there and many of them are held in Denmark. One is hosted by one of our team members here at Burning Bridges and is called Klaescon. I went to Klaescon in 2022, and it was built around the Bulge. Morten was very clever with throwing side curves to make it harder for the Axis side to win as in history they had it worse than the Allies. When I went to Klaescon i hade a trained Sherman list with chaffess. I got awarded for being the most crazy allied player which was a really nice award to get.
But how do I play in Iceland?
We don’t have a lot of active players here and those who are active don’t like the tournament scene. So, me and Sören we try to have campaigns which are always a lot of fun, the last one we did was Stalingrad and if my memory serves me correct that campaign was actually finished. We tend to start campaigns and never finish them because of lack of interest. I am also to blame here as I did not do one game in last campaign because of school taking all my free time.
We also try to have big battles between Christmas and the new year, in those big battles we try to choose a real big battle and fight it on the tables. We have so far done Stalingrad and Berlin.
My first trip abroad playing was back in 2022 when we went to play in ETC-H in Hasselt Belgium. Sören was the captain, and we won the Most sportsmanship award which i believe to be the most important award to get.
After that I went to Klaescon that I wrote about earlier.
In 2023 I went to Helsinki in March to compete in their Nationals called Talvisota. I recommend everyone to go there and play as their players and TO‘s are very nice and friendly and Helsinki is also a beautiful city to explore. Later in 2023 i went as a mercenary for team Austria to the ETC-H once again held in Hasselt Belgium. It was nice meeting all those friends again from other countries.
2024 was planned to be a very busy year of traveling for Flames of War but that changed because of my studies in university. But it started with Burning Bridges hosting the first ever Icelandic Nationals, we had 18 players competing at the tournament but only 4 Icelanders competed out of the 18 total.
Then I went back to Helsinki to compete in their Nationals. There i had a Chaffee list that i was planning to take to the ETC-H later that same year. My first game was against Etienne who is a really good player that wins alot of tournaments but Etienne is also a super nice guy and helpful during his games. I lost 2 games but i managed to win 3 games and ended up beeing in the top 10 roster wich made the trip even sweeter.
In Helsinki my wife and Ludde’s girlfriend decided it was a good idea for me to go to Etienne‘s tournament in Switzerland in June to compete in a duo tournament. I got paired up with my Italian Viking Paolo and we came in second place, mainly thanks to Paolo for winning his games 😊. Also met some old and new friends during the tournament wich is always the most important part.
Then in August with me as team captain team Iceland headed to Poland to compete in the ETC-H and we had a goal of getting every team member a win and we sure met that goal. We even won the Most sporting award again.
In September i decided to go to England to play a practice game with my dear friend Hlynur who just started playing Fow again. We had a couple of games and alot of fun was had to reignite his passion for the game.
I had planned to go to Sweden for their nationals with Hawkeye, Sören, Richard and a lot of other friends but i had to cancel last minute because of final exams in school.
So what’s next?
Now i am planning to go to the Scottish nationals in May which is Mid war. I will go there with Hlynur our newest team member on Team Iceland so we can try our lists for ETC-H 2025 which is in Austria this year and Team Iceland is hoping to get their third award for most sportsmanship.
I recommend it for everyone if they can travel and play abroad and meet new people. Most likely these people will become lifelong friends and family for many years to come. At least that is what I have gotten from traveling and playing Flames of War.
