The Fields of Normandy XL: A Solitaire Wargame 2024

This is a sequel to The Fields of Normandy 2. It is a stand-alone game, not an expansion. It is a solitaire wargame. This game is a fairly quick playing, highly replayable and fun experience, whilst maintaining the need for tactical thinking and decision making.

In the game, you will be controlling small groups of soldiers consisting of three Rifle Squads, a Machine Gun Team, a Bazooka Team, a Mortar Team, a Sniper Team and a Lieutenant, moving them around the hex maps and undertaking other orders to achieve the objective. The Fields of Normandy XL is an accessible, portable, solitaire "hex and counter" style war game in a book. 12 Full colour mission maps, rules and a counter sheet are included (to be mounted on card). You will need to provide 2 six-sided dice.

Due to a range of factors, many troops from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions were scattered and struggled to come under the control of division headquarters. Many of these troops formed into small groups, organised by officers and NCOs and fought behind enemy lines for up to five days. Although mainly fighting for their own lives, these groups also helped to clear significant parts of the more organised German resistance.

If you have played The Fields of Normandy 2, then you will already be familiar with many of the rules for The Fields of Normandy XL. However, there are some material differences to look out for:

Maps consist of almost twice as many hexes – 48 hexes compared to 28. There are now 15 potential enemy positions for each mission compared to 12 and these are, to some extent, positioned randomly each time rather than being fixed. Missions run to a maximum of 14 turns compared to 10. Maps include a new Terrain feature – Walls (instead of fences, which had no gameplay effect). Walls do have gameplay effects. Your US force now includes two new Units – a Lieutenant Unit and a Sniper Unit which both have their own Order charts. The Lieutenant now calls in Artillery strikes and therefore US Rifle Squads no longer do. US Rifle Squads can now clear Mines (or more thematically perhaps, establish a clear route through them). There is now a stacking limit of three US Units per hex. A German Tiger (tank) might appear! German Snipers are now a separate unit and operate independently to Rifle Squads. German Artillery usually has more than one possible location hex per map.

-description from designer