I’ve been dallying with this ruleset for about 10 years now and never really bought in to it, I suspect because I’ve never had an opponent that wanted to play it for the same reasons as me (tell a story, re-enact a little history and to have fun!). So last Sunday I arranged a day pass from family duties and headed over to Ashley’s house for a little “dice time”. After shooting the breeze and having a cuppa (we’re both Yorkshiremen so there’s always going to be Tea!) we set to deciding what we’d play and which sides we were. As Ashley had found the old version 2 mission “Road Block” we decided on a Panzer Kampfgruppe vs an Armoured Guards Company. I tend to forget all the ratings etc so in essence I had:
Sherman CiC and 2iC
2x Shermans & a Firefly
2x Shermans & a Firefly
4x M10 17pdr
Allied US Para Platoon
Priority Air Support
Ashley had:
Panzer IV CiC & 2iC
3x Panzer IV H
3x Panther
2x Tiger
1x Walkure Platoon
I’m not going to explain in depth the mission as you can find it online, suffice to say the deployment was confusing (typical FoW wording!) with Ashley deploying his Panthers and Panzer IV’s on a road at one side of the board (it’s played length ways) and me ambushing with the Para’s and rushing up a Sherman platoon to support. Everything else was in reserve.
As you might expect the Para’s caused no damage to the Panzer IV’s however they were dug in 4” from the road and the Panzer’s were never going to dig them out on their own. The Panthers however decimated the Sherman’s, their front armour ensuring that the piddly little 75mm just bounced off while the lone Firefly was obviously suffering from some kind of middle ear infection and couldn’t hit a barn door from 10 yards.
Ahh but I have Air Support! Hmmmm, well it came in every turn and managed to only bail two Panthers throughout the entire game.
Then as my two remaining platoons came on they had to rush from the far board edge as fast as possible to get in to the game, the M10’s paper armour not really helping them that much against Panthers and the newly arrived Tigers.
Eventually the Firefly was the lone survivor from the starting Sherman platoon and in an amazing (and stupid) act of bravery drove to within spitting distance of a Tiger on the objective to get a side shot on one of those annoying Panthers, completely gutting it!
So in summary the M10’s were obliterated (as you’d expect), the first Sherman Platoon was obliterated (as I expected), the Para’s just hunkered down and took the pain (as you’d expect), the M10’s couldn’t go toe to toe with the pride of German armour and were obliterated (as you’d expect - they had nowhere to hide and no sneaky rules) and the Air Support did nothing (the Typhoon was actually a light summer breeze). So from that you would surmise that I won’t be touching FoW with a barge pole for the near future, however I’m happy to say that I will definitely be playing it again as the game was a blast, my opponent was fun to play against and the spirit of the game was the right one.
I’m still firmly bought in to LoTR/Hobbit gaming however I can at least have some variety on my painting table and, when diaries align can have some dice rolling fun with someone of the same mindset! So expect to see a little more FoW battle reports soon (ish!).
Oh and incidentally I should mention that all the models are Ashley's, painted by Ashley, the terrain is Ashley's and the pictures are Ashley's! Basically I just turned up, played and then buggered off!
No comments:
Post a Comment