FoW Batrep – BGG US Armour vs German Trained Panzers

Wow confident trained sucks!

I recently got together with Ashley for another game of Flames of War with his lovely models. I had suggested playing a few games of the Tank Aces campaign however we both agreed that after reviewing, it seems a little like FoW-lite and we’re starting to gain a little confidence in the rules to not need to play a dumbed down version.

Anyway after each totting up a 1500pts force from BGG we rolled up a mission, this time getting Counter Attack. I was defender and duly chose my table quarter and placed both objectives. Unfortunately for the defender I only got to put two of my platoons down as I had chosen an almost exclusively tank force and thus was limited in what I could deploy.

Ashley’s force consisted of 2 Confident Vet Sherman platoons and CiC & 2iC made up of 5x 75mm and 5x 76mm Shermans backed up by a full platoon of Doughboys, oh and a bloody plane!

However I had the cream of the Wehrmacht’s armour (crewed by scared school boys) in the form of 3x Panther’s, 4x Panzer IV’s, 3x Panzer IV’s, 3x Stug G’s, 3x Stug G’s, 2x Modelwagens and a platoon of Pioneers. Sounds good doesn’t it, well it wasn’t as they were just a tad inexperienced!

Anyway the game started off with me deploying my two platoons (3x panthers and my Pioneers along with my CiC and 2iC in Panzer IV’s) all over the first objective in my deployment zone. The Panthers were hull down on the hill, the pioneers dug in and concealed, therefore hopefully I’d pretty much made this objective a no go area. My reasoning being that this would force Ashley to move across the board and try and capture the uncontested objective in the table quarter next to my deployment. This would play right into my hands as he’d advance in front of my Panthers lovely big guns whilst my reserves would start to come on in the quarter opposite the uncontested objective thus allowing me to pincer his more experienced force with my numerically superior (but far less experienced) reserves.

At least that was the plan, it didn’t work too well. What actually happened is that Ashley sat opposite me and the Panthers and Sherman 76mm had a shooting contest! In theory I should have won however his damn plan kept turning up and dropping bombs on my lovely big tanks. Although by turn 6 (when the objectives went live) I had brought my reserves on and was cheerfully defending both objectives we had both lost our CiC and 2iC’s and with Ashley’s higher experience it was only a matter of time before I rolled badly for my company morale.

Game Ashley….grrrrr. Still it was good fun and played in the way I want to enjoy FoW so all in all a good way to spend an evening.

Here’s a picture dump of the action:

The initial set up! Note the undefended objective on my left flank. Hopefully my reserves can capture it before the Doughboys!

The effects of Air on Panthers. Why oh why didn't the Germans fit AA machine guns on their tanks?

Ashley begins to break for the undefended objective while my Panthers burn! Look at that Sherman blob, where's the artillery when you need it!

"C'mon boys, they don't know were coming!"

Meanwhile the Panthers bite back. Damn but they had a good gun!

Here come the reserves, Not so confident now are ya?

Blam! The Air picks on my poor little tanks

Meanwhile the GI's are still pushing through the hedgerow on their way to the second objective!

By now my CiC was toast, you'd think my 2iC would get the idea and get the hell away from the burning Panthers.

"We're in the clear lads, follow me"
"Err sarge ain't that a bunch of Jerry tanks over there?"
"Oh Sh*@"

And more armour arrives but by now it was too late.

All models used were Ashleys, this Mobelwagen was just too pretty to get its guns dirty shooting up the US Air earlier in the game and decided to arrive late in the game!

"Feuer...."

Ooh whats this, more Panzer's outflanking the poor GI's.
Ouch!

Oops, I got distracted by the soft infantry and didn't notice the rather unpleasant 76mm's waiting across the field