Back to Flames!

The stars aligned and both Scott and I managed to find a free spot in our diaries for a little gaming fun, however this time just for variety we played FoW. So I pitted my US tank company with 101^st support against Scott's Panzer Bums in a Hold the Line mission.

Hmm, this should be interesting as I’d chosen to take 7^th Armoured who are confident trained. However I had propped this up with some confident veteran TD’s and a fearless veteran 101^st Airborne platoon. So what was Scott bringing to the table, well lets just say that he had gazillions of tanks!

Below are a few pics of the action and here’s a link to Scott’s write up!

Summary

What can I say, I got beaten pretty decisively, the game ending at the start of Turn 3. “How did this happen I hear you cry?”

Well basically I was out thought and manouvered, the game was not a question of who rolls the most dice but rather who had the best tactics. With Scott’s force being made up of pretty effective tanks (Panzer IV J’s and Stugs) but very average skill levels, and most of my force being held off the board in delayed reserves it all came down to getting an objective fast and then holding and screening it which is what Scott did brilliantly. I had to hold 3 of my 5 platoons in reserve and was able to ambush with the remaining two (which I did). This proved to be a bad idea as it meant that Scott had no threat on the board to mess with his plans, so he advanced as quickly as he could to both objectives in turn 1. I did not pop my ambush but elected to wait another turn, this was to be my undoing as without the threat of incoming fire Scott elected to double time half his Panzers past objective 1 in turn 2, advancing the remainder and rushing his Stugs up my left flank towards objective 2 as a back up. This made a pretty effective two pronged attack with his double timed Panzers a screen and also completely shut down my planned ambush, forcing me to deploy in pretty poor positions in turn 2 (he had effectively claimed both objectives at this point).

My only option was to shoot him off the objective, which was possible in theory, but only with damn good dice rolls and good target selection with my TD’s. My target choices were good but my rolls didn’t cut it and Scott was able to claim the objectives at the start of turn 3.

Here's the story in pictures:

Starting positions everyone! You can just make out Scott's horde on the
left and my paltry 2 (that's right) Shermans on the right - thats my 2iC
at the bottom right and CiC hiding behind the house at the top.

Looking up the board as Scott gets ready to launch the Blitzkreig

Panzer traffic jam!

Sneaky Stuggs

Argh, I delayed too long and now the Panzers have swarmed the objective
and shut down all the good ambushes

So I'll just have to sneak up on the Stugs with my vet para's

Talk about a target rich environment.
Time to see if my TD's can save me and blow away a ton of Panzers

The ned game. You can just about make out my TD's without turrets.
This is because after the end of the game Scott wanted to see how
many he could blow up. Turns out nealy all of them!

A pyrrhic victory against the Stugs though, my 2iC rips into them with
his 76mm. Double timing Stugs = boom!

So what did I learn? Well it was more a case of what did I forget, and that is that area of effect is a great way to force your opponent on the back foot, actually having a threat near the objectives would have slowed Scott’s advance and allowed more chance for the game to get to turns where my reserves could play some part. But I chose to ambush which actually freed Scott’s forces to advance as he was able to shut down almost all the potential ambush points really quickly with his numerically superior force.

So the day was taken by the better General. And rightly so, however I thoroughly enjoyed it as it was clear that it was the player that beat me and not the rules!

However next time will be different. Oh yes it will (Mwahahahahaha…..)