Road to War(fare) Pt 9 - The Sunday

After returning home Saturday heavy with too many toys (see the upcoming pledge update), stuffing my face with Mexican Burgers and Nachos, I felt slightly more alive on the Sunday morning.

GAME 3

Oh dear, another list I was dreading: Soviet Infantry!
Fortunately this was a game against the very polite and gentlemanly Stuart Whigham, playing the "Dust Up Mission".

I deployed the larger Platoon on the objective in my quarter, with the IC, and elected to glider assault the smaller platoon with the 2IC, holding both Gun teams in reserve.

Weeeee! Well, apart from the last glider. That was more - Aaarrrggghhhh!

Stuarts deployment rather as expected, took up his entire deployment area. I got the first turn with a spectacular roll of a 7 (6+1 for finishing deploying first).

 In came the gliders! They landed perfectly, apart from the last one carrying the MG34 teams, who died a grisly death in the crash.

The Blur just makes it more realistic.

I decided not to get stuck in the cold again, and follow some earlier advice and just kill one platoon. The AA MG's took a couple of stands off, and then it was time to get stuck in. The assault went beautifully, the defensive fire (being pinned, rof 1 rifles against vets) missed. Almost all of the stands hit in assault, and the reluctant soviets failed their motivation to swing back. The Kommisar shot a stand to re-roll - and failed! After breaking off, they were in the open for a stuka strike... this put them below half, and so tested again to break - and failed! Bang, another stand dead for the Kommisar re-roll... failed! I had done it! Turn one assault, one platoon dead!

The aftermath - just before they run off!

The defensive platoon dug in, and stayed gone to ground.

Stuart then rolled for his wave attack - Damn! The zombie soviets came back, but at least he decided to put them on the centre section, to threaten my objective.

After shuffling some platoons Stuart pinged some ineffective shots at the brave Luftlandesturm platoon.

On my turn two, I saw a chance to kill two platoons at once - his intermingled anti-tank and second strelk platoon. Carefully moving the platoon forward, I fired the flame thrower at the gun platoon, killing a single stand, and shot the strelkovy, killing a stand but pinning them in the process, which made the stuka strike on the back of the platoon kinda mute - but that killed some more! The assault was on! Clear these two platoons, and then a company check is soon to follow....

Or not. Stupid pinned, conscript strelk managed to get 5 hits on my assaulter's. Dang. Killing a stand in the process, it didn't take long for him to shoot and then assault and kill off what was left of my pinned attacking platoon. Rats.

The defenders.... defending. By not dying. And hiding in their holes.

Tanks. He had to get tanks. These spent a few turns moving in to a firing position - Hen and Chicks meant he couldn't hit me over 16", with Vets+g2g+concealed+range+HaC needs 8's!

Strelk over run the objective...

My Flak guns came in from reserve, and started taking a heavy toll on the strelk in the open...

Dudda dudda dudda dudda!

Oh Great. They have a cave troll artillery

On the right flanks, the Tank Assault 4 was enough to keep him outside of 10", while the artillery rolled up into position. The tanks MG's did nothing, the 6's to hit plus bullet proof cover keeping the platoon intact.

Gun line!

Meanwhile, on the left flank, my second gun team turns up. I lose a Flak gun to the combined shooting from the Strelk and AT guns, pinning them from the number of hits. They managed to move latterly into the treeline, being supported by my AT guns.

Stuart decided that the only way he was going to secure the second objective was to kill the guns, and like a true soviet, threw it all in - Only to die from the massive number of dice, hitting on twos!

The anti-tank guns moved up to contest the objective, killing the soviet Anti-tank platoon. 

This was it, all this other platoons were too far away... apart from his damn anti-air trucks! These moved up, and sure enough, it was all on the wire. The middle strelk platoon moved towards the objective, but was till 18" away, and. and. Those damn Zombie Strelk! The second platoon came back!! This was it. It was break him or lose.

The guns survived the artillery bombardment (easy when it doesn't range in!). The AT guns shoot the trucks, the Flak killed some stands from the centre platoon. More artillery, that ranged in but failed to hit! the soviets drew nearer....

The AT guns shot the crap out of his IC (who had moved up to spot for the artillery). The defensive platoon decided to finally take action-they lit up the centre strelk (who were the zombies of the soviet first platoon) with MG and Rifle/MG fire, killing several stands. The Flak guns wiped out enough of what was left to force a platoon moral check - and if he failed, he would also auto-break as the IC/2ic was dead.... 5+ needed... fail. Commisar re-roll.....

Fail!

I won! 5-2!

Great game, many thanks Stuart!

GAME 4

The final game was against Ian Brook, with his Italian 'Compagnia Bersagliera' or Compaauunniaa Berrrrsealeria - at least that was my attempt at massacring the Italian tongue.

The mission was surrounded, with me defending - fun!

Artillery in trucks.. I did try to warn him

The defence!

Scary big guns!

With the scattered deployment, Ian made the best of a bad situation. I decided to repeat my tactics of the last game, with the large platoon spread across both objectives, the guns in reserves, and the smaller platoon assaulting with the 2ic.

Despite double checking he wanted his artillery in their trucks, and prompting that I had gliders, Ian didn't put two and two together, so the gliders landed, killed two truck/gun teams with their MG teams, and scared the life out of the mortar team on the right flank. The guns didn't flee, but fell back. On the left flank, a Stuka strike took out one of the huge guns.

The remaining gun then missed their shots back at the platoon, with the infantry company hiding in the woods. On the right, the assault platoon took several hits from the anti-air trucks, and mortars, and big guns. Ouch.

In return, the MG teams mowed the trucks down (yey, a whole platoon dead!), and the rest of the platoon went for the mortar teams... They swung in, killing the guns, but leaving the command and 2ic team alive.

The next Italian turn, the heavy guns killed a HMG team, leaving one HMG team in the open, and a single m/g stand and command. (The 2ic had been killed vain-gloriously charging the artillery earlier).

With the HMG team facing the wrong way, the mortar platoon commander and 2ic charged in. The defensive fire killed the 2ic... who warrior saved it onto the mortar platoon commander... who then 'unknown heroed' himself back to life, killing my command an infantry stand.
Dang. The HMG stand died to the breakthrough guns the next turn.

My only other glory in this game was HMG-ing his massive truck-gun-of-doom. Yey!

After that, it was a slow progression from either flank, with tanks closing in. My Stuka didn't really do much, until I ballsed my reserve deployment and instead of trying to cover the objectives with the AT guns, tried to kill another platoon to break him - despite the fact that he was getting more and more (11 in total) platoons each turn. The AT guns died, and I failed my company check (with the Flaks off the board), game over, 2-5 loss.

That Damn unknown hero!

Still a great game, and a fun way to finish a fantastic weekend, meeting some great hobbyists,

Despite having announced that this would be his last tournament, Tim Harris has realised he is still addicted, and will be running another next year - I thoroughly recommend it.

As an aside, I ranked 27 out of 30 for the weekend, not bad for such a challenging list!

Great fun, thinking Mid-war next. Watch this space, and feel free to comment!