Wednesday, October 20, 2010

FoW: US Paras vs Panzers- FW

Kent and my final play test tonight before Conquest this weekend. I've been mulling over ideas and thought I'd try the following out:

1x Para HQ + 3x bazooka 90
12x Paras 345
9x Paras 255

3x 57mm AT Guns + jeeps 125
3x 105mm Artillery (CT) 90
3x Shermans (1x Firefly) 285
4x Shermans (2x fireflies) 390
Limited Typhoons 170

1750

The main change was dropping the second battery or 105s for some AT guns, my thoughts being that if coming on from reserve I'd rather have the gun shields of the 57mm AT guns than 105s without gun shields. I was also toying with the idea of a full 105 battery but thought I'd test this version out and was happy with it. If I did the full 6 gun battery of 105s but I'd lose my bazookas and feel that the bazookas should come in handy. The main weakness is the small sherman platoon- I will need to be careful with that!

Kent took a very similar list to last week but had worked out the points better so got the panzerewerfers:
  • 2x panzer IVs
  • 3x panzer IVs
  • 4x panthers
  • 3x hummels
  • 3x panzerwerfers with extra crew.
We decided to do a fighting withdrawal as that's the last of the defensive missions Kent hasn't tried lately. If we had time we were also going to try an FFA but ran out of time for that.

Deployment
My objective was in front of the central crops, Kent placed his near the top wood and the other near the Sherman in the bottom right corner. I placed my artillery and infantry covering the two far objectives, the small sherman platoon and 57mms covering the other. As you can see Kent deployed in the far corner.


My small para platoon dug in behind the objective. The objective marker is a goliath- best thing to use them for :)


Panzers prepare to advance!


Here they come!


My small sherman platoon tries to make a diversion.


Kent looking nervous as the panthers close in on the objective.

With good reason! I smoked a panther and ambushed two others with the Shermans. I KOed 2x panthers but the smoke template meant I managed to not hit the side armour of a third due to being outside 6"! 2 bazookas and an infantry team assault and all hit the panther which passes all saves, then its motivation test and breaks off! Uh oh!

Kent's new smoke templates. I wonder if being Vets in the woods (5+ to hit) will save me?

No it won't. 2 dead, 1 bailed and the unflappable survivors flapped off (again!)


On the other flank 2 Shermans get behind the Germans- the third had fallen to a hummel barrage. I managed to bail a panzerwerfer which failed to remount for 3 or 4 turns :)


Time on target- 6s to range in and then hit- the panther failed its save and is destroyed but the last panther stayed!


The hummels get the firefly but the commander stays.


The last panther falls to an infanty assault.


Running out of time the panzer IVs decide to take on the paras!


The first assualt goes well for Kent- both my platoons fail motivation and retreat. In my turn I withdraw the 105s and the two infantry platoons rally and assault the panzers- destroying them all.


Charge!


So at this point its about game over, right? Wrong. Kent sends forward the hummels so my infantry move out to take them on! A hair brained scheme but hey, they are hummels! What's that noise...panzerwerfers! (Kent's new smoke/artillery markers are pretty cool!)


The 2iC and Shermna continue to trade shots- well the panzer dies, the sherman is shooting at the panzerwerfers and finally kills another one.


And it goes horriby wrong. Charging forward my imptuous infanty get mowed down by hummels and pinned (5 hits!). Turn 7 and then turn 8 Kent nails both platoons killing all my teams and forcing me to take a morale test (company commander and the sherman being the only teams on table) to save the game! I rolled a 5!


Result: 4-3 to the paras.

Notes

The game should have been a walk in the park for my list and Kent's worst nightmare! 4 panthers are tough, you need to kill them all to force them away- or so it seems. My biggest mistake was charging the hummels, I should have hunkered down and won the game the easy way but 4 bazookas in the two platoons, what could go wrong?

Ah well, at least I'm getting my crazy ideas out of my blood now (I hope). I liked the balance of this version and was glad I had the 57mm AT, even though all they did was miss the HQ panzer IV and then retreat off the board. The extra bazooka teams were handy and between Kent passing far to many top armour saves vs bazookas and total failure of my typhoons to spot or hit anything, I'm now expecting big things from both troop types as the dice gods now owe me big time!

Bring on the weekend

Craig

2 comments:

  1. Yes, bring on the weekend.


    I am looking foward to it, but not to facing Kent's list with a Tankovy!

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  2. Well it will depend on the mission and table (as always!).

    However, I could say the same about my paras if they have to face tankovy!

    I quite like his force, fragile but hard hitting. I think I might do something similar except drop the hummels for a full armoured aufklarung!

    Craig

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