Thursday, January 6, 2011

DAK vs 8th Army Rifle Company

I managed a game vs my mate Ian the other day. We've been playing wargames for a long, long time but rarely get to game vs each other these days. Ian made up an 8th army force to test my DAK and agreed to defend in a fighting withdrawal. As he had more infantry than me this was not going to be easy. I had one more DAK list I wanted to try out.

8th Army
  • 3x Rifles platoons
  • 4x 6pdr portees (in ambush)
  • 8x 25 pdrs
  • 3x carriers
  • 3x valentines
  • Limited Hurricanes

DAK Pioneers
  • 2x Pioneer Platoons
  • 2x Bison
  • 2x 25 pdrs+ panzer II
  • 3x Marder III
  • 3x Marder III
  • 4x Carri

Ian deployed and then I weighed my right flank and hoped to overwhelm him before his reserves could react.


And from another angle.


My infantry double time towards the village.


And are caught in a 25pdr barrage. Only a couple of casualties but one platoon refused to unpin for a couple of turns.


Turn 2- we've assaulted the rifles off the objective and the carriers have already scarped. Time to head for Alex boys...hang on what's behind the hill? (My gamble t win the war by Christmas- any Chrsitmas!) All I need now is to survive 4x ambushing 6pdrs. I did all I could t deny close range ambush sites but not quite good enough...


Our placement was not quite good enough to deny the ambush site- gulp!


Meanwhile a Bison barrage had destroyed a valentine!


Carnage! A cvouple of turns later- the machis (I couldn't find any hurricane models) have taken out a marder. The 50cal armed carriers are also taking them on. Captured DAK 25pdrs are denying LoS to the 6 pdrs via a smoke barrage- and Ian still keeps the objective contested. Lots of pressure form both sides.


Bison rumble forward and knock out another valentine- this time with direct fire- and the commander flees. My infantry have driven the British back from the building but my few survivors are hidden out of camera sight.


Now we contest 2 objectives- but so do a lot of British infantry!


Another assault goes in, this time supported by a panzer II. The British retreat but have held long enough to be able to remove the objective. With 7x 25 pdrs and a full platoon left on the immobile objective my only hope now is to break Ian's company.



Alas I didn't get any photos of the final turn or so. I switched my attack back to my original objective and in my last urn (turn 8) broke the infantry on that objective, forcing Ian to pass a stay on the board check (3 platoons dead, 2 let on table) to decide the game- 50/50 is better than no chance at all :) He passed.

4-3 to Ian.

A fun game, I nearly snuck a quick victory and it was worth the gamble, but lacked number (as so often is the case) to deal with the large infantry platoons and their support. A good game though.

Craig

2 comments:

  1. Awesome batrep! Very unique DAK list as well. I really need to get some bisons.

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  2. The bisons have been a lot of fun actually Inde and performing better than expected (not great but not absolute crap either).

    The list is one we came up with awhile ago and people have been trying to convince me is the version I should take to Wellington rather than 3 marders and 2x 88s. It is a bit fragile but definitely worth persevering with. 6 Marders is not to be sneezed at.

    The plan being the marders parry tanks etc and the carri zip in vs infantry when they get a chance. Its getting it all to work with the infantry that I'm still struggling with!

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