Wednesday, May 23, 2012

FoW: Mid War Counter Attack

My apathy towards painting continues- 2 weeks hardly painted a thing. However a couple of boxes of PSC Shermans turned up today so that should change things as Southcon is next weekend and I am still short 3 Shermans. Dale and I got together for a game tonight to test out my alterative Sherman list for Southcon.



Soviet Tanks- Conscript
1x Sherman 75
7x Shermans 480
8x Shermans 525
9x Razvedki (FT) 230
4x BA 64 100

Sporadic I 153s 90


1500

Dale was running an auflakrung and forgot his stugs so we eyeballed in 3x marder II and 3x pak 40s- and as it tutrned out we were probably about 50 pts over but what as he left his half tracks off table probably worked out about right!

He ran approximately:


Dale's Aufklarung (Approx)

Armoured HQ 75
1st Armoured Zug 255
2nd  Armoured Zug 255

AT Zug (2x pak 38s) 80

At Zug (3x pak 40s) 220

Heavy AA (2x 88s) 255

Tank hunters (3x marder II) 270

Limited Stukas 135


1545
We decided ot do a counter attack as we'd never tried it and so I got to attack.

So somewhere in the Ukraine in the Autumn of 1943 an aufkalrung company assembles to drive off yet another Soviet attack as the german retreat towards the Dneiper River. The Gerrmans manage to get everythng on table, ambushing with the pak 40s. Dale deploys in the top right corner.

 I deploy opposite him- BA 64s leading the way.
Another view of Dale's main bastion.
 Turn 1 the M3A1s full of Razvedki advance on the woods.
Only to be ambushed by pak 40s- 3 vehicles are destroyed and 1 bailed. 4 teams are killed. A couple of shermans are knocked out by the first of many airstrikes.
Turn 2 the razvedki assault the panzergreandeirs, killing two teams. The surviving Germans pull back.
 Shermsn use shooting too successful to consolidate into the woods and minimise pak 40 shots.
 A view from the German lines- the tiger is our objective.

 Finally the Crop dusters of Doom show up- only to be shot down by the two 88s. Has noone told the pilot about the new true LoS rules?
 The marders swing across to contest and strengthen Dale's right flank. I bet he wishes the tiger was not there only for show.
Pak 40s knowck out two armoured cars- one of whcih had been bailed for two turns directly in front of them!
 Yet another airstrike- this one kills the last of the razvedki, but all the Shermans are missed!
 Hmm- how the hell do we deal with this AND using the new hens & chicks rules?
 Simple- head for the other objective- the 88s made moving anywhere near the centre of the board very, very difficult! Dale's infantry have just arrived on the objective in the top right corner.
 My Shermans swing out and kill a Marder but I lose two Shermans to the 88s.
 Meanwhile Dale's infantry fail to dig in twice in a row so my other Sherman company close in for the kill.
A pak 38 kills a Sherman but we have managed to whittle this platoon down a bit too.
 Meanwhile the marders move forward to contest.
 How the hell do we deal with this when conscript? Assault?

 Dale takes knocking out his marders seriously- a bit of battle damage and no superglue to fix it- my Shermans missed two turns in a row which is not that surprising needings 5s, but Dale missed too, needing 3s!
 The final assualt- Dale charged the shermans. killing one and bailing another, the last Shermna fought off the Germans killing 2 teams (over two rounds) and then the surviving Germans retreated and broke!

Game 4-3 to the Soviets.

A fun game- air power really hurt early on but got pretty lucky with saves vs the stukas- my planes only managed to kill a a pak 40 (and a single infantry team to finish off the frist panzer grenadeir platoon). I mangaged to lose my battalion commander somewhere in the middle, and airstrike finished off my armoured cars in the penultimate turn, and I was down to total of 4 working tanks aat the end with no battalion commander! I was never really in control of the game and was damn lucky in the end to come away with a win in a tough but fun game.

As for the Southcon list I like both versions. Dale (and Pooch) prefer the Churchill list for fun factor and so I rolled a D6 after the game (1-3 Churchill version, 4-6 the Shermans). I rolled a 2, so it looks like the Lend Lease Stuarts, Shermans, Churchills and M3A1s will be fielded for Southcon- hopefully Kent and I can get a final practice game in next week.

Craig





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