Bedecon Day 1

Well, I’m back from “Bedecon” and had a fantastic weekend. A Normandy themed comp with a twist! There was a prize for the allied player who killed the most German infantry/manpacked gun teams in assaults, for the Germans there was a prize for the most enemy tanks (AFVs) destroyed- and I happily contributed many points to these. The concept was an idea of Poochie’s and it worked very, very well.

The comp was fantastic and the tables superb. I played 5 fun games vs 5 really nice guys, three of whom I’d never played before.

I hadn’t tested the army and it took a while to get to grips with it but in the end if did pretty well.

Game 1: No Retreat vs John H and his fortress company- infantry + pillboxes & minefields

Attacking vs lots of fortifications. John closed down one avenue of approach with a pillbox + 2 minefields so I naturally went the other and attacked cautiously- only just getting over the half way line on turn 6 and not really exposing my force to too much fire. My attempt to lift a minefield failed so it was on to plan B- drive an observer Sherman over some barbed wire to open a gap- John’s 88 bunker finally then got to fire- and missed with both shots which I found amusing. John wasn’t going to stand for that so, whomp, a 105 battery landed a barrage on the hapless Sherman and down it went!

Next turn my first platoon launched an assault and cleared the near objective of Germans- only for the 3 survivors to fail the first (of many) platoon morale checks for the weekend and thus gave the objective back.

Moments after the platoon bugged out.

Time was then running out so it was time for some trickery- alas the rough going of the minefield prevented all my trickery from working quite as I hoped- but I managed to get the cromwells and M10s over the wire and assault (under smoke) a small platoon of infantry and then “bounce” over them to the rear objective when they counter assaulted- I broke off after passing my morale test (tanks don’t stop for anything)- past the 88 bunker. Hee, hee, now I only had to survive the DF for 3x 105s and a nasty little infantry platoons attempts to assault to (possibly) win the game.

Alas, it didn’t quite work out- my gamble failed and all my tanks died (it was really my last chance for a win).

The red dice indicate the edge of the smoke bombardment.

So close...

My final infantry platoon move out of cover and got whomped by 105s, 75mm infantry guns, 81mm mortars, an 88 bunker, HMG bunkers/nests bit the three survivors still managed to go forward the next turn and take out another damaged German platoon- and contest the near objective again, but after John counter attacked my last stand, my CO, died!

John was only down to 3 infantry teams + small support platoons (well hidden) and I was down to recce, priests, + 6 pdrs and one platoon shy of auto breaking so I threw everything forward and died in a blaze of glory.

4-3 to John. A fantastic first game, it was bloody and brutal and I had my chances to win- morale tests failed me quite badly but that is life. Was happy to get to two objectives, even if I failed to hold them!

Notes:

A good game- I gave it my best shot, John remained cool under fire and did enough to hold me off . Lots of dead teams to infantry assaults though- 15! Recce lifting GtG on double timing infantry in a trench + 6 pdrs= lots of dice! I was also happy the way I managed to just avoid any pillboxes going into assaults.

Priests ranged in first turn, killed a team and even with Mike Target failed to kill any more repeating the boombardment 5 turns in a row.

Memo to self- British can attack at night!

Game 2: FFA vs Alex 21^st Panzer Div PGs

Similar forces- 2 platoons & supports. A great table which needed up becoming two separate battles. The game was notable for woeful dice rolling form both of us, it ended up a race to see who could failed more rolls first and thereby lose the worst!

My 6pdrs, M10s, recce and an infantry platoon defended the high objective my Cromwells, prelists, & other platoon the town. Alex deployed a PG, werfers on the top of the hill, tigers and paks covered the centre, shleppers, infantry, 3x panzer IVs + AA covered the other objective. I really liked the list- only felt it needed a 4^th panzer IV to be really dangerous. We ended up trading blows round the village- Alex pushed forward his panzer IVs and after some terrible dice rolling from both of us I finally managed to see off the panzers.

Meanwhile my infantry had assaulted the shleppers and paks, killing a pak and then the shleppers and paks retreated- I lost a few teams though- and jumped 6 teams into 2 buildings directly in front of the shleppers! Luckily they missed- oh crap bunker buster!J My infantry was picked off in an assault from the 2^nd PG platoon soon thereafter taking the CO with them as they legged it back to the beaches- yep, more failed morale tests.

The German panzer grenadiers move to assault the remnants of my infantry platoon.

Meanwhile the priests had been ranging in and failing firepower tests vs tigers and the tigers moved up the hill to support the other PG platoon. A few assaults took place and Germans retreated. In the end my M10s were knocked out- one got shleppered in to round 1, the others fell victim to tigers and 2 dead, 1 bailed = another failed motivation test! However, I mauled the infantry on the hill so was close to capturing that objective. On the hill the tigers were starting to pop my priests and were also protecting the last few infantry.

I managed to assault with 3 teams (out of a near full strength rifle platoon) at the 3 survivors of the PG platoon, and missed them all- the rest of my teams were giving covering fire to avoid drawing in a tigger- Alex’s dice finally started working- and he killed all 3 teams, my last four teams ran forward and only killed a team of his! The surviving PGs killed 2 more rifle teams before dying. My troops then failed their morale test (of course) and that left 3 6 pdrs and 2 recce carriers to face the tigers which were rumbling merrily towards the objective.

The shleppers were finally taken out by the cromwells and it became a race to grab an objective before losing on the top of the hill, I managed to grab the right objective and screen it with cromwells and try to hold on long enough for the win. Luckily the PGs failed to unpin after being MGed and so couldn’t contest and so we took the win by the narrowest of margins!

Bede's very nice Total Battlefield buildings. Lovely!

4-3 to T&T. A really random game that was a lot of fun. Two quite evenly matched forces I felt and we both did well, especially given our tendencies to miss most of the time, and/or fail morale tests. Lots of fun vs a great opponent!

Priests- 50 caled a pak 40! Bailed a tigger and did not much else of note.

Game 3: Witches Cauldron vs Grant

Grant ran a CT German infantry force of 10 platoons- 3x infantry, pioneers, 3x stugs, 3x jagdpanthers, 75mm IG, nebs, 3x 20mm, 2x pak 40s.

I got to defend and stuck my 2x infantry + 6 pdrs on the objectives and intended to just sit there and hopefully weather the storm till the reserves arrived.

Grant attacked under a nebwelwerfer smoke screen but failed a tank terror when my Op Shermans was drawn in. The next turn I hit him with rifle fire and the 6 pdrs and assaulted a couple of teams and he puiled back then failed to unpin.

Turn 3 my cromwells arrived but no stugs/jagdpanthers were on table yet so they assaulted and destroyed the nebs, while an infantry platoon raced out to destroyed the 2x pak 40s. In both cases the command teams stayed and retreated and both passed sole survivor tests the next round, so were removed and thus no VPs. Turn 4 the jagdpathers arrived and aimed at the cromwells and two were destroyed.

Over the next 3-4 turn as silly rolling maul developed in a cornfield. M10s arrived on the flanks of the jagdpathers and between them and the cromwells I killed 2 , bailed the other.

How's that for a sandwich? M10s & Cromwells.

Then the stugs arrived, supported by a platoon of pioneers which destroyed a cromwell, bailed another with flamethrowers then failed to assault the remains. Another Cromwell fell to a stug (but I finally passed a morale test- on a 5+). My recce arrived to deal with the infantry, then the 20mm AA arrived to deal with the recce. In the end Grant won the scrap- his 20mm AA bailed 2x M10s and a third fell to the stugs and the survivor legged it, followed in the same turn by the last Cromwell! The recce carriers cleaned up the 20mm AA from the flank then were taken out by stugs. This left Grant with 3 stugs and a jagdpanther vs my infantry, 6 pdrs & priests.

Now its getting messy!

The priests meanwhile had arrived on the far side of the board and had used 50 cals to destroy the 75mm IGs and then I started dropping bombardments on the stugs but the shells kept being bounced.

Boo!

Now this doesn't look good- the stugs now advance to deal with my infantry!

Grant was starting to run low on troops and I got a lucky 6 pdr shot through the front of a stug, and repeated the feat the next turn but the final stug stayed. Finally, I did a stonk on the jagdpanther that had just taken up a hull down position to snipe my priests (and had KOed one with its first shot) and killed it forcing a company morale test which Grant failed.

4-3 to the T&T boys!

Wow another really fun, really random game that again was on a knife edge. I felt very lucky to come away with a win after that one. Grant played well and could have won it. I really enjoyed the silly tank scrap, lots of un.

Priests: 2x gun teams and a jagdpanther

End of Day 1: I was on 11 pts in the middle of the pack- not that I was worried about placing, I just wanted to have fun. Lots of us were in similar positions but the Free French Armour (Simon McBeth) and Poochie’s US armour were a few points clear of the rest of us Allies s and there were a couple of German forces with 13+ points too, so a really tight comp.

I was really struggling with the CV morale and failed at least 75% of platoon morale tests. Had some good luck with the dice, but plenty of bad, but luckily my opponents had similar bad luck. A good fun day though and was looking forward to Day 2.