Tempest 2012- MW Tankovy- Game 4

No Retreat vs Mitchell.

This was the most entertaining game of the day. Mitchell kept a positive attitude no matter how crappy the dice were and we both had a real laugh at this topsy turvy game.
 

Schutzen company (2 schutzen platoons- 2 pak 38s each, 4x 105s, 4x carri).

 Mitchell's deployment- 105s with ambushing schutzen with attached pak 38s. 

 Charge! The valentines double move- to lure out the pak 38s.

 Mitchell deploys his ambush and fires and the double timing valentines.

 I loe a valeninte and continue forward to the objectiive. The T34s and T70s continue through the town- after having silenced a pak 38- and survived a couple of 105 bombardments with only a single T70 lost.

 T70s line up against the remaining infantry

 The Valetnies advancce over the bridge to try to intercept the reinforcements.

The carri have turend up and killed a couple more T70s so the others pull back and hide!

 The T34s advance to dea with the carri- and also shoot at the 105s from beyond theri direct fire range.

 The carri are in toruble. I do like being able to move 12" and shoot with T34s- even with the new penalties.

 The T70s doubble time to pressur ethe back objective and the BA 64 double time 48" across the desert- whicih we treated as roads!

 The T34s ccontinue toa dvancce and deall with the 105s and hide from most of them- so far long range fire has killed 2x 105s. 

 How long can 1x 105  surivive vs 6 T34s? Too bloody long. In fact it almost browk my T34 company- with the hhelp of the pak 38s from the reserve platoon.

 Esrlier the 105s in direct fire killed 2x Vals so I puled the survivors back to keep the company alive. With only 2x Crusader II left (and only 2x MGs between them0 Mitcehll decided t was time to take them out with the forwrd infantry platoon. My Vals tried to retreat but with the storm trooper mvoes the German infantr easily caught them and assualted- failing to do damage and allowing my tanks to retreat. The next round he repeated the process and so the Valentines, almost back to their deployment zone were again swarmed and this time 2 were knocked out or bailed. The survivors fell back and failed their morale test (4 failed out of 5 for the weekend- only the T70s earlier in this fight had hung round and that was only because the company commander was finally in the right place for a re-roll!)

 The gun dual continues. In my turn I sendd the /t34s forard and take the objective.

 I manage to get the only contesting tank bailed then kill the last AT guns. Mitchell failed to unpin his forward olatoon for two turns (despite the commoany comander being present) and so cannot contest the objective.

5-2 to the Soviets, but once a gain a fun, and very close game.

Thoughts
A really enjoyable day. The tankovy were fun but fragile and only just scaped thorugh several games- it really needs at least two more T34s but at 100 ppts its hard to get enoug. However, I ended up coming 2nd, just above Poochie and just behind Jeff L. I enjoyed all the games and thought the format was excellent.

I wanted to use the day to learn the new rules and enjoyed them- the changes are great, even H&C.

As for the list,  I really regretted taking the Valentines and think the SU122s would have been a better/ more useful choice. I found the combination of slow + no HE to be very limiting, whereas the T70s and T34s were able to move back and forward to switch pressure, something the Vals just couldn’t do. I enjoyed the new- H&C rules different but limiting, but at least their MGs were useful. However, the additional +1 to hit really hurt the T70s so make the Stuarts a very tempting. I’m now tempted to look at a tankovy of Stuarts & Shermans for Southcon- maybe even with a razvedki on M3A1s to keep the All American theme…

Finally, many thanks to Stephen S for once again organising a great day- he does an outstanding job at all comps he organises and really is the pillar of the FoW community in this part of the world.

Craig