FoW Mid War: Tankovy vs Fallschrimjager

Kent and my practice for Southcon continued tonight. I decided to try something different and came up with a lend-lease tankovy to test out. Not sure how it would fare but it looked amusing- all equipment was provided by the brave workers in American and British tank factories:

             

Soviet Lend-LeaseTankovy- Conscript    

• 1x        Stuart 40
• 8x        Stuarts           240
• 8x        Shermans- 3x 50 cals         540
• 3x        Churchills- FT (No H&C)    450
• 9x        Razvedki (FT)           230

                        1500

Kent ran the same FJ as last week:

• HQ with 2 stummels
• 2x full FJ platoons
• 2 HMGs (combat attached)
• 3x pak 38s
• 3x stugs
• Priority BF 109s

 We rolled up a pincer, another of the new scenarios we hadn’t tried. 

Deployment: FJ dig on behind the objectives, stugs in ambush. I throw the stuarts out wide and Shermans, Churchills and Razvedki on my right.  

 Turn 1- advance. I double time the the stuarts to draw out the stugs- Kent is forced to react to this threat!

 M3A1s screen the churchills and defensive fire from their AA MGs shoot down 2 BF 109s on turn 1!

 3 stugs, 12 shots (against the double timing Stuarts)= 9 hits (even at long range) and 7 dead Stuarts! I was hoping one would be bailed and prevent me losing a VP- it worked, just! However Kent did pass 8 out of 9 firepower tests- yikes!

That worked...I think. Stugs lurk in the distance.

 Shermans move forward ot engage the stugs-and managed a single long range hit- which destroyed a stug (you can't do that at long range with a T34!)

 Still return fire and air power manages to knock out a couple of Shermans.

 Ha! Take that stug- AT 10 baby!

 The next turn another stug is bailed- Kent is rolling far to many 1s for armour saves- not moving helps me to hit. I am getting used to the new H&C, if those stugs were in cover as well as at range they'd be impossible to hit while I am moving!

A lucky stummelwerfer strike pins the razvedki for two turns- this is evened out by Kent failing to roll  reserves on turn 3 and 4.

 Kent ponders his next move. My churchill was lost to a panzerkanacker as it tried to force him off the objective.

 The churchills have forced the FJ back off the objective and the 3 remaining shermans move to assist (and get away from the last stug)

 Kent launches a final assualt to reclaim the objective- his second FJ platoon has arrived in the pincer move, just in the nick of time.

Dale gets hold of the camera:)

The final assaults go in but the Soviets have too much defensive fire between the Churchills and 50 cals. Here they come!

In the last turn the Shermans passed a morale check from a BF 109 strike to deny Kent a point.

victory to the Soviets.

Thoughts? 

I really liked the lend lease tankovy. It is very moile with the Stuarts and packs more of a punch that the Soviet version I had also considered (T34s, KV 1s)- for a start T34s would never be able to duke it out with stugs at long range. Sure I got lucky but if you throw enough dice then 1s should appear!).  Originally I took it as it didn't have enough Shermans for the 2x Sherman companies I wanted to try but the Churchills addd a bit of oomph to the list so I think I have setttled on the list for Southcon. 

We both took away a few ideas for attacking and objective placement in this mission- not sure I 

agree with the defendiing behind the objectives strategy as it meant if I pushed him back Kent would have to coutner attack and that is exactly what my razvedki and churchills wanted. 

 

Afterwards we also discussed how to make Kent's FJ more effective defensively by using the stummels as an HQ platoon with the 2iC and not attaching the HMGs, or even making a small KG, to get 6 platoons for deployment as this would have meant that Kent would have been able to have both pak 38s and stugs on table. 

A good game- I look forward to the next rematch.

Craig