Bedecon round 1

The theme as the winterwar on the eastern front- snow tabless, Soviets and Romanians vs the Germans and their allies. Apparently most companies were armoured but it turned out I faced mainly infantry forces- which meant I did a lot of attacking!

Game 1: Breakthough vs John H (KG Bake)
john as uanble to lay the cops and as one player had pulled out at the last minute Bede handed him a KG Bake force and told him to smash the Soviet invaders. He ran Bake + 3 panthers, 2x tigers, 3x panzerwerfers, pioneers, AA.

We got a pretty heavily terrained board and I set up my typical defend one quarter defence, with Zis 2s covering the objectives. John advanced cautiously with his panthers and there was little early action- except for my repeated bogging of SU 100s on a wood- oops. turn 3 however as the panthers edged their way towards an important crossroads a company of Valentines roared out of the snow behind the panthers and knocked out 2, including Bake who took over another tank, and bailed 2 others. The panthers stayed but only one remounted the following turn. bake again had his tank shot out fomr udner hhim and commandeered the last pantherbefore gettinnhg it stuck entering a wood as he hunted down the Valentines. johns reserves (tigers and pionners) arrived and i spent a couple of turns shooting all the infantry while John took out 2 JS 2s ith the tigers. The sukas meanwhile had come aon board and were hunting the panzerwerfers, they had them pinned in a corner and about to be volelyfired when one of the Suka commadners spotted the bogged out Bake about 30" away and showing his rear so drove up a hill and knocked him out needing a 6 hit hit! The other three SU 76s (which now counted as moving shot up the 'werfers)- 6-1 to the motosrelk.

A force John had not used before but it was always going to be tricky dealing with the combination of lots of infantry and high end AT. It was a panther heavy force I had in mind when designing this force and it managed to keep them at bay quite nicely

MVP: The Valentines!  

Bede's panthers- he really sets the painting standard!

 A few infantry stopped him heading to far to the left but most of my force was to the right where I could guarantee and integrated defence and could enfilade john if he chose to ignore my defence- this is my preferred set up for Breakthough.

 The SU 100s siply add as a threat- and when they try to move tend to get stuck alot.

 My reserves start to arrive. 

 Bake leads the advance towards the important crossroads.

 Surprise! Even wwith the new H&C if panthers are in trouble when flanked!

  Boom!

 Here come the reserves to the rescue.

 My infantry advance to assault the bailed panther but it is knocked out by the Valentines.

 Meanwhile the SU76s have gone after their preferred target- lightly armoured vehicles.

 But wait, what is that? A bogged panther? Bake is about to lose his third panther!

 

And now for something completely different- Andrew Stanton's Armoured train.

Craig