CHCH FoW Day

Poochie and I decided to arrange a FoW day so got hold of Stephen S and soon we had arranged a FoW day, as many games as you like, starting around 9am and  all games 1750 LW. Over the day about 16 of us had a game or 3 (or in Josh's case 4) and it was a fun, relaxed day of catching up and throwing round dice (none deliberately aimed at opponents either!).

I got 3 playtest games in, 2 using the Hungarians. First up a FFA vs Eric's US infantry. Eric being one of my favourite opponents over the years, very skilled and he makes MW US sing like nobody else I know.

I ran

• HQ + 2x shreks
• 9x R/MG teams
• 7x R/MG teams
• 2x HMGs
• 3x pak 40s
• 3x panthers
• 3x Zyrini (borrowed from Josh- thanks Josh)
• 4x 149mm artillery
• 2x Nimrods

Eric Had 2nd Infantry Div (CV)

• 2x full platoons with 3 or 4 bazooks
• 81mm mortars
• 2x AT platoons (one had 3x 57mm, the other only bazookas to get to 9 platoons)
• 4 Shermans
• 4x recce jeeps
• 4x hellcats

I combat attached the shreks and HMGs to increase platoon strength.

Deployment.- The hill in the foreground counts as wooded. My paks protected my far objective and panthers were ready to react to developments. 

 Nimrods, yeah baby!

Zyinri go hunting infantry teams. Gotta say I love breakthrough gun Alas one as knocked out by a lucky 57mm shot and the next round another suffered a ToT bombardment and the survivor fled.

 Meanwhile on the table next door Andy's 28 T34/76!!!!! charged (double timed) a stug company (panzer) in a Hold the Line and were soon dispatched.

 Gotta love 4Ground buildings- they look amazing!

 Eric and my sparring continued with neither of us making much headway- panthers went hunting shermans but the recon section for the hellcats soon came across to help out and a stalemate developed. Fierce fighting raged on the village and I managed to destroy one infantry platoon and the 57mm guns as I advanced but as I charged out of the village to his mortars I lost a team in defensive fire and my platoon broke. 

 Who's ya daddy? Zyrini Killing 3x infantry in one round with no saves Eric made these guys public enemy #1.

 Panthers survived a number of bombardments and our artillery did minimal damage to each other.

 In the end to break the deadlock I advanced into the woods only to be met by every 50 cal Eric could muster- 40-50 dice later my platoon had had enough and the survivors fled. This gave Eric the opening he needed and he then rolled me up.

 That s about all I had left before the hellcats popped out and Shermans charged.

 The nimrods and pak 40s shot at 4x double moving jeeps but Eric made all saves (3+) ad then roared round the kill the nimrods.

 Last turn the hellcats finished off the panthers.

I got 2 platoons, another retreated off the table successfully and so with 9 platoons it as a 5-2 to Eric.

Thoughts?
1. I need more infantry- actually we both want to add a third plataoon so will look at tweaking the lsit to get a third platoon included.
2. Artillery was marginal due to no LoS on the shermans, jeeps and Hellcats lurking behind the hill and Eric saving most hits with his 105 battery. Not sure on inclduding it actually, points could be better utilised elsewhere.
3. Zyrini's rock. Breakthrough gun is fantastic on the, but with only 3 tanks they are very, very vulnerable

Game 2:  Cauldron vs Andy's T34 horde
28 T34s, dedov, AA platoon, spetnze and my own Razvedki M3s being uesd against me. I really felt I was in trouble going into this onee. The table helped my efences though with a huge hill dominating one quarter.I deployed infantry, panthers (immediate ambush) 149s and pak 40s.

 On turn 1 Andy's T34s assaulted my infantry and had the objective- we both checked and Andy didn't need it till turn 6 so his premature charge really screwed up the game for him unfortunately as it gave me more time to shoot, shoot and shoot again. Still 21 T34s take a lot of slowing down.

 Turn 1 my M3A1s roar on and start MGing the 149mm guns, destroying 2. 

 Turn 4, I'm just hanging on. Andy's platoons won't die but the Zyrini's turn up from reserve.

 A razvedki flamethrower hits 2 panthers but neither was affected, we survived the hits and breakoff to get away from the infantry- and and the 7x T34s slowly advancing up the tracks on the hill behind the panthers.

 That's better, the panthers get their front armour to the enemy again.

 Here come the reserve T34s.

 Assaults are the order of the day- T34s drive my 2iC off a cliff:  that hill is a very cool terrain feature!

 In the end I lost the Nimrods- sniped from the hill and won 5-2 but it as pretty close and I never felt like I had it in the bag.

Game 3 vs Josh: Dust Up
I took the US out for a run (2x infantry, chaffees, 3x 57At guns, 4x hellcats, 4x chaffees, armoured recon).

Josh ran: 2x stug platoons, full armoured PGs, 4x105s, and some panzer IVs, he KG to get 6 platoons.

 Turn 3 his stugs drive me back off the objective only to be destroyed by hellcats.

 When my reserves arrived I threw them at 5x stugs? Why? Simple, to see how 1x infantry and chaffees and priests would do. Usually I would simply double time away to my deployment zone and take on his reserves but wanted to see what would happen. End result chaffees, priests, recon and infantry destroyed for the loss of the stugs.

 But the hellcats are moving to assist and soon their are more dead stugs

 In the end Jos won 4-3 after I passed 4x company morale tests and couldn't finish off the last panzer IVs to break his company as he commander was dead. MVPs? Josh's 105 battery finally killed a single gun team after 7 rounds of me saving vs them but then they  killed a couple  of priests, a chaffee and the recon in direct fire! His armoured PGs somehow survived having 3 transports destroyed under them (priests), assaults by priests and a couple of platoon morale tests without flinching. They were awesome!

Another enjoyable game where I struggled a bit through not having read the US rules (or vehicle stats) in a long, long time. Didn't enjoy the list though and would either tweak it or run my motostrelk as I regretted not bringing them along.

So there we have it, 3 enjoyable games of FoW in a day. The FoW day was a success (thanks Stephen) and I hope it becomes a regular event.

It gave me a better idea of what to take to the masters, Hungarian's it is but with 3x infantry platoons and I'm dropping the 149s for some nebelwerfers to get a smoke template and sporadic stukas (the artillery just wasn't useful enough over the day to warrant using it).

So here is the list I'm taking:

	Hungarian Motorised Infantry (CV)
	HQ,  2x skrek	70
7x	R/MG + P/K	150
7x	R/MG + P/K	150
7x	R/MG + P/K	150
3x	Hungarian Pak 40	155
3x	Panthers	550
3x	Zyrini	225
2x	Nimrods	115
3x	Nebelwerfers (CT)	85
	Stuka Ds	100
		1750

Craig