Day of Days Playtest- encounter

My longtime wargaming opponent (since we were 7) Ian is down for New Year so we took the opportunity to have a playtest of our forces for Day of days. Kent and dale came over with a possible new recruit, wargamer who has relocated form the UK to Timaru so he also joined us for his first ever game of FoW.

Ian and I ran my cossacks and his mixed tankovy:

	Mixed Tankovy Conscript
8x	T60	155
6x	T34/76	430
4x	KV 1E	430
3x	BA 64 (trained)	75
		1090

	Cossacks- FT
	HQ	35
9x	Mounted Cossacks	205
13x	Dismounted Cossacks	250
4x	76mm Obr 1927	75
4x	45mm Orb 1937 (AT 7)	105
4x	KV 1E (FA 9)- Conscripts	430
		1100

Dale, Kent and Albert shared the panzer company and Nigel's panzer grenadiers.

	Motorised PGs
	HQ + 1x P/K	50
7x	MG Teams + P/K	195
7x	MG teams + P/K	195
3x	Pak 38s	120
3x	Stug F (FA 5)	420
4x	82mm Mortars (2x observers)	120
		1100

	German Panzer Company
1x	Mk IV F1, 1x III Late J	205
4x	Mk III late Js	420
2x	231 Armoured Cars	85
2x	Mk IV F2, 1x F1	390
		1100

The Germans were going to struggle to deal with the KVs- just as they did in the real world and it is nice to see the Germans wincing for a change.

Mission as encounter, as with FFA we added a 3rd objective to each side to stop a "rugby scrum" from enveloping and it works well with multiplayer games.

This battle represented the start of Operation Winterstorm with the 6th panzer running into advanced elements of a Soviet tank corps (2nd?). The ground counted as frozen snow so standard cross-country rules applied and the Germans got a bonus of limited stuka support.

Turn 1. Ian advances his T34s in a bold flanking move that wrongfoots the Axis players.

Turn 2 the T34 assault up onto a wooded hill but being conscripts  miss almost all the Germans who slink back into the woods.

 The cossacks advance with KV support, Dale retreats his panzer grenadiers.

 The T34s are now unsupported and facing the panzers and reserve pak 38s.

 The cossacks advance continues.

 T60s arrive from reserve and mill around avoiding most things that can kill them.

 The KVs assault the panzer grenadiers driving them back, this is followed by cossack assaults.

 In the background the T34s are no more but Ian's KVs are now advancing on the central objective.

 The cossacks and KVs have driven the panzer grenadiers off the objective but the panzer IIIs are MGing the cossacks- by the end of the game there was one cossack left and he passed a couple of sole survivor tests.

 Ian's KVs have reached the hill and are tangling with the stugs and 2nd panzer grenadier platoon.

 Ian managers to loser a couple of KVs to stugs- 1s are bad!

 However, Albert has pushed up the rest of the panzers to try to grab an objective protected by the dismounted cossacks and 76mm infantry guns. The last 2 45mm guns destroy the small KGed (love the horse artillery rules) and from then on (for the first time in history)  they get called "nasty AT guns" by the German players. AT 7 counted as nasty?

 With the KVs about to win the game Albert throws the panzers forward but defensive fire from the 76mmm infantry gun bails one and knocks out another tank, the tanks retreat and the last one is destroyed in our next turn.

Victory to the Soviets

A fun game that was a real nailbiter. the extra objectives ensured that the players had to spread their forces and both sides had real chances of winning it.