Panzershrek 2016- Part 2

Game two and Poochie and I drew Simon McBeth and Chris in a Hasty Attack. I'd not played Chris before but have had a couple of games vs Simon in the past and he is a very, very good player so knew we would be in for a very tough game vs these two.

Their list looked pretty formidable so we weren't very confident going into the game. I'm not 100% sure of their lists but they ran something like:

Div Cav

• 2x Mk IVB
• 3x Mk IVB 
• 3x MK IVB
• 3x carriers
• 3x carriers
• 4x 2pdr portees 

Free French Infantry Company

• 2x Inf platoons
• 4x 25 pdrs
• 1x25 pdr & 2 2pdrs
• 2x bofors guns

A view from our deployment- our panzer IIIs are on table everything else in reserve. 

Simon and Chris had a really nasty defence to crack. They had 25 pdrs, bofors and 2 infantry in a box with the 2 pounders dug in on a hill behind the infantry. Our stukas came in for the first two turns but were shot off by the bofors but then we managed to knock out a bofors and eventually get the platoon.

Germans advance! Poochie and I got lucky killing a bofors and kept trying to nibble away but the GTG 2 pdrs kept our panzer IIs at bay and made it difficult to get too close- the 25 pdrs didn't help either as we needed to avoid them. As you can see in the photo below we sent Boris forward to try to snipe gun teams.

Eventually the MkVIBs came on and shot up my 231s which were trying to creep closer to the 2 pdrs to lift GTG.

On the right flank the panzer IIs duked it out with the VIBs and in the end I had to send my panzers over too and ww managed to kill the annoying light tanks.

Having dealt with the MKVIBs the remaining panzer IIs went hunting bren carriers.

The carriers kept moving and hiding.

The game was truly epic. The game lasted 12 turns, our planes appeared in turns 1 and 2 and were never seen again! We really struggled to make inroads into the tight defensive box and changed our point of attack several times as we tried and tried to nibble away at the guns. In the end unlucky reserve rolls for Simon and Chris helped us and we finally broke the Div Cavalry with only 1-2 minutes before the game was due to end. It was a very tense chess like game which was utterly absorbing and could have gone either way, it really went down to the wire and was the kind of game that you don't mind if you won or lost as it was a great game played in a great spirit.

 In the end though we managed to sneak off with a 5-2 victory but would have been more than happy to have lost as we'd really give it our best shot nnd Simon and Chris had tenaciously hung in there and did all they could to win it themselves. A great game and a real highlight of the tournament for me.