616 - Bolt Action 15mm Epic Tank War!

Hullo All,

I'll keep this one super-brief: a new club(!) and a fun tank-wars in 15mm scale with Germans squaring off against Russians and allied Brits - about 5500 points. Ish. 

We blagged rules adjustments for activating the tanks in squadrons which _mostly_ worked and just got stuck in for a bit of fun, changing all movement and weapon ranges from inches to centimetres*.

The 8'x6' table pre-deployment. Brits in foreground
with Russians to the left; Germans across the way.

The Germans form a gunline whilst the Allies (somehow
lacking both superior numbers and their traditional
arty bombardment) surge forward. And get slaughtered.
On the right flank, the Sherman/Firefly squadrons edge
around and through the wooded stream.

The Sherman Squadrons continue to edge forward, and
also help to support the T34s.

On the left flank, my Firefly edges up and starts to snipe
at the Puma Zug...

...and draws first blood!

Next, our flanking units arrive on the left...worryingly
followed by a Panther Zug. 

Things are getting very sticky for the Russians on the
right, but the Shermans are solid. Well, the Fireflies
at least!

A surprise victory on the right: the veteran Panthers are
absolutely useless. but the recce vehicles who snuck on
behind them somehow manage to grind them down with
pins and hits from three HMGs and a light AT gun!

And on the right, the Russians continue to get taken apart
whilst the Germans panic themselves about the two
Fireflies! One of them rolls only 1s; the other destroys the
last Hetzer and a bloomin' terrifying Ferdinand!

In the end, it was a draw on order dice killed, but the umpire awarded the [moral] victory to the Allies, mostly because they bravely took the fight to the baddies! The Germans were indecisive and (with their Panthers at least) unlucky, and it cost them dearly in this engagement.

We'd played something like seven turns, and at the end the Allies absolutely owned the left flank, but would have serious trouble shifting the StuGs and PzIVs on their right. Pretty much all of the Allies' work had been done by the three stalwart Fireflies and the surprisingly lucky outflanking light recce unit, but a shout-out ought also to go to the last German Puma, who fought very well indeed.

A very friendly club to have been invited to, and a thoroughly enjoyable game. It was silly at times, fast-paced eventually, and a joy to look upon. Hooray!

Merry Christmas,

- Chris.

*My maths isn't great, but as a proportionate scaling option, inches-cm didn't quite seem to work. There are 2.54cm in an inch, making it significantly less than half, whereas 15mm (1:100) is over half of 28mm (1:56). To this end, maybe it'd be better just to halve distances when playing in the smaller scale in future...Either way, it doesn't really matter too much!