This time I was up against Steve and his Germans in a 1500pt 'meeting engagement'. To make it more interesting, we'd absolutely covered the board in LoS-blocking scatter terrain, and to Steve's credit he agreed with me that the 'Tiger Fear' rule is unnecessary and easily forgotten BS.
Sadly for me, he DID still field a Tiger I and a Panzer IV (H)... but I had two Cromwells, my Staghound, a 6pdr and a PIAT team, so I wasn't hugely worried.
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| ...the rest of Steve's toys. Sorry for the crappy pic. |
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| My lot, in two platoons. |
...and that was apparently my first mistake! On turn 1, everything trundled on; with his first two dice of turn 2, Steve's two big cats annihilated both of my Cromwells. Lucky bastard.
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| My two tanks really didn't get much further than this, sadly! |
Didn't take very many pics with this game (I was too busy fretting and frantically thinking-up a 'plan B', I expect) but basically I invested a couple of ruins on my right, and scooted the bulk of my force round on the far left, spearheaded by my faithful Staghound and the plucky 3 Section, with the RAF Regiment boys in support.
My artillery FOO was rubbish: his super-helpful bombardment didn't arrive until bloomin' turn FIVE, but at least when it did it neutralised the sniper and Tiger a bit, with some pins. Glad I wasn't relying on him to smoke-out the Tiger...
My 2" and 3" mortars, on the other hand, were great - they did exactly what they were supposed to do, by pinning units and forcing them to choose to go 'down'. Hooray!
The Staghound did its thing pretty well, but it was very unlucky against the side and rear armour of his Pz IV - even at zero range! Luckily for me, by this point, Steve seemed bafflingly unable to penetrate the Staghound, so it really just became a silly slap fight.
How did I deal with the Tiger? Well, the lorry-borne PIAT managed to hit its side armour, but failed to pen, and it took revenge by plowing into (through) the ruin holding 1 Sect. They were very lucky to escape with only one casualty, and assaulted it (twice, actually) - pinning it and jamming its turret. After that, a lacklustre 6pdr hit and the belated artillery strike, it was no longer combat effective, so I could at least stop worrying about it.
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| I must say, my lorries did Sterling work as usual... |
On my right, the only remaining threats now were a soon-to-be blinded medium mortar and a vicious assault-rifle-wielding Fallschirmjäger squad, but the left flank by the end of the game was completely mine...apart from the Pz IV... So we called it a draw.
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| Endgame. You can see the cluster of Brits around the Pz IV, top-right. |
After my disastrous start, I was really quite happy with a draw, but most importantly, it was a smashing game!
Steve was a really fun and gung-ho opponent, and I look forward to facing off against his Germans again before too long...!
TTFN,
- D.
I am not a fan of the Tiger Fear rule either, though my main opponent Densmol always brings one and now, is painting up a Konigstiger. (yay...)
ReplyDeleteAnother good game, sounds like you were lucky to pick up that draw?
Damned lucky, although some things made it easier, like the ol' trick of parking an empty lorry out in the open as too tempting a target for his Panzer IV: he just couldn't resist ignoring my Staghound for it!
DeleteQuite often, when both of your Leman Russ are knocked out in turn 1, you end up having to glancing hit his Land Raider to death...
ReplyDeleteI had a little think about that after I wrote it. After all, loads and loads of people view BA and 40K as so far apart that my statement is banal or meaningless. However, upon reflection, it does reflect my gaming experience.
It's exactly the same idea, mate. Death of a thousand cuts.
DeletePlus ça change.