Wednesday, 17 January 2018

623 - Bolt Action Germans Join Battle Again

Hullo, All.

Another bat-rep, but for the first time with a proper force of my German troops, as Real Life (TM) has actually conspired to allow me to get a bit more painting finalised of late.

I had the pleasure of playing Guy again, but we fancied a scenario. Unable to pen an original one to my satisfaction, we used one from the D-Day to Germany supplement: [insert name here!] in which the Allies have to clear Germans from their defensible 24" deep deployment zone. 

Here's what I brought along:
Veteran 2Lt;
9 Heer Grenadier Veterans w. LMG and 2xPF;
9 Heer Grenadier Veterans w. LMG and 2xPF;
9 Assault Pioneer Vets w. flamethrower, LMG and 2xPF;
Veteran sniper team;
Veteran Panzerschreck team;
Veteran Medium mortar w. spotter;
Veteran Nebelwerfer;
Regular Sd.Kfz.251/10;
2x Regular Sd.Kfz.251/1;
Regular Panzer IV Ausf. H.
Time to werf some Nebel.
I can't begin to do justice to the force that Guy put together, but it was pleasingly characterful: two platoons, one of which was carrier-borne, supported variously by a 2" mortar, a PIAT, a 6pdr, a 25pdr, a Firefly and - for the first time I've ever seen one - a Wasp flamethrower vehicle.
This is MOST of them. The Brits
had almost twice as many dice...
This force was very mobile, although I tried to use my two free minefields to funnel them away from my flanks.


Luckily for me, I had ample cover in which to deploy upto half my troops 'hidden'. 

Unluckily for me, the Allies had a guaranteed (and fairly effective) preliminary bombardment AND I COMPLETELY FORGOT THAT HE COULD RUN HIS VEHICLES IN ON TURN 1.

bugger.

I took some pins and lost a Nebelwerfer crewman to the preliminary bombardment, but turn 1 was okay, overall. Guy's troops were mostly just charging forward in carriers, and I'm pleased to note that my Nebelwerfer put some pins on a handful of them and killed his artillery FOO and one of his Lts. Guy had refused my right flank, but this had forced his units into close proximity: perfect Nebelwerfer fodder.

Inevitably, his nasty-ass Wasp got close enough by turn two to flame-grill my left-most veteran squad, but after that, things started to balance out. He couldn't get rid of that squad for the rest of the battle: they hung on to quite literally the last man, despite being the target for much of the enemy's shooting and - later - assault. 
My heroic left-hand squad.
The middle squad: happily they
managed to cut down an advancing
squad, wiping them out.
...and the right flank. In the
foreground is my sniper.
After turn 2, I started clawing back a little, as the vets on my left set such a great example. 
Setting a great example.
Here you can see the left-hand vets
surviving yet again as the closing Brits
fail their order test. Yay!
To the right of the picture is my
Panzerschreck team. Pretty, but they
failed to do anything other than deter.

The Pz.IV arrived with the 251/10 and they started to make their presence felt; the Nebelwerfer didn't do anything else useful for the rest of the game, but it was a good deterrent, and the pins that its turn 1 barrage had left on the Humber armoured car was enough to negate its usefulness from then on too.
It's all getting a bit hairy here on
my left flank. Wasp is in foreground.
To my amusement, later on one of
the Bren Carriers fails its order test
and promptly reverses into one of
my A-T minefields!

On my right, my sniper finally got his act together, killing both the PIAT team and a 25pdr crewman, and, with the British attack faltering, I started to chew through the carriers and dismounted small sections too, although the 2" mortar and the Firefly were both thorns in my side. 


By turn three, the far more experienced Guy had been computing his chances of winning VP within the scenario, and it turned out that he was going to really struggle! As usual, I'd completely failed to acknowledge or even fully read how the VP worked in the mission, but essentially I got points for each unit I killed and double for each unit remaining in my deployment zone. The attackers needed either to kill way more of me or get their units into (or through) my deployment. Luckily, he had tons of units available for this; unluckily, I had few units for Guy to easily kill off and all I really had to do was stay put and take it. Which I did.
A last-ditch charge. I would've lost
a team or two to them, but they would not have lived long .

Guy pointed out how stacked the odds were against him, bit to his credit continued for the enjoyment and story. Even me lackadaisicallly running out my Panzer for a giggle (straight into the deadly Firefly fire) didn't do enough to address the imbalance: we declared on 16-3, with the defenders carrying a clear victory. 

Kudos to Guy for a fun (albeit for him very tricky) game, and much respect to the two best units, for my money at least: the redoubtable 2" mortar and my left-hand squad of veterans. 

Thanks for reading; more soon, with luck!

- D.

4 comments:

  1. Whilst thematically, defensive battles sound cool, the way Warlord has them written up in the main rule book, they almost always heavily favour the defender.

    Fun battle to follow and cool that Guy was using units we don’t often see on the tabletop too.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah. I tried - after the game - to replay it in my head with the roles reversed, and I would simply NEVER have been able to even come close to winning.

      That said, stand by for the coming report...!

      Ta.

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