LintMan's Wargaming Blog: July 2012

Game 2: No Retreat vs Andrew and Stuart (German Armoured cars with Panthers, German armoured cars with Panthers)

We get to defend this mission. It’s an easy matchup for us as all their points spent in two platoons of two Panthers are wasted vs our Staghounds. All we had to do is kill German armoured cars and win via company morale. Its extremely unlikely they can push through an assault on our objectives without taking crippling casualties.

It was a desert table with a village in the middle, area terrain, roads and some hills.

We deploy the 17/25pdrs in cover with a Para rifle platoon in front of them. We held the 6pdrs in ambush and deployed the bofors guns back covering everyone as they had airsupport.

My 2IC and CnC deployed behind the village. If they could kill the 17/25pdrs I would be testing company morale early.

They recce move then take their first turn. As they get to their first shooting step they try to left gtg on the 17/25pdrs. Which they cannot do as you must remain stationary. As they had gambled on killing the 17/25pdrs they has moved everything into the open to maximise shots. We let them take back their deployment, recce and their first turn because we are nice guys.

Their new 1^st turn was a flanking move with half the armoured cars while they hide the rest behind some area terrain.

Our first turn we fire our bofors, ambush the 6pdrs and fire my independent Staghounds at the flanking armoured cars. That destroys the 8rad platoon and bail everyone in the 221/222 platoon. My 17/25s have no target but they don’t need to. Staying alive while I get some Staghounds is the better option.

The game progresses and they just can’t kill enough quickly enough. My staghounds come on from reserve and basically mop up all the lesser German Armoured cars. We kill 1 Panther via our Air Support and win via failed German Company Morale.

6-1 to us!

It was a bad match up for them. They had no smoke or infantry and only their Panthers to take an objective.

Man of the Match: Tim’s Para Rifle platoon who held those nasty armoured cars off our forward objective.

Game 3: Fighting Withdrawl vs Derek and Callum’s Panzergrenadiers and Panzers

Table was a European village with a river cutting the table in two. We defend and choose the side with the village.

Para platoons spread across two of our objectives, 17/25pdrs cover our objective that we placed with the 25pdrs, bofors covering the two objectives they placed. 6pdrs in ambush with 2 platoons of Staghounds on the road to cover all 3 objectives. I had another Staghound platoon across the river on our far left to zip in behind and flank them.

They deployed everything to our right. They move forward and do little with the airsupport. They had two platoons of Panzergreanadiers, 2 platoons of German tanks, armoured AA, Panzerwerfers and Pak40s.

Staghounds zip down the road to MG up some panzergrenadiers, Tim ambushed the 6pdrs vs a platoon of Panzer IIIs, sniper shoots at the Pak40s. The entire ambush does nothing, not even a bail.

Return fire kills all but 1 6pdr and the command team. Morale holds. Our next turn Tim direct firs the 25pdrs and kills all the Panzer IVs. They actually move back the Panzer III platoon to counter the sniper and team Staghound Sneak.

Staghounds then shoot up infantry and we start to withdrawal not important things. Tim’s infantry hold while Staghounds butcher the Panzergrenadiers then go hunting Panzerwerfers. Their entire remain force turns around and tries to kill Stahounds. Turn 8 arrives and we win.

6-1 to us.

Man of the match: The entire Div Cav for forcing back the Panzers to their deployment zone. Minor award for Tim’s sniper who tied up 4 tanks, 3 Pak40s and 2 Armoured AA halftracks and did not die.

End of Day 1:

We are looking pretty good. No one else has won all 3 games and we did so without losing a platoon. The comp was adding +1 VP for a win so we were clearing a head.

I think what really set us apart was winning 6-1 in the FFA. A lot of games timed out even when a 10 minute time extension was added. I think is due to players wanting to confirm with each other over every single move and decision instead of just moving their stuff.

Game 4: Dust up vs Mike and Ken’s Italian infantry and Panzergrenadiers

This was played on my table I brought along. It has a railway line running down the middle with roads on either side which cross the tracks in the middle of the table. Cornfields and hedges line the roads and there are several hills to block LOS.

The big problem with their lists is that they are extremely static and defensive orientated. Itallians with 90mm guns, 100mm artillery and big blobs of infantry were deployed along with German Schutzen with Paks and Semovente 75s.

Looking at their list and deployment they wanted us to charge into their gun lines. We decided not to as if they cannot get our objective we get more points if time was called.

We deploy to deny them good bombardment targets with their 100mms. They deployed first and choose to deploy their artillery. We then deployed our 25pdrs so that they are out of this range but within our range if we wanted to counter battery.

They then deploy their stuff in big long lines and they get the first turn.

I recce on the roads and space out. They move forward trying to block off our reserve entry points with HMGs, AT guns and the Semoventes.

Our first turn was a thing of beauty. Tim’s 25pdrs smash and kill a 90mm, platoon command for the 90mm and pin the artillery. Next turn he kills the other 90mm for our first platoon kill. My staghounds start killing gun teams with their main guns.

Things are going well for us. However they get reserves which are smashed by my staghounds and Tims artillery. However we don’t get reserves till very late. When they do come on they smash through the semoventes, infantry. We end up with a staghound platoon on the objective with two Para rifle platoons supporting them. Only 1 Pak26(r) and 1 italian infantry team were there to stop us when time was called. 1 more turn and we would have won 6-1.

In that last turn we had killed 2 more platoons of Italians.

3-1 to us.

Man of the match: Mikes 90mm guns for rolling 1s and 2s for their first 5 rolls.

Game 5: Counter attack vs David and Tony German Pioneers x2

There was a big lack of terrain on this table. There were gaps of 24” by 12” where they was nothing. Not good at all. David and Tony has almost mirror lists. They had no tanks and huge pioneers, Pak40s, Nebs and airsupport.

We could take the objective easy as they didn’t have anything to move across the board without being smashed via Staghounds. Also we had done some math and even if we lost to them 6-1 we still tied with them on VPs. However it took over an hour for them to understand the mission and then deploy. We simply didn’t have time to get to turn 6 for us to take the objective.

We changed up our plan. Attack with everything and get 2 platoons for an extra VP. It wasn’t pretty as we assaulted and assaulted through 2 interlocked pioneer platoons. We killed one. The Pak40 ambush of 8 Paks killed a staghound platoon outright as it was trying to zip around the flank to kill some Nebs in the open. We killed those Paks down to their platoon commander who passed all morale checks to not cost them a VP.

Paras took huge losses and fled the board. We only played to turn 4 before company morale lost us the game 2 mins before time was called.

1-6 to them.

Man of the match: Tim’s Para rifle platoon who fought till the last and killed a Pioneer platoon.

So we were tied on VPs. Score scores propelled Tim and Myself into first place.

Another great weekend in Palmerston North. As always the panzerschreck doubles was one of the highlights of the gaming Calender. I will try to briefly explain how all the games went and what my lessons were.

Here is what Tim and Myself took:

NZ Div Cav in Italy (NZ armoured car squadron)

HQ 2xStaghounds

Troop 1 2xStaghound I, 1xStaghound II CS

Troop 2 2xStaghound I, 1xStaghound II CS

Troop 3 2xStaghound I, 1xStaghound II CS

AT platoon 4x17/25 guns

Limited Kittyhawks

2nd Independent Para in Italy

HQ 2xPIAT 1xSniper

Para platoon

Para AT 4x6pdr

British artillery 4x25pdr

NZ AA 3xBofors

Game 1: Free for All vs Brian and Andre (Finn tanks, CT Germans with Tiger)

I am going to just say it. I love me some free for all. It's the type of mission I plan for. The only downside is time, some defensive or slow players can time out causing a loss for both players. This wasn't the case which was great!

They had a mixture of CT Germans, with 10 Tx26s. Their main force to attack with was 2xKVs and a Tiger. To counter this I put the 17pdrs covering our right hand objective and had Tims Para Rifle platoon, Para 6pdrs and the 25pdrs protecting our left hand objective.

The Staghounds attacked the right hand objective while Tim’s 2^nd Para Rifle platoon attacked up the centre.

With the help of Tim’s sniper the Staghounds smashed the 88s defending the objective and pushed off the infantry protecting it. A last ditch effort from 5xT26s killed a staghound but couldn’t withstand the mighty firepower of the Staghound. We took the objective while threatening their second objective. Tim’s Paras held onto the objective under attack from the Heavy tanks.

6-1 to us!

Key part of the battle was deployment. We had good AT defence on both objectives, the Staghounds Recce move concealed the objective I was going to swarm. Brian and Andre deployed their 105s almost in the corner which placed them too far to contest the objective. They deployed their tanks to advance along that board edge. With their 8” move they could not move fast enough to help out against my Staghound attack.

Man of the Match: Tim’s Sniper. Took out an 88mm gun all by himself which allowed my staghounds to overwhelm the only other gun covering that objective.