Our 4th game of Version 4 using the new lists. 80pts of Panzer Ko. vs my Desert Rats Motor Co. Hasty Attack, on a desert board featuring 'Truck Park' Forest templates, because we were light on desert terrain, but had heaps of trucks, just laying around!
As ever, Video of the report and our thoughts is at the bottom past the pics. Enjoy
Matt puts his Marders in the 'Truck Park Forest' in his DZ. We moved the trucks around when he blitzed forward. They need more Iraqi Sand to blend in with Monty's Party Bus !!
Hastily-assembled Honey OP. I used staff team models and rangefinder to put up an OP on the engine deck, and then had to add stowage as a counter-weight, as this is a plastic Zvezda Honey.
25lbr battery deployed in my 'Truck Park Forest' Walls are just the template edge.
Centrally, Matt put his 8-Rads and PzrIIs ready to Road-Dash to the wrecked Crusader objective, and the only teams I have nearby are Mortars on the roof of that Mosque. 40% of points into reserves really hurt this list.. but I have 6lbrs in Ambush.
German-side view towards the British lines. Because of the defenders extra few inches in deployment zone, the Spearheading teams could only move 4 inches closer to my lines. My mortars are pre-ranged-in on Monty's Humber objective.
My second 25lbr battery were JUST in direct fire range of these PzrIIs. 6lbers also put in work, but both PzrIIs would remount, avoiding a Last Stand test.
Marders and 25lbrs face off from opposing Truck Parks. 4+ gun save vs anything is better than vehicle saves, though I spent most of my time direct-firing at PzrIIIs and IVs.
Honey OP ranges me in on a 2+. Only a bail-out, and with Protected ammo, he remounted on a 3+.
8-Rads hide from my 6lbrs behind the building in extreme lower left of pic. This table was very gun-friendly, but we had used all the desert scenery we had at hand. Rob would call this 'tank country' but I think everyone else would disagree!
Luftwaffe come in, and use bombs to pin my 6lbrs defending the Crusader objective. Matt wanted the template as far back as possible to enable his 8-Rads to move into the courtyard to be behind a low wall vs my 6lbrs and have a building to protect them from my 2nd 25lbr battery. Wave-off is now 8 inches from the template, not 16 from the planes.
Meanwhile, 3inch Mortars drop their one-and-done smoke in front of Marders. I guess smoke rounds were in short supply?!
25lbrs do not have the Forward Firing rule, which means they can shoot 360 degrees (the old Turntable rule) so I got extremely lucky and wiped out the PzrIIIs, leaving his HQ tank to flub firepower and only Bail my Honey OP!
8-Rads shielded from my 2nd Battery. All of the action was central and right hand flank, so this is the only pic I have of that side. One 8-Rad has been killed by 6lbrs at this point
But the 8-Rads, Marders and Stukas are all Divisional Support. With the PzrIV platoon dead (left side of pic), PzrIIIs down, my Crusader reserve gun down the HQ Panzer from the side with 2lbrs and break his formation.
Wait a sec, didn't the internet forums say Formation Kills were going to be impossible ?!?!!? :)
Video, with bonus other-room Bolt-Action and Team Yankee:
US Rifles taking cover while the M3 moves up in support.
LMG. I was pretty sure the shoulder flags were supposed to be the other way, but we're Canadian, what do we know?
Big thanks to Scott, who opened up "The Basement Down-Under " for a huge Bolt Action game (Tristan and David, with Matt looking on) and Andrew and Moser playing Afgantsy vs West Germans in the background. All while Matt and I played in the painting room our game of Flames.
You could still smell the primer on Moser's models, he built 8 Hinds so far, which is 7 more than I ever want to assemble ever again! He was making aircraft saves like a champ, so I've been told !!
of course your going to get a formation kill when a line of tanks attempts to charge a gun line. I think this match shows the weakness of armour as well as the new even greater strength of guns. I'm not sure if it was just that he wasn't shooting at the gun teams enough or just bad dice rolls. And also lack of terrain trying to move threw the kill zone in the mid board.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot for the battle report guys!
ReplyDeleteJust one comment: I had the MW rulebook for a couple of days (not anymore unfortunatly I had to give it back to my local store) and I think there is a rule listed in the special rule section wich says that the airplane ignore the 1-2 guns penalty when they shoot with bombs (like in EW/LW by the way) but I might be wrong...Anyway, thank you agin!