By Luke Melia
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| Set up - look at those massive hooves! |
2nd ID - Luke
Confident Veteran
2 Infantry platoons- 4 total bazookas
1 HMG platoon with 2 bazookas
1 Cavalry Recon
1 Platoon 57mm guns
1 Veteran M-10 platoon
1 Confident Trained Towed AT guns with 4 bazookas and 4 half tracks
1 Platoon 1055mm towed artillery
1 Platoon (2guns) 155mm towed artillery
1 AOP
Jon
Confident Veteran
2 Tiger Platoons (2 each)
3 Panzer Mark IV
Mechanized Panzer Grenadiers
Whittmann in Tiger
We are playing on a pretty open table as our experiment with light terrain. We are playing encounter. Jon is feeling pretty nervous about being open to the TD ambush capability. He starts one unit of Tigers in the edge of the woods. Because of the open terrain, he was basically stuck having to place one of his in the open with Whittmann in ambush.
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| Nothing sucks worse than Tigers in the open when you are staring down two units of TD's and artillery. |
My deployment was pretty basic, although I made a couple of mistakes. Not knowing if Jon was going to get a little crazy I put the Towed TD's on my right, with the majority of the unit in the woods. Little did I know I would bog these vehicles right out of the gate. On my extreme left was the artillery, more or less safely hidden. The first infantry platoon was in the center supported by the M-10 security section.
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| I know this looks weird, but on the table I had to actually get these guys in the woods or risk them being shot up by Tigers from multiple angles. I know Jon would have taken the shots at CT TD's. |
I get the first turn and double the infantry into the center. Jon springs Whittman and gets two kills. At this point I am not worried.
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| Hello Mr. Whittman. We have a special delivery for you. |
TD's go crazy and charge out right in front of the Tigers. I was just in range of the trees to deploy the M-10's the following turn.
Jon shoots everything he can at the TD's and whiffs. Turn two they deploy and take a heavy toll on the Tiger force.
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| I thought this was going to finish up the game here in a couple of turns. How things quickly go wrong. |
Meanwhile, the towed TD's bog both jeeps.
The infantry unpin and advance through the town. Jon is dumping fire into the M-10's to wear them down. At this point, I can threaten the objective in the following turn. He has to move at least one Tiger towards his left.
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| Just now enough movement to assault. I have to move forward to get in position and hopefully handle the MG fire. |
Jon's Panzers arrive just in time and with a shot from the Tigers, finish off the M-10's.
Pretty disappointing artillery from the 105's. Jon starts to close in on my now completely exposed infantry platoon. I still have a chance to finish off those Tigers.
You are not going to believe this: I was short on my assault move. I did not measure a single team close enough to contact. This platoon is the epitome of swinging in the breeze. He proceeds to machine gun the living hell out of these guys.
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| Yeah that sucks. |
The towed TD's move up finally, but are about to have to pull back thanks to Jon's panzers.
Hey finally reserves! I'll take 155mm's please. Now I am striking with AT5 FP3
Jon gets reserves again and has a chance to actually completely destroy my Towed TD platoon. They make it through a metric ton of machine gun and tank shots and one jeep is able to make it through the assault phase.
After his consolidation move. He almost has the TD platoon off the table. Unfortunately for him with my deployment area I can get just out side of 16" with a little creative deployment. Now it is time for some payback.
....and then this happened. I was shooting eight shots on those panzers needing a 5 to hit and got a total of 5 hits and made firepower on each one.
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| I was extremely lucky this time around with my TD shots. Having at least one platoon vet is a pretty solid idea. The points in this list are pretty affordable with the trained towed TD's. |
Oh my God my artillery finally starts to earn their pay. The grens are shot to hell and fail their morale check. The tables have turned back to my favor.
We trade some long range shots and I am incredibly lucky with my shooting as well as my saves in his return fire. Jon is down to just Whittmann and a single Tiger. The next infantry makes in onto the table and begins to move on the objective. Jon can not make it there in time and fails his second company check leaving me a 5-2.
