by Eric Lauterbach & Dirty Jon
Eric and Jon got together for a Saturday morning Late War game of
Flames of War. We both brought non-tournament lists just to have some fun and get some fairly rare stuff on the table. Jon set up the terrain to be in the medium to light range.
We rolled up a random mission and got Encounter. Pretty fair, but this will be a challenge for our armies. Eric had a complete "Who farted look" on his face with this mission. I don't think either of us viewed this as favorable for two counter-punching infantry armies.
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| The table. Fairly open compared to some things we play on. |
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| Objectives set up. Jon is on the left, Eric on the right. In hindsight, Jon picked the better side with less open areas to moving lateral. |
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| Eric's List |
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| Jon's List |
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| Eric has huge guns....and these models on the table, too! Look at those T34s and T34/85s. |
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| Random Romanian morale Confident Trained infantry blob. |
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| Jon's infantry staged near the objective. |
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| The Street Barricades and Barbed Wire are really clogging things up. Eric is going to try the town and see what happens. We read the Street Barricades rules -- pretty nasty! |
TURN 1
Jon goes first, and stages his PzIV/70s to take two shots at Eric's 'uge guns before they get a chance to dig in - result: misses. Infantry on his right move forward to cover the objective. The guy on his left get into the woods and overlook the other objective.
Eric digs in and moves his T34 horse up to take some shots -- no effect.
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| Eric lusted after Jon's Street Barricades. They were well painted and Battlefront made some great models. |
TURN 2
Jon runs some of his guys into the houses. The Panzerschreck - which didn't move - takes two shots at T34s....missing both.
Eric takes some shots at the houses and pins the infantry.
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| Two shots with a Panzerschreck -- two misses. |
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| Eric trying to get some cheap shots on Jon's Infantry...He got none. |
TURN 3
Jon's PzIV/70s move up menacingly, but do nothing. The infantry bail out of the houses before those nasty T34s can gear up to clear them out.
Eric moves up with the T34s and threatens the Street Barricade, but doesn't kill anything. Looks like both sides are waiting on reinforcements.
TURN 4
The PzIV/70s move up to threaten the T34s if they try anything funny. Jon does not get any Reserves. The Panzerschreck runs out to take a shot, but no hit - he Stormtroopers back to cover.
Eric gets some Reserves and re-deploys his T34s.
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| So here we are at turn 4 and nobody is hurt and the street barricades are creating more of a obstacle than anticipated. |
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| Eric got two platoons - one Reluctant Veteran ATG platoon on the complete wrong side of the board. He should have bought transports. |
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| Confident Veteran Romanian Mech platoon.....Best guys Eric has. |
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| The Situation as the T34s double-time to the other side of the board. |
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| Having gotten complete bored of the street barricade stand off Eric double-times to the middle of the board. |
TURNS 5 & 6
Jon reacts to Eric's re-deploy by moving the PzIV/70s and Command toward the other objective. Marder arrive and present a juicy target to Eric.
Eric moves to shoot Marders and PzIV/70s to no real effect.
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| Eric gets popped in the butt on his silly double-time move, but really gets off easy. |
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| Jon failed his Marder storm trooper so Eric just went all in... It was a mistake! |
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| The Resita ATG guns kill one Marder the T-34/76 whiff. |
TURN 7
Jon makes Eric pay for his mistake.
Eric weeps.
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| PzIV/70s Bail and Kill. |
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| Marders kill three T34s. |
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| Jon killed 4 tanks and bailed one.....morale check! And morale check failed! |
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| Abandoned by their Soviet Overlords, the Romanians are left to attack alone with out tanks support. |
TURN 8
Fuck It moves begin! Stuff dies all over the place.
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| Nebs came in and rain death on Romanians. |
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| This silly railroad track is really screwing up Eric's move to the objective! |
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| Eric's "Fuck IT!" Face ... Hey....at least the KC Chiefs won! |
TURN 9
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| Germans move to the real battle! Jon took Trucks -- good move! |
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| Germans blow halftracks to hell, but kill few infantry. |
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| Romanians close in on the objective! |
TURN 10
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| Ut oh - Eric is setting up his Assault on the Marders! |
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| Here come the desperation Infantry attacks! |
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| The Germans have re-deployed well and now cover the objective. Even the AAA trucks are killing stuff. |
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| Romanians Running! Victory for Jon. |
ERIC: In conclusion I am still struggling to find any kind of viable Romanian list. The random morale is a complete killer. I really think this rule is bogus with the way it works. A company commander would know who in his company was weak and who was a good leader. As it works now, after deployment you suddenly find you have reluctant troops on your key objectives. Instead of assigning the tough mission to your best troops you assigned it to your weakest you have little control over your force. This is a major reason why the Romanians will never be a "Good' tournament army its total luck on your troop placement. I tried the Soviet version and I was not pleased with how it worked, "Hen and Chicks" is just to hard to work with. Next I will give the small 3 tank platoons a go...which is another draw back. The Romanians have some great support options and I can't give up on them yet. So back to the drawing board.
JON: No real mistakes here, except Eric forgetting about Hen & Chicks -- that kinda cost him his Tanks, I guess. Other than that, we played fast and had a good time. I don't think either of us had a real "tournament" list, but there were fun things to play for a change of pace. We did learn that
Street Barricades are pretty powerful! If I didn't have those things covering my sides, the
PzIV/70s would have been in trouble.
