February, 1943 somewhere behind German lines a crack OSS group and their local allies head off in search of NAZI GOLD!!!
Team Throckmorton (5 of us) are heading out to the big
Warstore Weekend a 5 round, 1675 point Mid War tournament for
Flames of War the first weekend in November up in New Jersey. Now, I've not played a ton of mid-war so Ben (CrazedLoon on the
forums) and I decided to get in a practice game so I could warm up.
My rules for putting together a mid war list were pretty simple. I didn't want to have a buy or paint a ton of stuff. Which means, I started looking around in the German lists for something to run as most of my Brits and Americans will only fit into late war.
After a ton of hemming and hawing, I decided on the Schnellschwadron from Eastern Front. Recce infantry platoons plus a ton of anti tank with interesting recce elements makes it right up my alley. As a bonus, I only needed to paint up 4 BA-10's, 4 105's and 1 PaK 40. Easy peasy.
Ben, being crazy, decided to go with an OSS list from Burning Empires. Did I mention he's crazy?
For mission, because this is a Battlefront hosted event, we knew we could see anything. So we rolled randomly on the table and came up with Dust Up. If you're not familiar, it's a fair fight with delayed reserves and meeting engagement and you deploy in opposite table quarters with each player having 2 objectives in their deployment zone.
Here are the lists (with complements to the wizards at
easyarmy.com):
Ben's Fearless Vet OSS. The irregular partisans rolled up as Reluctant Trained. Ben kept his Recon, Partisans and Stuarts in reserve.
And here's my Schnellschwadron. I kept my BA-10M's, PaK 40's and and Nebs in reserve.
Army glory shots:
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| The glorious OSS, prepped and ready to search for some Nazi Gold! |
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| Team "Hide the Nazi Gold!" Schnellschwadron. |
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| But Throck, those are Puma's!?!?!?! I know, I just got my BA-10 order in so bear with me on the 2 proxy units in my army. Don't hate, appreciate. |
The Table:
Ben rolled to deploy first and I rolled to go first. The entire mission will be fought at night. Also, important note. Groups like the OSS get interdiction raids which work like air interdiction (5+ success) but instead stop your reserves from coming in. Ben has 7 dice of interdiction, I hate Ben for this.
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| Alright boys, I think the Nazi Gold(!) is right about... there. Let's go get it. |
Deployment:
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| The objectives (GOLD!) In Throck's deployment zone |
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| The OSS zone objectives |
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| Ben's Deployment |
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| German deployment. The Staff Team is sitting right on the gold. |
Recce Moves:
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| The OSS platoons begin to move out. |
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| The Germans spread out to cover the objectives and angles of attack. |
Turn 1!
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| I dig in, most of my stuff |
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| Ben At the Double's both OSS Squads in the "north" |
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| And the Guerrilla squad in the south. |
Turn 2
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| Smelling blood, the HMG's roll to see if they can see the double timing OSS units, and they do! They carve out three stands (bummer) |
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| The OSS quickly move in for the assault. |
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| And a bloody clash ensues. |
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| The battle see-saw's back and forth. |
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| Drawing in the 2iC |
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| And both 1iC's. |
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| The Second OSS platoon assaults! |
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| Finishing off the Schnell Platoon. |
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| But the German 1 and 2 refuse to be drawn in. |
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| And the Fearless OSS break and RUN! |
Turn 3: Ben is now at half strength. If I can munch 1 more platoon before he gets reserves he'll break and run as I already killed his 1 and 2 in the vicious fighting in the woods.
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| Both sides regroup as the Guerila squad tentatively moves in on the flank of the German encampment. |
Turn 4
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| German re-deployment successful. |
Turn 5
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| Guerrillas move in. |
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| BA-10's (pretending to be Puma's) make it on to the board near the Allied objectives. |
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| While the Partisan platoon does the same in their corner rushing to reinforce their own objective. |
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| As the Guerrillas move in for the kill |
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| Pinning the Schnell Platoon with SMG fire but... |
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| But, getting pushed back by defensive fire with the loss of 2 stands. |
Turn 6
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| My other BA-10's come on and I begin to think about assaulting that little platoon on the objective. |
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| But before that can happen my Schnell Platoon surges into the Guerrillas. |
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| Killing all but one. |
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| Forced to make a platoon morale check, the Guerrillas break and run. |
Without a 1 or 2iC Ben is unable to make his company morale check at the bottom of Turn 6 and the OSS are forced to flee the field with no gold in hand.
All in all, this was a fast, fun and bloody game. Those interdiction raids really do force you think defensively and ensure that you use your units with economy because you honestly don't know (until turn 5) when you'll be getting reinforcements.
Ben was perhaps a bit too aggressive, as the OSS can at the double through the woods, even at night, he had a solid shot to make it around my flank and eat up the 105's, which would have put a hurt on my defensive lines. But I respect the aggressiveness, even if it does mean I get to win 6-1.
"Throckmorton is a reclusive cactus farmer living somewhere in the frosty northern climes of Alberta, Canada. When not pricking himself on pointy caryophyllales, he occasionally deigns to climb down from his northern 'Cactus Throne' to play some Flames and very occasionally writes about his adventures on Throck Of War, his personal blog."
