By Maurice "The Space Cowboy" Kent
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| Photo from www.tankdestroyer.net |
Hey again,
I had the pleasure of playing in Able Kompanie's 1250 point late war
Flames of War tournament at Gencon in August. I previewed my list
here. I'll give you a quick rundown of how my games went and provide some eye candy of the various armies in play. Let's see how the boys of Task Force A were able to do.
Game 1:
Hasty Attack against Ron's excellent SS Panzergrenadiers. He had a large platoon, a short platoon, Panzer IVs, some StuGs, Pak40s and Nebs, if I recall. Naturally, as TFA, I got to attack.
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| Set up underway |
Ron kept his large platoon in immediate ambush and spread them between the two objectives. The Pak40s covered both objectives from the center, while the StuGs covered the objective on my left behind the woods. I kept a Hellcat platoon, the Scotts and Recce in reserve.
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| Trucks get ready to spearhead. Hooray for getting to use trucks! |
I got right to it, advancing to assault the panzerschreck team on the extreme right flank with the Stuarts. Meanwhile, the Hellcats and engineers advanced on the left. The reroll for reserves proved extremely helpful, as the Scotts turned up right away to help out the Stuarts.
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| Scotts move up to support the Stuarts. |
The initial assaults went ok, and the Stuarts were able to eventually drive the panzergrens back off the objective (but not completely).
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| The engineers are rebuffed by the panzergrens in the forest. |
Meanwhile, the Hellcats creeped up on my left. The StuGs were forced to shift flanks to deal with the Stuarts. Ron failed his first reserve roll, and unfortunately for him, that was that. Both hellcat platoons jumped on the StuGs while the Stuarts and Scotts wiped out the Pak40s, leaving nothing to contest the objective on my right. 6-1 to me.
Next up,
No Retreat against Andy's Romanian tanks:
Panzergrens, Panzer IVs, recce, StuGs and pioneers. He rolled quite well on his skill levels, with only the StuGs coming up trained.
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| Deployment |
He lined up with his Pioneers on the forward objective, his CiC on the rear, and the Panzer IVs between the two. His StuGs were in ambush. I deployed ready to spearhead along the right flank, taking advantage of the nice tree/hedge line to screen my initial moves.
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| Post-spearhead. Let's go fast! |
By the bottom of turn 1, I was in position to sweep around the flank and assault the rear objective. Andy's reserves did not show up, and he chose to pop his ambush and try to wipe out one TD security section, forcing them to deploy.
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| Bottom of turn 1. |
The StuGs only managed to kill two. On my turn, I swept up with both TD sections to attack the StuGs. I managed to wipe them out. Meanwhile, the engineers continued to advance.
Unfortunately, Andy's Panzer IVs then showed up and wiped out one Hellcat platoon. From there, I tried to hit his other platoon, but across two turns, I whiffed on about 8 shots in the open. His pioneers and Panzer IVs finished off the other Hellcats, and although I was able to get his Recce to nab another point, it was not enough. 3-4 to Andy. I definitely lost this game in the planning phase, as I should've rushed the Stuarts and Scotts straight at the pioneers, daring him to fire at them with the Panzer IVs and StuGs. Then the Hellcats could've done their jobs exacting revenge with full RoF. If that sounds familiar, that's because that is basically what this list should be doing every game.
For some reason, I wanted to avoid assaulting the pioneers. Oh well, lesson learned, right?
Game 3 saw me still with a shot at placing, sitting at 10 points. I drew Joe's Panzers to the Meuse in a
Dust-Up. He had 10 Panzer IVs, some 8-Rads and Panzergrenadiers.
The board was rather open (though with a good amount of concealment). Joe put his Panzergrens guarding his objectives, while the Panzer IVs sat ready to respond to any advance I put forward.
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| Deployment |
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| Moving up |
To summarize, I advanced slowly, trying to find a good time to drop a TD ambush. One platoon quickly eliminated his 2iC, but then advanced cautiously with the rest of the group. The engineers held tight on the objective.
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| 2iC doesn't disengage...and pays for it. |
I got my reserves pretty quickly, but they weren't able to dislodge the panzergrenadiers with any sort of speed.
His reserves finally showed up, and managed to chew through the Hellcats with the help of the original platoon.
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| Hellcats kill the 2iC |
From there, I couldn't really muster any sort of attack and took the loss 1-6. Again, I probably would've done well to just drive straight at his 2 platoons with my 3, daring something to shoot at the engineers and then retaliating with the Hellcats. Holding one platoon of M18s back a bit could've dealt with any reserves, while mine would've been able to immediately join up with the engineers and forward TDs.
This'll teach me to get more practice in before a tournament!
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| Shelling the Panzergrens in the church |
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| Panzer IVs threaten the Engineers |
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| Scotts and Hellcats press the Panzergrens |
Anyways, it was a very fun event and I got to play against three very good players. I ended up 13th of 25 (the 26th player was a ringer). Could've done better, but I learned some good lessons. Thanks to Chris F. and Able Kompanie for running the tournament!
Some of the other armies:
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| Emchas |
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| Kampfgruppe Knaust |
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| Panzers |
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| British Armored |
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| Axis infantry |
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| Hetzers |
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Fallschirmjager
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| German infantry |
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| Volksgrenadier |
-Maurice
