By Steve and Jon
Jon and I wanted to play a game that we'd never see at a tournament. That isn't to say we wanted to play a scenario game- we wanted to stick to rulebook missions, available forces, and no house rules. After discussing it, we decided it'd be fun to pit a British Assault Company vs a Festungskompanie. Since we knew the Brits would be tailor made to chew up the Festungs, we also decided to use No Retreat- a mission that plays to the Festungskompanie's strengths.
With that, we set out to make for a good batrep- and got to work!
My first mistake- taking only one fortified platoon and/or putting it on the far right! I was lazy and just didn't want to work around the terrain!
So many nests! Note: That HMG was moved slightly after this picture to ensure all bunkers were more than 2" from each other!
Look at all those nests!
Fun fact: Tobruk pits were the first Late War Germans I ever painted, primarily to test the camo pattern.
The left flank is significantly less fortified...
Jon capitalized on my deployment mistake- but not as much as he would have if this game mattered! My left flank was wide open, and Jon didn't exploit it much in the spirit of an interesting batrep! Jon elects to attack at night. I tried to apply a cool night filter to these pictures, but the process was frustatingly long and manual so gave up on it. Use your imagination! It's night time, and I'll tell you when dawn breaks!
The Priest Battery.
British infantry and a captured observer Stug (rule of cool!)
The big boys.
The little girl helping us set up.
The Brits are off! They advance cautiously under the cover of night.
Crocs.
Move up lads!
AVREs and Crabs push into the wire!
So do the crocs on the other flank!
An AVRE round just obliterates an infantry team.
Marders ambush and open up!
... oh... okay. Still night, so that's only one hit.
One Sherman goes down - the Brits still have two Crabs.
The Brit infantry starts taking casualties!
Night lifts, and all hell breaks loose.
The Marders are mercilessly gunned down. Uh oh.
Much of the wire is cleared!
A Tobruk nest gets knocked out by the crocs.
10.5cms (which arrived last turn) open up on the brits, claiming another flail tank and a handful of infantry!
But the British advance is relentless.
Priests continue to hammer at the German positions on the left flank.
AVREs blow the hell out of the obtsacles.
An MG takes down the AA nest! double sixes!
The Brits have broken through, with Stan Hollis leading the charge.
The Germans counter and fight them off for the time being,
They aren't left with much!
10.5cms try to do something to the crocs, but they ignore it.
While the Fortified platoon is still holding strong, the left flank is in a bad way.
Not the R35 bunker!
Here come the AVREs!
And the Scouts.
The Germans are holding on by a thread.
But they do manage to knock out the Scouts!
Concentrated fire from the nests also wipes out the British Pioneers.
Hold!
Churchills move to reinforce the breakthrough.
The final battle for the objective has begun!
But in the end the Germans are pushed back and break. 4-3 to the Brits!
Closing Thoughts: This was a fun game that would not normally happen in a tournament situation. It was really fun to play out, even though both of us had our money on the Brits from the get go. I encourage everyone to try a fortification game just to try the rules out!
