My friend Karl and I haven't had a chance to play a lot of Version 4 games yet. We are both working on our 8th armies and DAK for Mid War, but neither are finished, so we made do with testing out some old standbys. I brought the 51st Highland Division's reluctant Vets, and he brought KGPieper. With 3 KTs.....so we would see how terrible the big cats were.
His list
I tried to print out my list, but failed, due to a printer connection being severed by this dog.
We rolled breakthrough, and I put my 3 infantry platoons in a flank attack. I had mortars, 6 pdrs, and a platoon of Universal carriers deployed. I also kept my priority hurricanes on, I figured they could deal with some of his Panzer IVs. Due to the restricted nature of the recon rules, I couldn't make a spearhead deployment,
My list all on the table before deployment.
Both Objectives were close to the middle of the table. This one at the center of town, and another off to the upper right of the picture below, was in the woods, within striking distance of my infantry who would come on from reserve.
He zipped up and dropped his infantry into the houses, forming a solid defense around the objective. These houses are all Sarissa Precision, which were a lot of fun to paint.
In the first turn, the 6pdrs blitzed up and made short work of the Ostwinds at range. wiping the platoon.
The UCs tried to do an end run, and bet on the Panzer IVS not coming in on the first turn
It proved to be a poor choice.
On my left flank, the Crocs advanced and made short work of the mortars platoon and infantry hiding in the woods near the dead Ostwinds.
But as you can see, the KTs arrived and made short work of the Crocs.
I began moving the 6 pdrs over to the fight, and probably should have just had them come in from reserves with the infantry, it would have saved me an awful lot of trouble.
Despite repeated bombardments by the mortars, the infantry in those houses in the center of the board proved tough to kill. A definite improvement from what these light mortars were in V3, but no substitute for some 25pdrs.
The Plane was worse than useless. With rockets nerfed to AT 3, it rarely made sense to use them, despite it being a bombardment template. they don't seem to dig out infantry or kill tanks. Their cannons, at AT 8, can't touch a Tiger or a KT, and frankly won't do much good against a panther as well. and with a 5+ firepower, they failed to kill much of anything they scored hits on. Despite Karl's terrible dice, I only managed to bail them 5 times, and kill 1. Not nothing, but not what I need for 220 points. I'll just take more AT guns.
The infantry came on and we learned a lot about assault rules. My platoons were savaged. And since the attacker assigns the hits, my piats took the brunt of it, always dying first. since they aren't like panzerfausts which travel with the commander, and there is only one in a platoon, this is a big problem for the brits.
It took 3 platoons 5 assaults to shift off a platoon of tanks, and some halftracks from a rogue platoon nearby. Its hard to know if that's typical or just my terrible luck.
We called the game when it became clear Karl wouldn't be able to get his tanks in to contest. Somehow, he lost a tiger to 6 pdrs shooting him in the side when he failed a shoot and scoot move. His bad dice betrayed him much more than any strategy. He rolled more 1s than I've seen in quite a while.
Lessons from the game. (for me anyway)
1. Crocs are great, and even more worth the points.
2. Mortars are better, but cant be relied upon to dig out infantry alone
3. Big Cats are invincible as long as they are positioned carefully and supported by infantry
4. Planes are garbage.
5. The new movement orders and infantry speeding up make the game much more quick and fun
Thanks to Karl for coming over, and I hope you enjoyed the report!
Captainecho, (Tom Mullane) is a teacher in Brewster NY and lives in Danbury CT. he plays at Hobbytown USA in New Milford CT. Check out our facebook page, and come get a game this summer!
