English Civil War - The Battle of Middlewich

Firstly the scenario, which was roughly carried out as it appears here.  Luke played the part of the Parliamentarian General; Sir William Brereton, Michael turned into Colonel Robert Ellice, leading the Nantwich trained bands, and finally Red became Major-General Thomas Aston of the Royalists.  I played the part of the umpire, resisting the Royalist attempts to bribe me with chocolate buttons (if its isn’t giant I’m not interested), setting up scenery and scenario rules and sorting out the (exceptionally few) contentious issues.

Scenario:

Right chaps, one half decent scenario loosely based on a historical punch-up and not needing every model in our collections coming up!  

The historical punch-up is the March 13th 1643 Battle of Middlewich, which I happened to come across in one of my olde worlde miniature wargames magazines.  The original battle saw the Parliamentarian commander; Brereton, attack into the Royalist held town (Major-General Sir Thomas Aston presiding) town of Middlewich from the West, while the Parliamentarian foot from Nantwich were supposed to attack from Nantwich in the South.  Although the foot were late onto the field the Royalists, despite their slightly superior numbers, were defeated and the die hards made a half-hearted last stand at the church in the centre of the town before surrendering.

Onto our own fight, and we’ll try out the previously suggested changes, including the powder limitations, the stamina increase and rules for dragoons.  A quick check of the map reveals that each side has 4 ports apiece, which is a pity because now nobody will get a bonus round of powder!  Each side will need the following units:

Parliamentarians:

To represent Brereton and his men:

2 regiments of horse, standard size, either type.  1 regiment of foot, standard size, with a 2:1 ratio of muskets to pike (alterations to the shooting ability to follow!)  1 Forlorn Hope.  1 General in charge of the horse, 1 brigade commander in charge of the foot.

To represent the Nantwich Trained Bands:

2 regiments of foot at standard size with a 1:1 ratio of muskets.  1 brigade commander to lead.

Royalists:

1 General.

1 brigade commander leading 3 regiments of horse; small in size but any type, with the marauders special rule.

1 brigade commander leading 2 regiments of dragoons.

1 brigade commander leading 2 regiments of foot, standard sized with a 1:1 musket/pike ratio.

1 brigade commander leading 1 regiment of foot, standard sized with a 1:1 musket/pike, plus 2 Falconets.

Special rules: All Royalist troops, with the below exceptions, are considered raw, and as such are Freshly Raised and Unreliable.

The exceptions are the horse and the artillery. The Parliamentarian troops, being the better trained, have no special rules attached.

The troops and battlefield will be laid out following a vague map in the mag, the Nantwich trained bands will arrive FOW style as reserves.

Victory goes to the convincing holders of the town when all is said and done, we’ll try and remember brigade morale rolls, and to confirm there will be a river involved.

The Battle Itself

Following last weeks large punch-up this was a much smaller affair, with Brereton’s men (Luke) attacking from one end across a river, and Ellice’s Nantwich bands (Michael) arriving late from the other, splitting Aston’s (Red) forces in two as they tried to hold onto the town.  Victory for the Parliamentarians would be gained if they captured the Royalists fall-back position - historically a church, but in our case a walled enclosure.

Brereton’s men arrive to the left of the river, and the Royalist rush to man the hedgerows.

The Royalists starting positions, most of their foot being held back to deal with the expected Natnwich foot.

Brereton steals a march, using the unguarded second wooden bridge to cross the river.

His efforts to bring the Royalist dragoons to battle however are thwarted by some nifty evading.

Meanwhile his foot move up to the stone bridge, but the Royalist foote and dragoons are waiting for them, and a musketry battle begins.

The Nantwich foot arrives, obviously extremely keen to get stuck in with one regiment trading musketry with a Royalist foot regiment, and the other charging straight into the Royalist fortified positions on the edge of the houses!  The assault fails, and both sides start to slug it out with muskets.

Meanwhile disaster for Brereton as his horse regiments are both scattered by the well handled smaller Royalist horse.  Having succeeded here the Royalists turn back to aid the fight against the Nantwich foot, leaving the two regiments of dragoons and the single Royalist foot regiment to fight Brereton’s foot.

Brereton is only slightly dismayed however, throwing his Forlorn Hope across the river, and trading ineffective fire with the enemy.

A full battlefield shot, with the Royalist foot looking comfortable in their houses while the Nantwich Trained Bands flounder.

Brereton grows desperate and despondent.  His Forlorn Hope have fled, his ammunition exhausted, and disorder and further casualties following every turn from the dragoons and enemy foot following him, it doesn’t look good for the Parliamentarian cause.

And then Aston makes a mistake, sending his foot out to fight on even terms against the Nantwich foot, who promptly break both regiments, and see off all three of the enemy horse regiments!  The way is open for an assault on the walled enclosure at the centre of Middlewich.

Brereton has taken his chance; launching his regiment with its failing strength across the river in the hope of achieving two things; firstly to distract and pin the enemy away from the other end and the Nantwich foot, and secondly to get stuck in finally!  The Royalists had run out of ammunition at this point and were unable to prevent the charge.  However it was in vain, as the Royalist foots position behind the hedgerow proved too tough and Brereton started the tramp back to Whitchurch.

Only one Parliamentarian regiment was still in the field, and the last band of Nantwich foot swept down upon the centre of the town with victory in their sights.  The Falconet missed and the gun crew put up a stout fight, drawing a turn of combat, but were chased off second time round and the Parliamentarians had their victory!

New Beginnings For Old Blogs

It’s been a mere 16 months since I last posted anything on here, so here’s a trial to see if I’ve remembered how to do so!  This re-activation of ’blogging’ is caused by the RGMB’s amount of space for uploading pictures being full, and as such I am unable to do a nice interesting battle report for the latest of our English Civil War battles.  Hopefully this blog will have the space for such an idea.  For now here’s a picture of some Chaos Space Marines I’m hoping to sell.

Late-War Panzergrenadiers Vs. British Armoured Company

2,000pts Late-war 'Free For All'

I turned up to get seemingly pounded by Reds late-war British reluctant veteran armour, my opponent chosen for me because Lukes Yanks and Aidans Brits haven‘t made the conversion yet so I was the only other late war option. Managed to forget most of the golden rules of FOW, and this combined with the opposition turning up 8 inches away on their turn one, and their luck carrying on from where it left off with XXX Corp’s charge to Arnhem last night. Kickoff was around 19:20 and two platoons down (the 88's and the PaK40's) before I got a shoot off didn't bode well, neither did my Tiger platoons 50% loss ratio. The pioneers then got confused and attacked two platoons of Cromwells and were shot to bits, and the fat lady was tuning up at the end of the Brits turn 2 (German turn 1....). At 20:05 the StuG's were the only thing holding onto the right hand objective (just) and the heavy artillery where about to be squashed away from the left one, with my remaining Tiger looking somewhat panic-stricken and unsure which direction it was needed more.


15 minutes later and the fight back was on as I had decided that I had to bash at least one enemy platoon before conceding or suffer a humiliating 6-1 defeat. Luck sprang to the fore (and managed not to damage its hamstring doing so) as the artillery took two Cromwell’s with them, then my Panzerfaust-toting CO and his buddies swaggered out of the woods to delivery a sound smack across the chops of the remainder of the platoon as well as their backup - 7 tanks burning and one fled. In the centre another nutter with a panzerfaust did the dirty deed to a couple of careless Stuart light tanks and suddenly the opposition were at 50% of their company strength and teetering, three platoons destroyed. The StuG's nearly provided the final push, but a posse of Cromwell’s got behind them and that was the end of that. My solitary Tiger could have made it across to prolong defeat one more turn but at that point my CO decided it was probably for the best that his lot made a quick exit and left Tommie to tidy up the mess. A 4-3 defeat I can live with.

By the second turn I had started to wonder if I should have brought my Panthers to battle rather than my Panzergrenadiers, however that would have probably made for a much more boring match-up with the Cromwell’s forced to try and get a flank shot each time. As it was I lasted until around turn 5 when it looked to be over on turn 2, and with a better setup and tactics I would have been more competitive earlier.

Beware the Yanks…….

Last night I played a combined Allied force of Reds British (Crusaders, Grants and a hellova lot of artillery!) and Lukes Paras, and came away with a draw that wasn’t deserved, and with an urgent need to consult my rulebook over the number of things the Americans can do that I hadn’t spotted before! Here is a short list of observations about some of the American units:

1]. Shermans - Yes I said I thought they were good beforehand, but when your fielding StuG’s you don’t really believe you‘ll come off worse. But when they blow said StuG’s to little pieces without so much as a scratch themselves then you start to panic! The truth is they have armour as good as a StuG, if not better with the side armour of 4, and a gun that is the near equal and easily capable of blowing apart anything anyone at the club fields (even Tigers and KV1‘s at close range), plus the ability to move and fire full rate using their stabilisers.

2]. Armoured Recon Platoons - No I hadn’t heard of them, or taken any notice of their entry in the army lists, so when they appeared and started spraying my infantry with 50cal gun fire I was a tad upset. Particularly when the firepower and anti-tank ability of the 50cal means half-tracks and foxholes are not much protection - Naths Finnish T26‘s and Aidans Italians have real reason to fear them. Finally came the bomb shell that they are not transports, they are tank teams just like the Universal Carriers (shudder), so they can launch into any assault they like and not be pinned down. There is one ray of hope for us, and that is that they have to be accompanied by a number of jeeps, who can be pinned, can’t assault, and can be blown up by mortar fire!

3]. Artillery - Its not until American officers started popping out of the woodwork almost everywhere that you realise there really is no hiding from the Yanks heavy guns. I only just managed to block an attempt to use them to guide in the Brits 25pdrs which would have been disastrous for me! My fortune in the two times I’ve played them is that they only have light guns, and my tanks were fairly safe, although my mortars and one of my 88s didn’t survive as unscathed as my Panzer III’s. When they managed to haul big guns across from the States we’re all in trouble.

4]. Fearless Paras - MORE fearless enemies? And this lot are fearless veterans to boot, making them tough to hit and tougher to frighten away, a bit like fighting the Finns. I am resisting the urge to switch to the SS on moral grounds, but only just….

5]. Bazookas - Its about one per platoon, then 3 come with the HQ, 3 come with the engineers, more with the mortars, more with the HMG’s and so on. I haven’t managed to get close enough to get shot at by them yet, but the first poor soul to optimistically throw a tank platoon into the front of those paras is going to have a long walk home afterwards.

All this wouldn’t matter of course if the person using them was happy to sit at the back and trade long-ranged blows, my Germans can do that as well as anyone (except possibly the Royal Horse Artillery). However our resident Yank prefers attacking. Damn.

3,000pts Panzergrenadier Kompanie Vs. British Light Armoured Squadron (Red - 1,500pts) & US Parachute Company (Luke - 1,500pts)

3,000pts Panzergrenadier Kompanie Vs. British Light Armoured Squadron (Red - 1,500pts) & US Parachute Company (Luke - 1,500pts)

Last weeks military action saw my Panzergrenadiers force a draw against Naths Finnish tank horde, with neither side looking much like making the necessary breakthrough in an ‘Encounter’ mission, although I had the upper hand before time ran out. This week I faced a combined force of British (Red and his Crusaders) and Yanks (Luke with his Shermans and Paras), in a 3,000pt punch-up. We had diced to see if we should play a 3-sided scenario, or combine the Allies vs. my Germans, and I was happy when the dice came up for the latter because my 3k was already prepared. In hindsight perhaps the 3-sided version would have gone better.


The Setup:

My 3,000pts consisted of virtually all of my big-hitters; the 88’s, PaK40’s, Panzer III’s, StuG’s and heavy artillery were there, and the truck-mounted panzer grenadiers were backed up by HMG’s, mortars and two lots of pioneers - one of which was armoured. I was also desperate to bag my first US Sherman after my poor first showing against the Yanks two weeks previous. Slight worry set in when I saw the size of the British artillery battery and the number of British and American tanks waiting in reserve, the enemy infantry looked welcoming in comparison!


The Battle:

An ‘Encounter’ was rolled for the second week running, and the allies started the battle aggressively! Their two universal carrier patrols used their recon move to race down the flanks, and, riding their luck, single-handedly wiped out my PaK40’s and heavy artillery before decimated an infantry platoon. I struggled to contain them, and only after my infantry rallied on the left, and the 88’s got some good hits in on the right did I manage to see them off. A bad start though with a good 400pts of troops lost to the enemies 180, and a further 200pt infantry platoon weakened enough to result in it fleeing easily later. I had also lost the initiative before I’d realised it was there for the taking.

A quiet period of exchanging artillery fire followed while both sides waited for reserves, and saw me lose an 88 and a number of mortars. The main fighting was done by platoon of Paras who made an ill judged assault on my decimated platoon on the left and were hammered by MG and HMG fire, the survivors heading to the rear. Finally reserves started to arrive, and the Panzer III’s were first on the field. However, their central arrival position and the enemy artillery (which I was unable to damage sufficiently) meant their attack up the centre/right was slow rather than daring, stopping to pick off a hidden 6pdr portee on the way. In more hindsight at this point I think Red may have been due a company morale check, but nobody noticed and the battle continued.

Serious bad luck struck my plans as the allies reserves flooded onto the battlefield in the form of Shermans and Grants, and entered opposite the Panzers ready for a fight. 870pts of American medium tanks vs. 500pts of German Panzers was never going to be an equal fight (eight tanks vs. 5, and the enemy had superior guns and equal armour!), and I made the mistake of trying to stick it out and hoping to get lucky. To make matters worse the Brits artillery dropped smoke on my remaining 88, and the StuG’s came on too far away to help. The Brits Grant tanks inevitably flanked my armour, and with three Panzers burning the others retreated to fight another day.

With time running down rapidly I made a final, audacious, attempt to win the game for the Germans (while I thought nobody was looking) by pushing up the left flank with half-tracked pioneers using the roads. Unfortunately this attack was blunted before it had even started when the supporting StuG’s had to head back to the centre to try and stop the victorious Shermans, and the Allied artillery pinned down the rest of the infantry, seemingly ignorant of their armoured status, and further US troops in armoured personnel carriers were followed onto the field of battle by an endless tide of Crusaders to block all attempts.

The final act saw the StuG’s try go toe to toe with the Shermans, and come off dramatically worse as the American tanks used their stabilisers to good effect to close with their adversaries and destroy two and frighten off the third for no losses. Further units of German pioneers and infantry had arrived to dig in around the objectives in a last line of defence but time was up and the game ended in a draw that felt very much like a defeat. As one of the opposition remarked “A pity, we had them on the ropes”, and he was right.


The Analysis:

From the moment the Universal Carriers fortuitously made it close enough to assault my troops on turn one I was on the back foot, not helped by the damage the ’Carriers did to my defences and long-range hitting capacity. I was certainly left pondering if there was an equivalent unit in the Germans ranks (and the answer is no, not really), and how to block out this menace.

I was also left in awe of the Sherman and its variant the Grant, which both combined to easily see off my Panzer III’s and then my StuG’s with more aggressive tactics, hitting me at a weak point and pressing an advantage. An advantage which was held thanks to the Universal Carriers raids and the use of smoke from the heavy artillery. The Sherman certainly has equal/slightly better armour than the Panzers available to me, as well as a better gun, while the Grants proved their worth. Even if the StuG’s had managed to hold their own the Brits Crusaders had arrived, and minus my PaK40’s, 88s and artillery I wouldn’t have been able to stop them.

I think the battlefield may have also been a bit small, with little chance of outflanking the large armies we were fielding, maybe a 6ft by 8ft table would have worked better. Oh, and my motivation tests are seriously starting to drive me towards the arms of the SS in the hope of passing one!

A last thought: I decided before the game that taking the Tiger(s) would be unfair on an enemy with few weapons that could destroy them from any angle. The last time I decided that I also lost, on that occasion to the Finns. Perhaps I’m being too nice?

Grenadier Kompanie (Rick) Vs. US Parachute Company (Luke) Vs. British Infantry Company (Aidan).

Grenadier Kompanie (Rick) Vs. US Parachute Company (Luke) Vs. British Infantry Company (Aidan).

With an uneven number of FOW players at the RGMB yesterday we plumed for a mission of our own creation so that all three could get a game in. This is how we got on. Forgot the camera again, bugger.

The Rules:
A 1,500pts three-way battle. The rules were simple; highest roller picks a side/corner, then take it in turns to deploy a platoon up to 18“ on to the table. Once deployment was complete we rolled to decide who would have first turn. Victory could only be gained by capturing the single objective in the dead-centre of the battlefield on or after turn 6. The mobile battle special rule was also used, no recon moves were allowed.


The Opponents:
The Germans - I had hoped to go easy on the Yanks in their first battle, but hadn’t managed to finish painting the Panzer III’s so was forced (forced I tell you!) to take the StuG’s. They were joined by the usual three grenadier platoons, one of which was pioneers, as well as mortars, HMG’s spread around the grenadiers, and a couple of PaK40’s.

The Brits - An unusual force appeared; Aidan had gone all 8th Army on us! Several infantry platoons (in shorts!) were backed up by mortars, two universal carrier patrols, 6pdrs pulled by jeeps, and the compulsory Matilda’s and Valentines combo in their new desert camouflage colours.

The Yanks - A totally new army never seen before at the RGMB; the American’s were mostly Para’s, and had a platoon of four Shermans to help. Two infantry platoons were also supported by 75mm light howitzers, engineers, and more bazookas than grains of sand on the battlefield!


The Battlefield:
Making good use of the new desert club scenery we placed a village to the left-centre of the 6 by 4 ft desert board, and surrounded it with small and large sand dunes and some rocky outcrops. The objective sat just beyond the edge of the village in an open area of land.


The Battle:
Aidan rolled highest for the Brits and we were off, with British infantry and tanks spreading out in a general wave towards the village in the centre of the board. My Germans went next, and having boasted that I would claim the first ever American Sherman kill I sent my StuG’s off towards them. They StuG’s managed to bail one of the four out, and then turned to deal with a more immediate problem as a trio of universal carriers crashed my party in the village and threatened to do horrible damage to my infantry.

Having roundly failed to save the situation the StuG’s then forgot how to storm-trooper and were promptly caught in the flank by the three other Shermans, ably assisted by a British advisor! With two destroyed the third fled, and with large-scale infantry casualties as well the Germans were generally considered to be out of the running.

The Brits turned their attention to the Para’s, who, having just got off the boat from New York should have realised they were supposed to duck. They didn’t, and many Americans met many English (and some Scottish) bullets very hard. The Brits infantry tanks; 3 Valentines and 3 Matilda’s skirted around the village to the American side, casually machine-gunning their ’allies’ as they did so (ironic? Most definitely), and settled near the objective with victory looking to be at hand.

With their infantry either dead, or hiding in foxholes, the Shermans moved more centrally and started a duel with the Brit tanks in an effect at forestalling defeat. Meanwhile the remains of the Germans plucked up some courage and started to move cautiously into the village, using their mortars to good effect on the Brit infantry and their PaK40’s to wipe out the original troublesome Universal carrier patrol.

The Brit tanks position meant that the Shermans had to advance to very close range to contest the objective, and before they knew it the Brits had gone all Royal Navy on them and broadsides were the order of the day. The Brit infantry, having been stalled by the German and American bombardments now moved up to the village, where they initial success and destroyed the remains of the German pioneers, however the final Grenadier platoon launched itself in and wiped out the Brits at the same time as their mortars struck gold and scared off the Brits 6pdr battery and Company Commander.

The Americans came off worse in the naval battle, losing three Shermans including their platoon CO to the Brits three Matilda’s, however these losses took the Brits to a company morale check, and being bereft of a commander they retreated from the field of battle. The Americans then looked up and discovered that in the confusion the German infantry had managed to sneak up to the edge of the village and into range of the objective. With nothing that could reach them in time the Para’s were unable to contest, and victory went to the Germans!


Conclusions:
I am definitely too paranoid about Universal Carriers, and the combination of this, and my inability to storm-trooper cost me a third of my force early on in the StuG’s. At that point I thought the Brits had it all wrapped up with Yanks going down like 9-pins everywhere, however there was definitely complacency in their attack, and by the time their infantry had worked out it should help the tanks they had been whittled down by German mortars and American 75mm guns. The loss of the Brit CO to panic was the perfect example of this. The Yanks did well for their first battle, and their Shermans were aggressive and difficult to deal with even if the infantry went a bit rabbit-in-the-head-lights early on and didn’t recover.

Nice to see some Americans join the fray, and their Fearless Veteran abilities, along with their bazookas, should give a few armies a fright, and the paint job was fairly good as well! Hopefully some pictures next time.

The Vapnartak Report 2010 (like the Cook report, but with fewer episodes)

The Vapnartak Report (like the Cook report, but with fewer episodes)

Below are my thoughts and report on the day and the tournament, readers should note these are my views and opinions, and should not be considered the views of Greater Germany or its people. Neither should they be taken seriously.

The venue itself was very impressive. It took us a mere 2hrs 5mins to drive from the centre of Chester to parking up outside York Racecourse (in Red’s case this was slightly longer but that’s what you get for living in deepest Wales), and it well signposted and easy to find. We were just waved inside without having to wait in a queue and found the FOW area. The building was large, modern, and packed with traders on the first few floors, with the FOW, Warmachine and a couple more Tournaments taking up the top two floors.

Sadly I was unable to make a full survey of how many traders were there, but there was certainly much shiny gaming goodness to be seen everywhere. On a rare walk around at about 10:20 I did notice that there was a queue running out of the doors and a long way around the corner, and was very thankful that we arrived early! It definitely became very busy for most of the day around the traders, with the bring & buy being surrounded by what appeared to be a 40 wide, 3 deep mass of people.

The Tournament

And so to business -

Round 1: It appeared that the Germans (or Axis, who managed to include two Finns and at least one Italian) outnumbered the Allies 11 players to 9, so some Axis had to fight each other, a situation Nath and his Finns found themselves in for the whole day. I was lucky (!) to end up was an Allied opponent, a Russian in fact that went my the name of John.

Having declared on the drive over that I feared facing a Strelkovy Battalion or a heavy tank company the most, John was fielding a 2,000pt Russian Guards Strelkovy Battalion, with a 5-strong KV-8 heavy flame-tank support- bugger. This was joined by a full-strength Strelkovy Company, a 2/3 strength one and a battery of four SU 122’s. Finally the Russian air force also put in an appearance. My own lot had the Marder III’s, StuG’s, PaK40’s, heavy artillery and three platoons of infantry, supported by mortars and machine guns.

With Hasty Assault the mission I quickly decided that the KV-8’s had to be put out of commission before I even start on the mass of infantry, and with an open enough battlefield to use my long-reaching AT guns I was hopeful. Fortunate smiled and only the KV-8’s and the full-sized Strelkovy Company could start on the battlefield, and I set my StuG’s, Marder’s and PaK40’s the task of killing them off, supported by my pioneers. Unfortunately they badly failed in their task.

The rest of the Russian army turned up and gradually advanced in a ten turn game while everything with a chance of destroying one of the Russian heavy tanks fired repeatedly at the KV-8‘s. By the end I had managed to bail out several, and destroyed the KV-8 company commander twice, but only two Russian heavies were burning for the loss of all of my anti-tank except the artillery, and my infantry were driven far from the objective. I managed to destroy a single SU 122, and around 15-20 bases of infantry (nearly a platoon morale check), but a 6-1 defeat was inevitable (or in the terms of this tournament a 32-0 defeat!). Luckily my opponent was a likable chap, and the pain of defeat wasn’t in evidence as I headed off for lunch.

Round 2: Back from the shops for the second game; the 800pt quick-fire round, and the tournament rules which meant you simply moved one table to your left, which left me with a desert battlefield, and facing Red Brits as an opponent! 110miles is a long way to go to game against someone you play most weeks, but the organiser was disinterested in our pleas for different opponents, and we sat down to slug it out. Having had a dry run a few weeks previously I had adapted my tactics, and some buildings in the centre helped my cause as my infantry and captured KV-1e swiftly made them into strongholds, and they joined by PaK40’s and 8.8cm Luftwaffe gun in shooting up the rest of the enemy who, after a gallant charge towards my AT guns (I lost the PaK40’s and my mortars), were unable to dislodge or damage my centre and eventually retreated from the battlefield. A 5-2 victory, or a 26-6 victory in tournament terms.

Round 3: Thankfully no sign of Nath’s Finns, but plenty more Russians and yet more KV’s! This time it was a mixed tank company commanded by a man named Simon. He brought four KV-1e’s (one of which was the CO), seven T-34’s, seven T70’s, a 2/3 Strelkovy Company, a Sapper platoon and a Katuysha platoon of two rocket launches to the fray. My own force had only the pioneers, the PaK40’s and the StuG’s to combat this wall of armour, plus two more platoons of infantry and some SMG troops, it didn’t look good. It looked even worse when I found out what rocket launchers can do, and my ambush on the T-34’s with the StuG’s yielded only one casualty. The battlefield was heavily covered in scenery, with hedgerows, buildings and woods giving a taste of Normandy. I had hoped to use this dense terrain to ambush the enemy piece-meal, but instead it aided their advance down the centre, and it looked grim with the T-70’s following the KV-1e’s out of the built up area and helping to destroy my retreating pioneers. The T-34’s had headed off towards my far right flank, and the enemy infantry was moving through woods, fields and hedges on its way towards swamping my remaining bastion of infantry and PaK40’s on a hill overlooking the objective.

I had completely given up on victory by this point and simply wanted to destroy a platoon to gain some points and morale! My chance came suddenly when the enemy sappers ran straight into an ambush - my heavy platoon (SMG’s) and a grenadier platoon leap from hedgerows to hit them from two sides at close-quarters, and with no support they were forced back into buildings and wiped out. The KV-1e’s and T-70’s also unexpectedly came a cropper when the StuG’s hit them from the rear and the PaK40’s from the front. My poor luck in killing tanks evened itself out as two KV’s burned and the third fled, while the PaK40’s accounted for six out of seven T-70’s, with the StuG’s destroying the last one. The T-34’s had swept round my flank and secured the other objective, but I had destroyed three enemy platoons (half of their starting six), and despite defeat had my own personal victory which made me feel much better about the whole thing! Around two minutes of stalling would have brought a draw, but the opposition deserved the win and it would have been a bit petty. A 4-3 defeat translated into a 19-13 defeat.


Final analysis:

Slightly gutted to have travelled so far to face one of my own club members, and annoyed at the number of heavy tanks. I counted at least three Russian armies with KV’s, two Finns with the same tank, (I know, even I used one in my 800pt game but it looked nice!). There was also at least one German with a Tiger and two Brits with Churchill III’s, I did hear mention of a Panther army further down the tables. Perhaps I should have realised that tournament play would mean the opposition would bring slightly more powerful armies than my poor Grenadier Kompanie, and my infantry spend most of each battle hiding in buildings or trees, or being gunned down as they tried to retreat from enemies they had no chance killing.

On the plus side I was very happy to receive 14 out of 16 for my painting, although I felt a score of 6 out of 8 for uniformity was a little harsh and probably based upon my PaK40’s being late-war dark yellow. The total of 20 meant that despite losing two games out of three I still ended up on a respectable 83 points overall (with the full 24 points for sportsmanship added - possibly generous of my last opponent because I was getting quite depressed during part of that game!). 8 points were available for background, although I don’t know whether they got added in or not. Hoping the organisers will be putting the scores up online soon so I can find out what place I came in.

Other plus’s were seeing some of the scenery that others produce for 15mm games, and I was particularly impressed with the Battlefield In A Box material from Battlefront which I think I may invest in. I also fought against flame tanks and rocket launchers which I’d never encountered before, and have a healthy respect for then now! I managed to forget my camera, so I’m hoping Nath will be providing the pictures at some point, I will take a few of my army (now its finally painted) and post it up soon. All in all a good day, even if it was spent running from the enemy!