Last weekend I attended a one day six player tournament “PicknMix” at my local gaming centre organised by Dave from the Fire for Effect Podcast. http://fireforeffect.podomatic.com/
It was 1500 points late war which was great as it bridges the gap nicely between the 1420 point late war games I have played this year and what will be the 2017 late war standard of 1515 points (at least until 4th edition changes come in).
I had played a lot with my German infantry this year and so I decided to take a US 7th Armoured force from the newly released Bulge compilation. I wanted to try out the new reworked special character Patton who has been reduced in effectiveness and points from the old “Blood Guts and Glory” but you still get always attack and a reroll for reserves. I have my eye on using a variant of this list for the “Corrivalry” late war event in February so this was a perfect opportunity to practice.
Thanks to Dave for letting me use some of the photographs he took. For more photos of the event visit his blog here….http://m10cachilles.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/pick-and-mix-2016.html
My list was as follows:
My first game was against a Soviet Heavy Self Propelled Artillery Company as follows:
Hq -IS-2
3 x ISU152
3x ISU152
3x IS-2
4x KV-8
We were playing the Hasty Attack scenario with me as attacker due to Patton.
My opponent put his KV8s and a platoon of 152s in reserve and I chose to put my artillery and both tank platoons on table with the mortars, Stuart’s and Recce in reserve.
The objective around which the fight developed was situated on the bottom right hand side of the picture below the road.
As per the scenario I had to remove an objective so I elected to remove the more difficult one to approach (due to the river) on the right hand side of the table as I look at it (on the left hand side of the picture above). My opponent placed his IS2s in the big hill in the middle and I loaded by left flank with tanks ready for an early assault on the objective. The Soviets then immediate ambushed onto the objective facing my tanks.
I had the first turn and decided that my best bet was to go for an immediate and full out attack on the objective before his reserves started to arrive. Also the terrain helped me with a hill situated conveniently in front of the objective protecting me from his ISU152s and once I moved far enough also from the IS2s. As both his platoons of tanks were RoF 1 my idea was to try and make him move thus making his to hit rolls harder.
I got reserves (mortars) at the first time of asking which I used in the following turns to smoke the IS2s. I moved forward on turn 1 and kept out of range of the IS2s. They had to move and failed to hit me in the Soviet turn 1.
I then continued to move right up to the small hill at the top of the picture above and stayed completely out of sight. (Sorry all the action is difficult to see in the picture).
Now I had noticed that to the left of the hill there was a good couple of inch gap allowing my tanks to swarm through instead of being slowed over the hill. I don’t think my opponent had noticed this as he has left the ISU152s quite far forward allowing me to get a substantial number of tanks (especially the fast Easy Eights) into the flank of the Soviet tanks. My shots killed and bailed his tanks putting him on a test, with the slow IS2s still a long way from the objective. He failed the test despite being fearless (and throwing the HQ in for the reroll) and the departure of that platoon gave me the objective for a 6-1 win.
My next game was against a German PanzerKompanie from (I think?) Desperate Measures.
HQ 2 panzer IV Js
4x Panzer IV Js
3 x Panthers
A platoon of recce Pumas (one with a Pak40 gun)
Platoon of Panzerfaust toting PanzerGrenadiers with half tracks.
All Confident Veteran.
The scenario was Dust up.
I suspected I might struggle in this game as historically I had found Panthers a major pain when using my US 7th armoured.
I put my two Sherman platoons and artillery on the table and my opponent put his Panthers and Panzergrenadiers on with the Grenadiers covering the objectives.
My opponent got the first turn but kept his Panthers gone to ground and waited for the reserves to arrive.
I kept one of my Tank platoons near the objective and the other one started to manoeuvre towards the wood to face his 2ic Panzer IV and the Grenadiers.
I tried to hit the Panthers with artillery but to no avail.
The next couple of turns consisted of moving my tank platoon around the wood and the Germans edging the Panthers forward in preparation for the arrival of the Reserves.
I had been edging my Sherman platoon near the objective backwards knowing that when the reserves arrived there was a risk of them flanking me (as they can arrive from within 16inches of the table edge).
My Stuart’s arrived and I moved them to get some flanking shots on the gone to ground 2ic Panzer. They missed, however my Easy Eights finished the job.
Both of my opponent’s reserves arrived (the Pumas and Panzer IVs). Despite what I said above I had accidentally kinked my line of tanks near my objective allowing some side shots from his tanks. My Shermans quaked in their boots as shots came in from the Panthers, Panzer IVs and Pumas (which at least had all moved). My opponent’s shooting dice were pretty rubbish and over this turn and the next he only succeeded in killing two tanks (an Easy Eight and a Sherman).
I meanwhile managed to range in on the Panzer IVs with my artillery (killed one bailed two) and edged my second Sherman platoon around to get side/ rear shots into the Panthers who were engaging my other platoon to the front.
I also moved my Stuart’s to start putting shots into the 1ic.
After my lucky escape near my objective my shooting started to bear fruit eventually killing the Panzer IVs and two of the Panthers. I also destroyed one of the Pumas with the other one running for safety.
I meanwhile had brought in my little recce platoon to lift gone to ground from the Grenadiers but it died to shooting. My Stuart’s also succumbed to shooting from the Panzer 1ic and the remaining Panther.
I finished off the Panther leaving us with two dead platoons each. In order to win I needed to assault the dug in “fausted” grenadiers. I simply didn’t have time to do this before time was called so the game ended as a 3-3 draw.
An interesting game but one where I wasn’t particularly happy with my play making mistakes with positioning of the Sherman platoon and giving away the Recce and Stuarts too easily.
Nevertheless I went into my final game knowing that with a good win I could still win the tournament.
My final opponent was using British Airlanding and the scenario was Fighting Withdrawal with me as the attacker.
This was going to be another tricky one with heaps of Fearless veteran infantry with PIATs and gammon bombs and also a large platoon of engineers (pioneers) supported by artillery and six pounders. My opponent strung his infantry platoons out across the board placing the teams so there was no way I could sneak through his lines without assaulting him. One unit of six pounders was placed on his left flank and the other kept in ambush.
My opponent had placed his objective centrally (this one would be removed last) but I instead decided to go for an all out assault on his right flank objective at what I saw as the weakest point. I kept my platoon of Stuarts over on my right flank to force him to keep a presence there to secure the third objective.
I started only eight inches in from the board edge and so my first turn was spent pushing the tanks forward ready for the assault next turn. I fired at the infantry in front of me killing one team. If my opponent popped his six pounder ambush I was in the open but I hoped my Jumbos would negate some of the effects.
In the event my opponent decided not to ambush this turn but instead ranged in with his artillery. No damage was done to the Shermans but I had to keep moving as once the Light Royal Artillery battery ranges in it becomes lethal the following turn.
I stuck with my plan and opened up on the Airlanding platoon before assaulting with my right most Sherman platoon joined by the 1 and 2ic.
I eventually broke off (failed motivation) but had made a mess of his platoon for the loss of three tanks. I then went in with my second tank platoon into the wood. I didn’t bog any tanks and wiped out his remaining infantry in front of me. There was one base left from his platoon further away from the action but it failed its sole survivor test.
I was now contesting the objective after consolidating and so my opponent ambushed his six pounders to contest the objective. The British Engineers started to move over to the action but they were a long way from the objective with a few teams having been lost when they were dragged into the initial assault. The British 1ic contesting the objective decided to assault my leading jumbo (which had been bailed by artillery fire). Due to the arrangement of tanks my defensive fire would be limited. He failed to kill the jumbo and I got his 1ic in the counter assault.
I now moved out of the wood into the open (I had to move again as his artillery had ranged in). Also to fully contest the objective and make sure I was in range of the gone to ground six pounders which I shot at but without success. I also fired at the Engineers that were trying to move towards the objective and killed the leading team that i could see. My opponent had withdrawn the six pounders on the other flank (first platoon to be withdrawn) and I moved my Stuart’s further forward to keep the pressure on the third objective. I also had ranged in with my artillery on his six pounders where I was attacking.
My opponent now had a difficult decision. Did he open up with his six pounders to try and kill my second depleted Sherman platoon or did he remain gone to ground? Next turn I would have 16 main gun shots into his six pounders hitting on sixes (or fives if I a managed to remove gone to ground with the recce I had been moving up).
The British 6 pounders did decide to fire and wiped out my depleted Sherman platoon. I returned fire and knocked out the gun that was contesting.
It was now all over for the British as all they could do was move a gun command team near the objective that would then have been killed. This gave me. 5-2 win.
On the next table my previous opponent had also won 5-2 meant we were tied for first place. We had also drawn the game when we played which meant there was no way of easily separating us. The organiser decided we would roll off to decide who took the first and second trophy. I got the second place trophy but hey that’s dice for you!
A really great time was had by all and I am now eagerly looking forward to the big Corrivalry event that I will attend in February. I just need to decide what list to take I really enjoyed using US 7th Armoured again but I did have a strong feeling that all the work was just done by the two tanks platoons with precious little contribution from the remainder. I may therefore look at a modified version of the list.
The Curious Wargamer 