FoW Battle Report: Invasion of Russia

On the last Monday of Febuary I managed to get another Flames of War game in, it has been a while and I have been losing my edge even as I try to prepare myself for the upcoming tournament. I had initally asked on the forum if there were any late war players available as that is more relevant for the tournament but none came forward. So I had to go for an early war game with Liam, who has a certain foundness of Italian tanks.

While some feinschmeckers will notice that Italians never deployed a tank division to Russia, and thus Italian tanks versus Russian Strelkovy in 1941 is not very likely, it still made for a good game.

The Italian forces that invaded Russia was known as the CSIR (expeditionary corps in Russia). It consisted of three divisions, two motorized and one cavalry division, while officially motorized, the trucks used for motorizing was commercial trucks pressed into service and many of them lacked the durability to withstand the strains of military campaigning. The cavalry division however did contain a single tank battalion equipped with Fiat light tanks and tankettes. To the best of my knowledge these did not fight as a battalion but was split up to support various other elements, hence our little battle is unlikely but not impossible. In 1942 the CSIR was expanded to the Italian 8th army also known as ARMIR (Royal Italian Army in Russia), this was done by adding 7 purely infantry divisions thus creating the enduring image of the poorly equipped Italian soldier fighting on foot.

 

Army Selection

I am not really active in the Early War period of the game, while I have bought all the books, I have only played a few games. As I am a late war gamer, I had to go with something that could be transferred; it left out my tank forces, so it had to be either Russian or British infantry. With my Soviets already being midwar (and actually based on Naval Infantry although using regular strelkovy models), I felt those were the most appropriate. As I do not have all the weird and wonderous early war Russian tanks, I was limited to Barbarossa for T-34 or KV tanks for support (and I wanted some tanks). The next option is choosing which infantry list to play, there are actually 5 variants; motostrelkovy with their motorized and mechanized support, and 4 variants of the Strelkovy rifle battalions, guards, red army, militia and red banner. As this is my first game going into early war with the Soviets I wanted wave attack as that is the most iconic special rule to me, that eliminated red banner and motostrelkovy. Also militia feels basically as a flavour version of red army (with more limited options and no real advantages). So I chose the confident conscript version instead of the fearless as I wanted to flood the battlefield with cheap troops in waves.

The first thing I then noticed was that strelkovy companies are larger and contain more teams in the early war than late war version which actually limited my choices as I could not take 2 big companies but had to take 3 smaller companies for my core troops. In the anti-tank department I chose 4x 45 mm AT guns and a small 2x gun 76 mm tank destruction company (which I really wanted bigger but found prohibiting expensive). 4x 120 mm mortars provided my artillery and 2 KV-1s would be my anchoring point as I thought they would be almost invulnerable but I really put a lot my trust in wave attack of my strelkovy to win the day.

 

Deployment

We rolled the “Dust Up” scenario and I understood I was up against a horde of Italian tanks with 3 tank platoons, 1 tankette platoon, AT guns, self-propelled AA, light howitzers and an infantry platoon supported by sporadic air support. The scenario has delayed reserves and I imagine the scenario is more or less two spearheads running into each other with supporting units coming up on the flanks. I had 7 platoons, so I need to put 4 in reserve. On the table I chose to have an infantry platoon which was strung out to cover both objectives (a risk but I figured a very aggressive use of reserves would take pressure of the defending platoon), my mortars in support and my tank destruction company because it is heavy and not easy to move in an overwatch position. I deliberately picked the corner with the least cover to give a better overwatch position while counting on my infantry to dig in and conceal themselves. The KVs were in reserve as I wanted to be sure my opponent had exhausted some of the air support as that was the only thing that could seriously harm them.

My opponent chose to deploy two tank platoons to do a sweep around my far flank (the same direction as from which his supporting reserve units would arrive) and tankettes in the middle likely counting on their speed to stay out of harm’s way.

Early Game – Turn 1-2

The first turns were rather uneventful. My infantry dug in while two air strikes and a bit of an artillery duel took out my mortars and 1 of my antitank guns which continued to fail to dig in. The tanks (slowly) moved forward to threaten the furthest away objective which was also the more lightly defended one and the tankettes came up in the middle preventing my from redeploying my infantry unless I was willing to suffer the full weight of machine guns which conscripts in the open should fear. The Italian howitzers dug in.

 

Midgame – Turn 3-5

On turn 3, I rolled for reserves and one platoon arrived.  My plan was to bring up an infantry platoon in order to get them in the combat, I deployed them as close to the enemy as possible in order to push an objective, overrun his artillery and threaten my enemy and try to force him to pull back tank platoons which would take pressure of my defending platoons which had taken more of a beating than I had hoped due to their inability to dig in on turn 1. I throw my infantry forward as it arrived. Even though the tankettes presented a tempting target, I held fire with my remaining AT gun as I wanted it more of a threat and did not want to give it away. But my defending infantry platoon managed to bail a tankette.

In my opponent’s turn, he did not receive air support or reserves. He pulled back the tankettes but they could not reach my platoon with much machine gun fire. The furthest away tank platoon decided to double back. The artillery fired a bombardment at the advancing infantry and I managed to fail 6 infantry saves of 10 hits.

In turn 4, I received reinforcements and decided to broing up my small AT guns to create a killing zone for any tanks being forced to pull back across the centre to help out. It was a deliberate choice over the KVs for extra shots as the armour of the tankettes. They managed to bail two tankettes which was pretty poor as they would penetrate the tankettes on all but 6s at long range. My infantry assaulted the artillery and even though taking withering fire managed to come with with quality of quantity. They took out two gun teams and the artillery platoon pulled back. My idea was actually to refocus my axis of attack to the objective centre of the board as it would come under AT cover from my advancing light AT guns. But before I got my 5th turn my infantry was mowed down in a bombardment followed up by the tanks which saw 10 hits and 7 failed saves and the platoon failing their motivation test and taking the CiC with them and failing wave attack. Which is very much where I failed the game as I could not keep the pressure up.

At that time my opponent got a reserve unit which was another tank unit which rushed to threaten my far objective. Finally my KVs came on as I wanted to use them for force the objective but my opponent’s reserves arrived and I needed to deal with my left flank.

Late Game – Turn 6-8

The whole late game I was playing catch up with more and more of my opponent’s reserves arriving against my beleguared defending strelkovy platoon, as a tank assault forced it away from the objective, I could only feed more and more infantry teams into the grinder in order to contest the objective.

I actually at one point had an opportunity to do some serious damage as my defending strelk could have assaulted the middle tank platoon that had been bold enough to move into the centre as it was within 4″ of infantry concealed behind/in buildings and thus would have been unable to perform defensive fire but at that time the infantry decided to stay pinned and kill their own commisar instead. My KV moved to help but where too slow.

With more and more units arriving, I could not hold back and with Italian tanks having too many machine guns and the Russians having no smoke, I could not launch attacks and was slowly pushed back.

 

Conclusion

Regardless of all the jokes about Italian tanks, when facing unsupported infantry they are absolute fantastic and with far more machineguns than their typical opponents.

I feel my basic battle plan was sound with a maybe a bit untraditional mix of reserve units with infantry and AT guns to cover each other but I did not receive much luck to succeed with the plan. On my defensive, I surely put too much trust in conscripts, the inability to complete dig in rolls should have been expected but I failed to do so. I should likely go for bigger but fewer units next time. The KV tanks as could be expected never earned their points but I like them for the threat and worry they pose as they are virtually indestructible.

I know the commisar would not be happy but he is dead anyway, killed by a stray bullet fired from somewhere behind the lines.

Flames of War: Total War – LGS Event

I really love my Local Gaming Store Faraos-Cigarer in Lyngby, Denmark. I so rarely get a game in these days especially when I do sabre fencing during normal LGS gaming hours, so it is mainly when they have special events in weekends that I can get a game in.

I want to use this post to give some of my thoughts about Total War rather than trying to describe the battle as there would be way too much stuff going on.

 

One of our veteran players had organized a Total War battle (or actually two but more on that later). We have done a number of Total War battles in the past and tried to take some of our learnings into account.

What have happened in the past has been games bogging down into shoot-outs with very little manouvering or if one side was attacking and the other defending, multi-layer defences which is rather uninteresting too. One of the big problems is time and scale. With multiple players on each side coordination of strategy takes a long time and often even if having set aside a full day as we did (10:00 to 18:00 but with a lunch break) we rarely make more than 6 turns.

 

Deployment

One of the things that has always taken longer than expected is deployment. The way we have done deployment in the past has been platoon by platoon deploying one from each side but that takes too long. Also if players are allowed to deploy all over the deployment zone it leads to constant placement of platoons to counter previous platoons and further adds for team discussions and slow the game down. Alternatively has been all at once but that also leads to dissatifaction as players tend to be deliberately slow to see where key enemy units go.

This time around we used hidden deployment in that all of one team placed their units and covered them up and then the other side deployed. I think that worked really well. An additional rule was also used, units could only be placed in the deployment zones but also had to be within 50 cm of the commander to keep armies more closely together and consistent.

 

Victory Points

One of the new things we tried was to have 7 objectives on the table, 2 in each deployment zones and 3 in the middle. The idea to promote action was to have each objective clock a victory point per turn if held uncontested. I think it worked well however it did make recce and spearhead insanely powerful and most objectives were simply negated by having a platoon to contest. Some tweaking is needed but I think it worked well.

 

Two Tables

The last part of the Total War was unfortunately a bit against the theme. With 4 players per side per table and 2000 points it was decided to split into two tables in order to have things moving along at a good pace. The two tables were not forced to follow each others’ turns so it was in effect two separate games with common VPs. Not ideal but the only way to keep things running smooth. For the next battle I hope that we can get some more interactions between tables, say holding an objective could give the other team an air strike or similar.

 

But all in all a great and fun day.

FOW Battle Report – Death in the Desert

This week I managed to finally get a Flames of War game in. I have been away from the game for about 3 months except for a single game day of introducing infantry aces to friends.

 

We were going into the midwar desert on this one. I admit to normally being a committed late war player and thus apart from the 1-2 games I get a year against my friend Kasper and his Afrika Korps I have very little experience with the era of the game. Kasper is an excellent painter and have done many of my command teams as commision work.

This does however also mean that Kasper very much insists on playing with painted models and thus I was somewhat very limited in what army I could bring as I would like to match with as many painted models as possible. So I bring my British rifle company which is the only company I have which is painted and easily convertable from late to mid war.

Since we settled on Africa and not Italy battles I had to furthermore choose a company in which I could include late war tanks so it had to be the New Zealand rifle company as they can include 8th army Sherman tanks. I really feel I need tanks in any army to have something that can counterattack easily.

 

Army Compositions

I decided to bring 2 full platoons of rifles to form a solid defence. I knew I was going up against a tank army of veteran German tanks so I would have to rely on my infantry staying down and gone to ground while my reserves would race to my aid and my guns whittle them down so to strengthen my artillery I brought a platoon of 25 pounder guns and a heavy mortar platoon. I did think about air support but I concluded that the German tanks would be in short range to hit me anyway so I would not be able to use aircrafts out of fear of hitting my own troops. To help fight tanks I brought 4 6-pounder AT guns for ambush work. I am a huge fan of the small but powerful gun with AT 10 and ROF 3 I think most people underestimate it. For reserves I chose a platoon of Sherman tanks supported by a platoon of Stuarts as well as my trusted platoon of universal carriers (I love these guys and I should definately get them painted up next) and an armoured car platoon with daimler I and dingo. I know I am fairly heavy in the recon department considering I would likely face a defensive fight where the enemy is coming to me but I had difficulties finding enough models to bring me up to the 1750 points. Finally I bought a small rifle platoon and equipped all rifle platoons with sticky bombs.

 

Facing me was Kasper’s Afrika Korps but I was in for a shock. While my shermans are usually very capable against two combat platoons of mixed Panzer IIIs and Panzer IVs, I was also starring at a Tiger I and the company was led by Rettemeier for support they had a self-propelled anti aircraft unit with two unarmoured halftracks, a panzer grenadier platoon and 3 nebelwerfers. The Tiger was a particular nasty surprise, I am not used to Kasper bringing the heavy cats and I had nothing in the arsenal to hurt it in the front except a very close range.

 

Deployment

We rolled off for scenario and got Pincer, I did consider night attacking but thought the more classic defensive battle was more appropriate. As my reserves would be coming in from the sides I decided to place my objective in the middle, that way I could choose a good defensive position why my opponent would either have to place it close to mine making it easier to cover both objectives with the same units or put it to one side making it easy for my reinforcements to reach once the battle was joined. My opponent deployed his objective to my right flank. I deployed a rifle platoon on each with my mortars behind helping out behind on the right side and my 25 pounders which pack a respectable punch on direct fire to support the centre intermingling for defensive fire. My 6 pounders were in ambush.

My opponent deployed heavy to my right flank with the Tiger and AA to demonstrate against my centre to prevent me from reinforcing each other.

 

First couple of Turns

Being the attacker Kasper went first and moved as much as possible into short range as my veteran dug in and gone to ground infanty were impossible to hit otherwise. I popped my 6 pounder ambush trying to intermingle it with both my infantry platoons and destroying one and bailing another tank in the far right flank platoon. My heavy mortars managed to kill an infantry team that had taken up cover in the building.

The second turn my opponent pulled back to cover but put everything to fire on my 6 pounders killing a gun. The return fire manged to bail two tanks in the left platoon. The panzergrenadiers took more casualties and stayed pinned. The nebelwerfers continued to pin my infantry and 6 pounder guns and the Tiger lumbered closer to bring its awesome 88 mm to bear.

Turn three another 6-pounder gun went down and the right side platoon of tanks started working on my mortars which promptly failed their platoon motivation check and fled. I failed to receive any reinforcements.For the really keen eyes, you will notice I used Russian 45 mm for stand-in for my 6 pounders. Turn 4 was more of the same except now my 6pdrs have in as well and broke and the tanks closed in for the assault on my exposed infantry which failed to receive any reinforcements.

 

Close Combat!

In the beginning of turn 5 the tanks charged my right hand side infantry and ground them down however I did manage to take out a tank in return bringing the centre tank platoon down to 1 tank. The tiger followed in, I how had two enemy platoons sitting on the objective and thus was about to lose if I could bring nothing in to contest it. Meanwhile the other tank platoon being only 2 tanks and the CinC pulled back a little. I rolled for reinforcements but failed to roll any 5+ thus received only 1 platoon, I chose to bring up my infantry relying on the number of teams to hold the objective rather than the Sherman tanks. Wtih a Tiger tank there I felt they would be made into mince meat in minutes. They moved to hold the objective. I did not managed to kill anymore teams.

The following turn was equally bloody for the poor NZ troops, the infantry platoon was whittled down but managed to stay but the two enemy tanks unscathed. I received reinforcements and brought my shermans on and moved them behind cover hoping to take out the other enemy platoon of tanks hiding in the back. I managed to kill the CinC who failed his warrior save but the following turn annihilated my infantry platton and failed all my 3 tanks leaving them to be assaulted and captured by the panzergrenadiers who moved up. I was now back to two enemy tanks in two platoons on my objective.

 

Conclusion

I managed to do an excellent roll on reinforcements and brought in all my remaining forces, the armoured cars, universal carriers and stuart tanks. I love light tank which meant they could get behind the Panzer IV.

I fired the Stuarts at the Panzer IV, the 25 pdrs at AA halftracks and every machinegun at the panzergrenadiers and all my rilfes at too at the AA. The results were atonishing, the AA halftracks were killed, the panzergrenadiers disappeared failing almost every save, the Panzer IV got double bailed and fled and with no commanders on the enemy side left me in control of the field. It felt very much like an unfair victory, my opponent had me and had been sitting on the objective, I had to feed more and more troops into the mess trying to close the hole on my lines and it was anything but tactical but in the end lady luck favoured me.

Sorry Kasper, you really had me this time.

 

 

 

 

Going Digital and FoW Battle report

I have been away for quite a long while, first work has kept me busy and secondly a long holiday in Asia which the blog will likely be shaped by for the next month or two in terms of themes and posts. So I felt I the urge to get a game in again so I returned to my LGS to have a battle with Michael. Michael brought his trusty British airlanding company but in a new disguise being the version of airlanding from Nachtjäger digital. While we had not agreed beforehand I also decided to go with a late-late war list, the Panzerkampfgruppe (trained) from Desperate Measures. I very much considered to go with one of the new digital lists so before joining battle I would like to make a comment on digital lists.

 

Going Digital

I have very mixed feelings about these new digital lists and the whole Forces of War concept. While I have been a user of EasyArmy.com and has been a great fan of it, I also liked the separation between EasyArmy and Battlefront for the reason that it means that the PDF army lists that came from Battlefront seems more worked through and much more like a book with unit histories and formations where as now it is the list itself plus a bit of comments under each unit which seems weak in comparison. I am a history buff at heart and it pains me to see less of that in the lists. Another thing I feel quite ambivalent about is the new ability for game designers to change lists on the fly. With all lists out digitally it is much easier for game designers to simply change units and company diagrams rather than having to go through the elaborate process of sending out an errata and communicating it clearly before each tournament. This new system has made that unnesesary but that also means changes are more subtle and not always noticed by everyone which can create confusion.

I sincerely hope that going digital will not mean the demise of the high quality army books we have come to expect from Battlefront but I fear it, with more and more lists being digital only, and large amounts of lists never making it into books such as Berlin versus Berlin digital, I fear that we will lose the historical core of the game which I find so important.

 

British Airlanding Company

While the list have a few twists such a Locust and ability to arm platoon command teams with panzerfausts and support by churchill tanks, I do not feel the list is vastly different from previous airborne lists and although I am no specialist in operation Varsity I feel it is a bit of a wasted opportunity and more could have been done to make it stand out although the addition of a Canadian component is a nice touch.

Michael went with 2 platoons of airlanding, a royal engineer platoon with supply vehicle, 4 6 pdr AT guns, 4 17 pdr AT guns and 8 75 mm pack howitzers, 4 mortars which served him so well last game and a sniper as a new twist. I find it a quite tough and flexible force even if trackless.

 

Panzerkampfgruppe (Trained)

My army consisted of a HG of 2 Stug IV, 2 platoons of 4 Panzer IVs, a platoon of 3 Stugs, a Whirblewind platoon of 2, two platoons of Panzer II Luch recon, a 3 gun Wespe battery and a platoon of Panzerpioneers in halftracks. My idea with a company to push forward agressively with tanks and keep the infanty in reserve to mob up resistance on one objective but focus on one objective and use firepower to weaken defedres before going in.

 

The Table and Scenario

The layout of the terrain of the table may not be the most balanced but I befinately would say it looks good. The table was setup before deciding scenario with a hilltop castle above a town perched inbetween hills and mountains. If anyone thinks it may resemble a squeezed version of Edinburgh, it is not far off, as it served as inspiration based on a recent visit.

We rolled off for scenario and came up with Encounter, however feeling fighting from the two long table edges would go against the logic of the terrain we decided to play a scenario with fighting occuring from the short table edges. With neither os uf having played pincer in recent memory we went with that. Michael declared he would not night attack but rather hold the castle so we heading off for deployment.

Deployment and Battle Plan

The two objectives were deployed with one in the castle and the other one slightly to the left side and in the open. By this I hoped to catch enemy forces in the open as they would scramble for the objective and hoped my Panzer II Luchs could race for it if I could not force my way up the castle which was the main plan.

Michael held his 17 pdr guns in ambush and deployed one airlanding platoon and the 6 pdr guns on the castle with the engineers and their mine field holding the left side. For me having so many forces since trained Germans are actually quite cheap, I wanted my 2 platoons of Panzer IVs to outrange and outgun the 6 pdrs with the help of my Panzer II eyes and ears while my infantry advanced and my Stugs would demonstrate against the left objective. My Flak 88 and Wespes were in fire support. So for my recon movements was forward hugging the houses with one platoon sneaking up to prevent ambushes out of the forest on the left side and the other to spot the 6 pdrs.

 

Early Game

The first couple of turns went with my blasting away at the defenders in the castle. My first turn went above expectations with the 6 pdrs revealed by my recon and severely mauled by my artillery and Panzer IVs, My infantry advanced only to be punished by a long range ambush by the 17 Pdrs which were Luchs were unable to drop. It was an ambush popped a max range and with only my infantry in their half tracks and my commanders in range both targets went down. My commander being in front of the rest of my stugs could only rely on his warrior save which he failed and while most of my infantry was unharmed, their halftracks went up in smoke and they were pinned down. The sniper popped out of the forest in no man’s land and had a duel with my Flak 88 which he surprisingly won, destroying 1 and keeping the other pinned down for duration of the game.

 

Midgame

While I got both the engineers and the airlanding platoon to almost half strength the platoons held. With my infantry continiously unable to unpin for 4 turns (even if confident), I could not really get any traction and at the same time enemy reinforcements started to arrive. The airlanding platoon to arrive first arrived on the right side and double timed to reinforce the castle. My time was running out. With some clever repositioning, Michael split his 17 Pdrs leaving 2 on the left and racing with their commander to the right to seal off the river crossing. The rear objective was effectively shut down between that and the oncoming reinforcements.

 

The Last Push

With the  continious arrival of more reinforcements and my units far enough forward that the oncoming 75 mm pack howitzers were able to take flank and rear shots at my tanks were their AT 7 is even dangerous to my tanks succeeding in finishing off my Panzer IIs and the infantry on the left dealt with my Stugs. There was only one thing to do assault the fort. I sent one Panzer IV unit to the far right allowing my opponent to assault them through the woods. It was the end of the platoon but it draw the airlanding platoon away meaning I would only have to deal with the only 6 pdr and half an airlanding platoon with attached HQ. Unfortunately assaulting tanks into very difficult going is a bad suggestion but in desparation it was my last option. It of course failed and that ended the game.

I think my main issue was never unpinning my infantry and losing my commander early on. I could really have used his leadership to get my pinned units going. I shall never bring him in front of his joined unit again. On the other hand my Panzer II Luch recon  did really shine in this game and showed me the importance of recon vs dug in veteran gun teams.

FoW Battlereport: Beyond the Beaches

Monday night is game night, although in between all the other things going on in my life it seems to be more like only every 3 weeks I actually get a game of Flames of War in. This week I played my friend Michael at our LGS.

We decided to stay with the Normandy theme and I brought my fortified German 716th infantry division while Michael brought this British parachute rifle company. I must admit I have never played fortified in 3rd edition nor have I been attacked at night. We rolled for scenario and got “Hold the Line” for scenario. I deployed my fortifications slightly off to the right side due to a big wood in the middle with my mine fields on the left flank to slow my opponent down.

Deployment

My opponent deployed his objective as far forward in my deployment zone as possible. Apart from my wiederstandsnest I had 5 platoons: 1 Luftwaffe Flak88, Festungs Heavy Battery with 15 cm howitzers, a Veteran Füsilier platoon, a Ost Grenadier Platoon and 5 Panzer IVs. With neither Flak or howitzers mobile, I chose to put them on the table something I would regret in terms of staying power on the table. The Flak88 is a small platoon but I had to deploy them forward towards the objective, I felt the three teams alone could not hold the objective which forced my howitzers to be put in behind and the howitzers as gun teams does not have a massive survivability once under direct fire. I had totally forgot about night attack and thus left my guns forward and vulnerable where their superior range could not help them. In hindsight I should probably have gone with the Füsilier and howitzers to get some more staying power.

As I was preparing for the storm, it did feel really strange as a confident trained company to be outnumbered by a fearless veteran company but a lot of points are tied up in the defenses. My opponent brought two full parachute rifle platoons and one small platoon, royal engineers, a sherman platoon, a pack howitzer battery of 4 guns, 2 times 2 6 pdr guns and a platoon of 8 mortars. With so much infantry it did feel like massed infantry charging at me Soviet style than a British infiltration attack but with my strongpoint holding the right side of the table my opponent massed on the other objective in the open only held by my guns with only 2 platoons the small infanty platoon and guns demonstrating against my bunkers.

I was acutely aware that I was weak and exposed and it would be up to my reserves to arrive quickly and seal the objective.

 

The Game

The game was overall very predictable unfortunately, the British came on in force and was slowed down by the mine fields. the night attack prevented my guns from doing a lot of damage but dawn broke on my opponent’s turn 4 as the teams were trying to gap the mine fields.

My reserves did not start arriving until turn 3 and I brought on my tanks to race up and help as fast as night would allow. In the mean time my gun line was getting chewed up by the mortars.

The mortars firing direct fire were the match winner platoon. While I have looked at them in the past I had ever considered taking 6 tubes for direct fire, they have a good firepower of 3 and a ROF of 2, more than enough to make dug in teams fear them.

The mortars murdered me and with the British infantry almost on top of the objectives I had to commit my tanks forward which meant they came under a barrage of 6 pdr and sherman guns and a swarm of angry infantry with gammon bombs.

My Füsiliers arrived and did hang on the the objective for a few more turns but were decimated in a barrage and broken in assault which did see them see off a parachute rifle platoon. But I had to commit everything including my CiC.

With my company commander dead and my ost grenadiers stuck without a leader 12 inches from the objective, the game was effectively over.

 

The game was a lot more intense than what it sounds like but was also fairly predictable after setup but I guess infantry and fortified companies are too slow to alter a battleplan much after setup. The fortifications did dictate the battle as expected and was a nice and different touch to my usual infantry company. I am not done playing fortified despite all the sayings that it is boring.

LGS and FOW Battle Report – Bocage

In late December I went to my LGS (local gaming store) in Lyngby, Faraos Cigarer which plays on the name of the Tintin cartoon “Cigars of the Pharaoh” It is a chain that is not only about miniature war gaming but also comics, cartoons, roleplaying and boardgaming. I know this sounds like a commercial but I really cannot recommend these guys enough. As a LGS they are into war gaming themselves and their enthusiasm and knowledge are invaluable for the hobby. Furthermore they allow us to play for free every Monday night and provide enough tables and terrain that we can easily keep 5 tables going and we normally have 2-3 games going every Monday night from a core group of some 10 players and some 10 irregulars like me.

While there are a couple of miniature war gaming clubs in the greater Copenhagen area, this arrangement with the LGS is for me perfect. As I work and travel a lot, I usually only get 1 game in a month. Furthermore I very clumsy which means I find painting very stressful, so I would rather spend my time gaming than painting, which means I generally field 50% unpainted miniatures for most of my games. I know that is totally unacceptable in most gaming groups but for me it is preferable. Without the need for me to do the tedious task of painting up stuff before ever getting a game in means that I buy and try a lot more different army compositions, so I guess that is a win-win. I do not have to paint but in return I experiment and buy more. But I am off to the battlefield and as you will notice a lot of my models are still belonging to the ranks of the silver surfer (community slang unpainted models which expose the silvery metal parts from the lack of paint).

 

The Battle Report – Death in the Bocage

The first part of any battle is of course to agree, what period and setting to play. As we like games with a more historical contexts we decided to go for lists from the Normandy intelligence books (Atlantik Wall and Overlord). Also my opponent had made a lot of bocage lately so we thought it would be fun to try a table with dense bocage. This means infantry forces to me, an unflankable King Tiger firing down bocage lanes would be a bit unfair. Jesper, my opponent went with a confident trained US rifle company and I went for veteran 352nd Füsilier Kompanie.

My army consisted of a HQ with a püppchen and 2 mortars, two veteran grenadier platoons, a HMG platoon, a 3 gun PaK40 platoon, 2 Stug platoons and my favourites the underdogs an Ost grenadier platoon and a luftwaffe Flak88 platoon with extra crew.

My opponent had 2 rifle platoons (1 short and 1 large size), a 57 mm anti-tank gun platoon, a platoon of M4 Shermans, a tank destroyer platoon with Hellcats, 2 armoured recon units and 6 different types of 155 mm guns and an AOP.

It became painfully clear to me when we started deploying that I had left home without the most basic of tools. I had forgotten to bring anti-aircraft weapons, and artillery or at least counter battery options which is probably due to the lack of games I get in. So I tend to forget lessons in between games.

The lack of anti-aircraft would likely be alright as the bocage gave me some protection against airstrikes, as my units are constantly near linear terrain, which would hide me from air attacks but the AOP flying around to spot for the artillery meant that I was being punished double. With American air observers flying unhindered and no counter battery fire on my side to at least pin down his artillery, my poor landsers would be in for a rough time.

 

The scenario was a free-for-all meaning that both sides deploy all their forces and both players have objectives to attack/defend.

 

Deployment and thoughts

We decided to play on a reduced length table, so approximately 4’by 4′ to make it a much more furious fight especially since we both brought infantry forces.

From my opponent’s view: Left flank, the big US rifle platoon and a recon platoon face the Pak40 and a mortar platoon under the 2iC. In the centre my Flak88 on the central road to cover the fields around the chateau together with my “reserve” stug platoon with my two grenadier platoons around the left objective behind the hedgerow with the rear one pulled a bit backt o be able to move out to either side. On the right side my Ostgrenadiers with HMG support and a stug face the small US rifle platoon, sherman tanks, 57 mm anti tank guns and a recon platoon. My opponent’s rear is dominated by artillery

I must admit I have always been a tank player (easier to paint and much more able to dictate the game which I prefer) so playing infantry in close terrain I thought would be one of my opportunities to bring my infantry agressively forward under cover. Also I noted that with so much artillery arranged against me I would not last long in fox holes. My plan was to use to two platoons to hold the objectives together with my Flak and Paks, I would move forward, absorb the attack while slowly falling back and fighting at long range to make the most of my veteran rating and storm trooper. Once I got his mobile units out of the game by having them enter my anti-tank shield of Pak and Flaks my stugs or what was left of them would move forward with my reserve infantry platoon (or everything if I had whittled him down enough) to shut down his artillery. But it had to happen fast otherwise his artillery would wear me down.

 

Opening Game

I managed to get my stugs to fight at long range while using my PaK and Flak to engage his hellcat security platoon. I wanted to force him to reveal his tank destroyers early and he did and my stugs absorbed it at long range and under concealment which meant it was 6 to hit, so far so good. Unfortunately I could not roll the required firepower checks to destroy them in the counter battery fire and subsequent turns. I even had 1 of the destroyed and 3 bailed at the same time which is impressively poor considering it is a unit with front armour of 2. On the other flank I advanced my HMGs to provide interdiction fire to infantry crossing roads but was in turn punished for doing so by the recon but my plan of whittling down the Sherman tanks was working.

The pesky M18s hold their ground

Stugs get a twist on the Shermans

 

Midgame

With his large rifle platoon coming forward and threatening my Pak and mortars I decided to commit my reserve to block them. My Stugs finished off the Shermans and moved forward but was in turn annihilated by his 57 mm guns and the remaining 2 hell cats managed despite several turns of pounding from my guns to finish off my other platoon of stugs. On my left flank his small rifle platoon was close to reach my ost grenadiers. Meanwhile his artillery was really taking its toll on my forces.

 

Late Game

I mananged to block his large rifle platoon and bring it down in size enough to rush my reserve grenadier platoon back from the right flank to my left but it was too late, the small US infantry platoon was in position to assault my ostgrenadiers combined with supporting fire from artillery and hellcats so I decided to leave my V shaped hedgerow to go online to maximize my number of shots to hopefully break up the assault before it got started. It may be against conventional wisdom to leave foxholes before an assault but I had to try it especially because with a reluctant rating and a bit of casualties I doubted their ability to counterattack or stay in the fight below half strength. I therefore moved all 6 teams into a line formation and braced for the assault. to my amazement the defensive fire even though hit and pinned by artillery managed to halt the assault. Some amazing luck there and even more so, the US rifle platoon dropped below half strength and broke. But by then we were out of time and we concluded the game and discussed what would have happened from there, had we had more time. I had only my guns and 3 below half strength infantry platoons with no mobile assets. if the game had continued my opponent could have simply wrecked me with artillery. So we declared the Americans the winners of a close fought engagement.

 

Conclusions

A fun game, I enjoy playing in the bocage, it makes for a very differently paced game and while it slows the game, it actually also allow infantry players to be more agressive ans they can easily infiltrate forward. This was my first game in bocage I would definately like to have a bocage game again. Unlike scenarios such as the Beach invasion I feel bocage is much more of a terrain type than an extra set of scenario rules and as such i feel replayability is such much better.

Excellent game with some furious action, thanks to Jesper for being a very friendly and sporting opponent.