Battle Report on My New Table

So this was my first game on my new table. Here it is, all set up looking pretty. Ther's a couple of the starter set houses that I hate on it, but those will disappear within the first few turns as I got frustrated then bought real ones.

Actually, looking at this table now, and with the knowledge of how the game played out, I don't really like how we laid it out. There's not a lot of cover, and why is that church isolated on the other side of the airfield? These are questions we will never know the answer to.

This is my army, My panzerspahs are quite pretty. We were playing 1900 points, cause the guy I was playing with is still just getting into it and built his army based off last year's tournament point limits.

There is something missing from the army I have displayed however, I used this game to determine if that Infantry gun platoon was a good idea so I was proxying the models. I later ended up buying them and will post pictures for yous guys later. They turned out to be useless in the game, but I'm confident that I didn't use them right and they would have been good.

I really like the Ju 87G in this list. I tend to hold onto it until a turn that it has a great target and it more than pays for itself in most games. There is something to be said about anti tank 11 cannons chewing up expensive tanks.

The army below is the one that belongs to a friend of mine, and the one I was playing against (Obviously, why else would I show you? Idiots). It's a pretty typical late war Americans list. He's got those Pershings, which I find play pretty equivalent to Panthers in most situations. However, with that slightly higher side armour of 6 it gives them a little better protection against stuff like infantry guns. You can't play too aggressively with them still, but if you attach a Jumbo to them, they make a great spearhead.

Another thing I like about his list is the 105mm Shermans. They provide a good 4/4+ bombardment and then can always be wheeled up as a tank reserve for those last assaults against infantry.

We rolled for missions and ended up playing "Hasty Attack". I deployed with my Panthers holding my right flank, covered by some heavy guns across the airfield with my infantry on the left. In delayed reserves were my light guns and my Panzerspahs.

According to this spell checker Panzerspah is me just misspelling Paperhangers. Didn't even know that was a word.

With this deployment I was hoping he would remove one of the objectives defended by the infantry and attack the Panthers and guns with his tanks. He ended up doing exactly that, but it didnt turn out as well as I hoped.

You can see here his counter deployment, His infantry were placed on his right across from mine, and his armoured spearhead was positioned on the left. He said that he was hoping to overwhelm my Panthers then roll up the flank of the guns.

After seeing this, I pushed my infantry up on the left with their recce moves. I thought I might be able to seize the objective with a sneaky counter attack. I'd mount up my infantry in the following turn and go for a mounted assault, German style.

He got first turn (as per) and it immediately got scary. His wave of tanks did nothing spectacular, bailing one Panther, but they were on top of me fast. At this point I should have pulled back, but I liked my concealed positions too much.

In my turn 1 I had very little effect on his tank rush... and I didn't take a picture of it. On my left I pulled up my IC and my transports to prepare for the assault.

His turn 2 was characterized by this picture below. He absolutely swarmed my Panthers, killing on and bailing 2 others. Fortunately, they didn't have to test so they had the opportunity to get some revenge.

The first thing I did in turn 2 was position my infantry for the assault I lined up all nice and managed to pin his fuckers down. Unfortunately, fuckers be fuckers and they still managed to get enough hits with defensive fire to drive me off. I was less than impressed; now my infantry was lined up in the open to die.

My Panthers didn't do much better either in their second turn. One managed to remount, and between the two tanks they scored a spectacular 0 hits on the guys right in front of them, even though they didn't move.  I did however get to snipe his first in command Easy-8 with those Flak 88s. RoF 3 makes a huge difference at range.

His turn 3 made things look pretty grim for me. He got his reserves in, pushing three 105mm Shermans into the failed infantry assault. He killed the infantry to a man.

He also managed to bag another Panther, which forced a test.

All was not lost however, I passed my motivation check, then remounted the Panther that was bailed. 

In my turn 3 I pulled the Panthers back to give clear lines for my 88 and opened fire. Between the Panthers and the 88s, I managed 3 kills in his squad of Easy-8s, forcing a check, which he failed, routing the platoon off the table.

In a bid for the victory that he was quickly losing grasp of, he made a push with his reserves on the left flank in turn 4. Between his 105s, Recce and Tank destroyers, my infantry were going to have a rough time. On top of that, my proxied infantry guns and Panzer 2 were extremely ineffective at actually hitting or killing anything, so that was fun.

On the right flank it was finally the end of the Panthers. He kept his Pershings still and opened up, destroying both.

This however, was my chance for air support. At the beginning of my Turn 4 I received some much needed airplanes, rolling three planes for the flight. I needed to kill these Pershings if I wanted to not lose right away.

My heroic Ju87G made his points up real fast. He ranged in, hitting both tanks, destroying one, bailing the other, and forcing the test which they failed. 400 points of Pershings were gonzo within four rolls. A moral victory to say the least. The fuzziness of this picture accurately represents my excitement.

But it was too little, too late, In his subsequent turn he would destroy my infantry guns, and a bunch of Panzer 2s. We called it before my army totally collapsed and I surrendered for a 3-4 loss.

It was a good game on the new table, and I did okay, but I left it feeling like I should have done better. Right off deployment I realized I should have held my panthers in reserve and deployed the infantry guns on the table. I would have forced his tanks to attack a wall of guns, only to be counter attacked by Panthers. Well at least that's a lesson learned.

JedMcFred Out
Actually not entirely out, I may edit this more later.