Since I finished painting my last batch of tanks for Flames of War, I was itching to get a game in with them. Luckily, one of the guys at the local store was able to play me this weekend, so I spent Sunday afternoon engaged in a bloody tank duel.I've got my tank battalion finished now, so I can finally field 1,500 points. I field my guys as a fairly vanilla Late War tank battalion using the list in Fortress Europe. Here's what my list looked like for the game:
- HQ: Command T-34/85;
- Combat Platoon 1: Medium Tank Company, 5 x T-34/76, 5 x T-34/85, tankodesantniki;
- Combat Platoon 2: Medium Tank Company, 5 x T-34/76, 5 x T-34/85;
- Corps Support: Heavy Mortar Company, 2 platoons (4 stands) with observer rifle team;
- Corps Support: Guards Rocket Mortar Company, 2 platoons with extra crew (4 launchers counting as 8).
That came in at exactly 1,500. Now, I'm not for one second claiming that's a superbly tuned list or anything. In fact, I can practically guarantee that in a league or tournament situation, I wouldn't field exactly that setup. (The Katyusha battery in particular seems to be a little dodgy. While I love the idea of waves of rockets pounding the enemy strong points as a horde of tanks goes on the attack, the reality is that the Katys seem a little over-costed for what they do.) But, that's literally the only way I can get to 1,500 right now with what I own/have painted. So, seeing as how you go to war with the army you have, that's the crew that went to the store Sunday.
Alan, my opponent, also brought a whole bunch of tanks. He was playing a British tank company (or "armoured squadron," I guess?) out of one of the newer books, Hell's Highway (which I don't have). His force was rated as Confident Veterans (vs. my Confident Trained) and had a special rule where they got to re-roll failed platoon morale checks. He had a CO and XO in Shermans along with three Sherman/Firefly platoons. He also had one largeish infantry platoon and a couple of AT guns (direct fire only, so no template throwers).
We set up some terrain more or less randomly. There were a couple of small areas of woods and some hills along both short table edges. I asked Alan to pick a scenario and he went with "Free For All." Frankly, I loathe that scenario, which is pretty unfortunate for me, because it's pretty much all that the guys at the local store ever want to play. But, so be it; I was just looking for an excuse to put my guys on the table anyway. I rolled to be the "attacker," which is a complete misnomer in Free For All, since both sides have objectives to defend. I picked the table edge I was already standing behind and (pretty much following my standard approach) placed my two objectives about as far forward and as far apart as possible on Alan's side of the table, in open terrain. Alan basically reciprocated with his objectives, except that the one on my left was on the crest of a hill ("difficult going" terrain).
I deployed my mortars in a patch of crops (concealing terrain) more or less in the center of my deployment zone, my Katy's in the back right corner, and my two tank companies at the forward edge of my zone, more or less across the center of the deployment zone. Alan placed his infantry in a copse of woods near his (right) objective, his guns behind those woods with a clear field of fire on his other objective, and his tanks spread out across the width of the table.
My plans -- such as they were -- were to move the tanks on my right to hull-down positions at the crest of a hill along that edge of the table, to move the other platoon forward to the center of the table, and then to shoot anything that came into sight.
I rolled for first turn and started moving my tanks. Now, I don't mean to use this as an excuse or anything -- at my best I'm not that strong a player -- but this was my first game since mid-July, and I really felt rusty. As usual, I realized before the end of the first turn that I'd made a serious mistake in deployment -- this time it was in leaving too clear of a path between a couple of Alan's tank platoons and the objective on my left. Oh well, nothing to do now except hope that my center company would be able to get to good enough firing positions to make an objective run a costly proposition for him.
I had no shots in my first turn. Alan moved his tanks forward, including a couple of platoons on my left, toward the objective on the hill, and had a couple of shots but did no significant damage. On my second turn, my heavy mortars ranged in on one of his AT guns (the only thing they could see that was much of a worthwhile target) and knocked it out. Yay me! Except, that gun was also the only thing my rocket battery could see, and now they had nothing to shoot at. I probably should have fired the rockets first, because I believe they could have gotten the other gun under their template, but oh well. After that, my artillery was a non-factor for the rest of the game.
My hull-down tanks on the right opened fire on one of his platoons and killed the two they could see (one of which was the platoon commander) -- see the first pic, above. Their Firefly was still OK, though. Meanwhile, the situation on my left/center turned into a complete bloodbath. After a couple of turns, there were a lot of burning tanks. Both sides' COs ended up dead, but I came out ahead because all of Alan's tank platoons were left leaderless. Hence, he couldn't move the surviving tanks, and my objectives were safe. I moved the survivors of my left company onto his objective, and my other company (still at full strength) moved over the hill, finished off the remaining tanks on that side of the table, and headed toward the other objective.
On Alan's last turn, his surviving AT gun missed both shots at the platoon sitting on the objective (killing a tank would have forced a platoon morale check), and that was the ballgame. (Even if he'd managed to kill that company, I think I still would have won the game with my other company, after a turn or two of machine gunning his infantry.) So, while far from being my best effort, I guess a win's a win.
It was an odd, kind of herky-jerky game. I don't really feel that I played well enough to deserve the win, but enough things broke my way and that's how it turned out. Some lessons learned (or reinforced, as I guess I already knew all of this stuff):
- Soviet tank companies are unwieldy. When you're talking about ten tanks that can only move 6" and still shoot -- well, let's just say that you're not going to be dancing around the table with them.
- On the other hand, enemy tank platoons have a very pleasing tendency to evaporate in front of said unwieldy companies. Twenty main gun shots -- ten at AT 9 and ten at AT 12(!) -- is a lot of firepower. Putting that many rounds into a medium tank platoon (even veterans) is probably going to wreck that platoon.
- I have got to start doing a better job with deployment, especially in light of the first bullet point above.
- I hate Free For All.
Anyway, it was great to get a game in after such a long layoff, and hopefully I can get in another soon. (And, hopefully I'll play better in that one.)
