Alex's trip to Corrivalry - game five and conclusions

The last game of the weekend for me was Encounter against Matt Haywood, who was also running Kampgruppe Pieper. Matt's list was very different to Laurence's.

 

He had only two platoons: 1iC King Tiger, 2iC King Tiger, Pieper in his Panther, Limited Sturmvogels, 2 Skozeny Commando teams and a platoon of Panzer IVs. The Panzer IVs were in reserve.

 

Initial deployment. As I had the first turn, I dug in my artillery and advanced my infantry up the flanks. As it was a meeting engagement, I could not bombard.

Turn two, I destroy the platoon King Tiger with artillery. At the start of his turn three Matt takes and fails a company morale test. 6-1 to me.

As we were barely 10 minutes into the round, we noted our result, and kept playing on. Matt's planes come in to harass the infantry heading for that objective.

The other infantry move up the other flank towards Pieper

105mm artillery arrives from reserve

The 155mm guns are pinned for the rest of the game

The infantry move up and takes the objective, but we keep going

The other infantry moves up and uses its flamethrower on Pieper

Whilst the 90mm guns try and open up on him too

Panzer IVs arrive from reserve..

...And take out the infantry on the objective

Stuarts and Cannons arrive from reserve

The infantry assault Pieper

Killing him, and we eventually call the game here.

This was unlucky for Matt, but part of the risk he takes with his version of the list. Only putting one tank on the right hand objective, but three on the left, and if it were me, I would have had the Panzer IVs on the table, as they would have been harder for me to kill, and probably caused me more problems.

So 2 big wins (both against KG Pieper it turns out), 2 minor losses and a blowout at the hands of the Canadians leaves me at the end of the weekend exactly where I was after day one, 38th out of 84, which I am very happy with.

Road to Rome should be out in March, and I am hoping the cost of the support platoons will come down to match the other Late War books. This could go some way to getting a third infantry platoon into the list, which I think I need if I am to attack with it properly.