Art of War - Day Two

So we resume on Sunday morning:

Game Four

Round four I played Dave Wengraf, who had a British infantry company. The mission was 'Cauldron'. He would be defending.

Dave had 3 Infantry platoons, 6 pdrs (late), 17 pdrs, 25 pdrs, Universal Carriers, Wasp Carriers, Bofors and 3 Churchills.

I don't have pictures of the first game, as I managed to lose it in the first two turns. With little terrain to hide in, my Tigers took one round of shots at the British lines, failed their Stormtrooper moves,  before they were torn apart by 17 pdr shots, and I failed Company Morale. We redeployed, and played again, and that is the game shown below.

The table was light on terrain, with small woods dotted over the table

Dave's forces dug in on both objectives, with 17 pdrs trying to cover both flanks

Having destroyed the majority of the 25 pdrs, the Tigers seek cover from the 6 and 17 pdrs

17 pdrs make light work of the Panzer IIIs

The Tigers and King Tigers try to neutralise the British guns

Dave's first reserves were some Universal Carriers, and they were gunning for the Panzergrenadiers

Hoping to use their .50 cals to devastating effect

Churchills arrive and aim for the rear of the King Tigers

But the King Tigers retaliate, killing one and bailing another

Massed MG fire bails all three UCs

German 3.7cm AA joins the fight

More Brit infantry arrives, and the Churchills decide to try and avoid the King Tigers

The Tigers start to thin out the AT guns on the objective, but lose one of their number in the process

Having failed to bail back in and of the carriers, the panzergrens assault

And capture them all

Massed fire pins the 6 pdrs

And Tiger Is take over in the firefight against the Churchills

The Panzergrenadiers can now remount

Wasp Carriers arrive, and have a brief encounter with some King Tigers

The newly arrived infantry move into a wood and dig in

Bofors guns arrive from reserve, but fail to hit the Halftracks, who MG them down for their troubles

A shot at the rear of a King Tiger bails it out

6 pdrs take out another Tiger

The firefight between the Tigers and 17 pdrs resumes after the distraction of Dave's reserves arriving

The Panzergrenadiers have moved across the table, hoping to engage Dave's infantry in the wood

The Panzergrens assault the infantry out of the wood

But would have no further impact on proceedings

The  6 and 17 pdrs take out two more Tigers, before they are dealt with

At this point, we are both testing company morale....

Which I fail first, 4-3 to Mr Wengraf

Another painful lesson taught to me by a large British infantry company. I could have hidden and waited for his reserves, as taken piecemeal, they were easy to deal with, but that isn't my style of play. I'm not saying charging headlong at big guns is a good idea either, but I can't rely solely on high front armour :)


Game Five

The last game of the day and the tournament was 'Free for All'.

My opponent for this game was Andy Robinson, and his Polish infantry company from Road to Rome. 10 platoons of Fearless Veterans. His list contained: 4 infantry platoons, medium mortars, heavy mortars, 6 pdrs, 3 Sherman IIIs and 2 patrols of Universal Carriers.

This was my third Commonwealth infantry company of the weekend. Rarely playing against Brits most of the year, I was getting accustomed to them and their abilities at this point :)

The table

Tigers guard an objective on the left, and the halftracks are ready to race down the road

3.7cm AA, King Tigers and Panzer IIIs hold the other objective

Panzer IIIs move up qucikly

Whilst a patrol of Carriers comes down the road to engage the halftracks

Lacking better targets, the Tigers move up to engage the carriers, and wipes out the patrol

Andy's mortars smoke the Panzer IIIs

The other Carrier patrols goes straight for the right objective, but defensive fire tears them apart

A bombardment from the Heavy Mortars forces the infantry to dismount

3 of Andy's infantry platoons start moving up, whilst the King Tigers and smoked

Heavy Mortars target the now dug in Panzergrens

The Panzer IIIs have to divert themselves towards the oncoming infantry

Andy plans to assault the Panzer IIIs, but fails his Tank Terror

So he tries to assault the King Tigers. And fails Tank Terror again.

His Shermans take advantage of the situation, and shoot the Panzer IIIs in the flank

More smoke for the King Tigers, but it doesn't help Andy get his assault off

The Panzer IIIs try to take on the Shermans, but cause no lasting damage

The Panzergrens get back in their halftracks, and MG an infantry platoon as they head back up the road to the objective

The infantry then fail morale

Another attempted assault on the King Tigers now fails due to defensive fire, rather than Tank Terror

The Heavy Mortars are able to destroy some halftracks, killing 2 passengers and stopping the infantry

Shermans kill two Panzer IIIs

And an infantry platoon goes in and captures the other two

The King Tigers are eventually assaulted

But are driven back

And fail their platoon morale

The Tigers have a clear run to the objective

Whilst the other platoon engages the infantry and 6 pdrs guarding Andy's other objective

His infantry still push forward

With more smoke stopping the King Tigers from engaging the Shermans

6 pdrs bail all three Tigers on my right flank

But I capture the objective in the middle.

Having lost the Panzer IIIs and the Halftrack infantry, my capture of the objective gave me a 4-3 victory.

Result

I finished 28th (out of 46) and won a prize in the raffle (Owen has since pointed out to me that I always win a prize in any raffle I enter, so perhaps it shouldn't be too surprising). I really enjoyed playing the list, and will be taking a variation of it to the National League later in May, so hopefully the lessons I have learnt in using it at Art of War will help me.