Some LW Fun

This week, Rick and I played some Late War games at 1420 points per side.  I find that this is a very hard total to build a successful British Infantry list with my usual Market Garden veterans, so this time I changed it up and built a list from Overlord.  I used the Guards Rifle Company list which is rated as Confident Trained, but gets to reroll failed platoon and company checks.

HQ - 2 Rifle teams
Rifle Platoon - 7 Rifle/MG,  Lt Mortar, PIAT
Rifle Platoon - 7 Rifle/MG,  Lt Mortar, PIAT
Rifle Platoon - 7 Rifle/MG,  Lt Mortar, PIAT
AT Platoon - 1 Rifle team, 4 6pdr AT Guns
Scout Platoon - 3 Universal Carriers
Armoured Platoon - 3 Sherman V, 1 Sherman Firefly
Armoured Platoon - 3 Sherman V, 1 Sherman Firefly
Field Artillery Battery - 1 Observer, 2 Rifle teams, Staff team, 4 25pdr Field Guns
AOP

The list is 8 platoons (couldn't quite get to magical 9), with a little bit of everything (smoke, recon, AT) and looked, at least on paper, as if it should be able to hold it's own against most things.

Rick brought a list from the Panzers to the Meuse PDF list -

HQ - 2 Panzer IV J
Panzer Platoon - 4 Panzer IV J
Panzer Platoon - 4 Panzer IV J
Panzer Platoon - 4 Panzer IV J
Recon Platoon - 2 Puma
Recon Platoon - 2 Puma

This list is simple, quick and hard hitting.  That is an awful lot of Veteran Armored hulls coming your way.

We rolled up the Pincer mission.  This is one that I have somehow completely avoided in all my games so far.

I started with an Infantry platoon on each objective, the Artillery platoon and the AT guns in ambush.  This was my big mistake.  Having the tanks on the board to start with instead of the artillery, or maybe even one of the infantry platoons would have been much better.

Ricks tanks are all lined up here ready to go (the 2 Panzer IV/70's are his HQ PZ IV tanks).

Rick pushed forward as fast as he could and pushed as much as he could toward the objective with just an infantry platoon on it.

That is ok I said, I can pop the ambush of the AT guns and easily hold out till the reserves arrive on turn 3.  However, I did not count on this happening....

That is 12 dice rolled to hit the tanks, needing 5's.  1 hit total, which resulted in a bail.  Not good enough to stop the mass of armor coming their way.  Next turn the tanks shot and then assaulted, working their way through an entire infantry platoon and the AT guns to take the objective.  I never even made it to turn 3 for the reserves to show up.

Since that one finished so quickly, we decided to play again and rolled up Fighting Withdrawal.  At least this time I would be starting with everything on the board.

My objective was placed behind a hill, a little off center towards the left and the other 2 were placed as far apart as possible.

I covered each one with an infantry platoon, deployed the 25 pdrs on my objective, one platoon of tanks hull down on a hill in each half of the board, sent the carriers forward to limit the recon move of the Pumas and held the 6pdrs in ambush.

Rick sent one tank platoon against the left objective (the bottom one in the picture) and loaded everything else up to rush the other side.  

First turn, he bailed the Firefly then I popped the ambush on the hill with the tanks and started shooting back.

The first turn of shooting was bad for me, only bailing some Pumas and a Pz IV.

The return fire predictably hurt, but a combination of my good saves and Ricks bad firepower rolls kept me in the game and my shooting started to have an effect.

Eventually I was able to bring over the other platoon of tanks to mop up the main attack and force a company check which Rick duly failed.

Overall this was a much closer game and I think if Rick had concentrated on taking out the AT guns first, rather than splitting fire between them and the tanks then it might have ended differently.  The rate of fire 3 on the AT guns makes them deadly to medium armor.  Also, holding one platoon of tanks on the other flank basically hiding the whole time to keep my other tank platoon over there hurt him a lot.  A platoon of Pumas could have done the job and allowed more guns to be brought to bear on the main attack.

Overall, I am still not quite sold on the Trained British infantry.  Seems like it is too easy to lose a platoon and they are just not as reliable as the Veteran version in assaults.  The search for a good 1420 Late War British list continues....... 

Week 2........

Week 2 of FoW gaming at Dreamers Vault and again we had 5 players show up.

Patrick had a small but tough veteran tank company from Desperate Measures go against Jason with a T-34 and Matilda horde in a 1420 point LW battle.  They played Hold the Line with the Germans attacking.

 

 

After an effective ambush from the Matilda's, wiping out the whole Panzer Grenadier platoon in their half tracks, they were too far away to contest the objective and the Germans won.

Since the first game finished so fast, they set up again to play Cauldron, this time with the Germans defending.

 

 

Rudel took his toll on the Russians on the way in and in the end the Panzerfaust armed German infantry proved too tough to shift off the objective, giving the Germans another victory.

 

 

 On the other table I played a MW 1710 point game against Eric.  He brought his American list with 10 Shermans, Half Track mounted engineers, 105's and air support.  I had my standard list of Veteran British Guards Rifle's, with 3 platoons of infantry, 6 pdrs, carriers, Shermans and 25 pdr's.  We rolled up Surrounded with the British as the defenders.

 

 

The British set up a tough defense in the town with 25 pdrs holding one flank and 6 pdrs the other, with the Shermans in the middle, ready to react to the American attack.

 

 

The Americans loaded up all the tanks and the Engineers on one side of the board and charged in as quickly as they could.

The 6 pdr's popped up from immediate ambush right where they were needed, and in one devastating volley, sent the platoon of Shermans running (with 2 kills and a bail, they did not do as much damage as I expected, but it was just enough to do the job.....).

On the other flank, the 25 pdrs fired over open sites to take out the other platoon of Shermans, while the British Shermans and the carriers held off the engineers in the center and managed to dispose of the company commander.

With that, the victory was secured and the field belonged to the British troops.  This game would have been much closer if Eric could have passed a 4+ dice roll though.  His artillery was pinned on the first turn and never unpinned, he failed every platoon check that he had to take and he couldn't hit with the bombs on his airplane.

Overall, another fun night of gaming in Minneapolis.  Make sure to stop in if you are in the neighborhood on a Wednesday night.

Also note that we have a Mid War tournament scheduled on June 18th.  More details can be found here -> Link

And so it begins........

Last night was our first night of gaming at the new Dreamers Vault store in Minneapolis (Link...).

It is great to have a new place to play that also stocks the Flames of War product line, although I am sure my wallet will suffer for the impulse buys this will result in........


We had 5 people show up for our first night and got some games going.  I set up this table to play on.  It was the first time I used my Battlefront terrain and was really pleased with how the board looked and played -

Somewhere on the Western Front, trouble is brewing........

I played a teaching game on this board with 1000 points of Panzer Lehr facing off against some Irish Guards Shermans.

The German tankers forgot most of what they learned in gunnery school and were quickly dispatched by the Fireflies and Shermans of the Irish Guards.

On the other table, the Lauri Torni and his Finnish company had surrounded a German Schnell Squadron and were moving in for the kill.

As is usually the case when you have some good looking terrain boards and painted armies on display, we had plenty of people stop by and ask questions, with some of them planning to come back in the future to play.

It was great to hang out with some of the players that I have only seen previously at out of town tournaments and I look forward to meeting more players and getting some more gaming going in the future.

If you are in the neighborhood, please stop by and say hi on any Wednesday night.

Welcome!!!!

Welcome to my new blog.

I have been playing Flames of War for over 6 years now and have seen the community here in the Twin Cities cycle from growth to shrinking back to only a few of us getting together occasionally.

I am attempting to get more organized play going in the cities, with the aim being to start growing the community again so I can get more regular games against more opponents.  I also hope to get some tournaments going again as I find that is the best way to build excitement.

In this blog, I will post updates from our gaming nights and events, along with some of my own thoughts on the game and projects that I am working on.

I hope you enjoy reading my ramblings!!!