Time for a battle report from the game myself and Nathan played last night. The forces we choose were SS Panzer Kompanie for myself from Earth & Steel and Nathan took a Finnish StuG Kompanie from a PDF hosted on Battlefront.
We rolled for scenario from Das Book and got Break Out. For this game the winner was decided by whoever was holding an objective at the start of thier turn. We rolled for attacker and defender. I lost the roll so I had to be the attacker while Nathan went defense. Once the terrain was setup three objectives were placed 8" apart from each other around the table centre.
Nathan had the choice to hold some of his forces off as reinforcements, I on the other hand had to take at least half mine off as reinforcements and being I only have five platoons I felt at a slight disadvantage.
Once this was done as the attacker I was able to remove one objective. I removed the closest one to Nathan and we began our deployment
Turn 1
Once we had deployed the attacker got the first turn. I rolled to see if I got any reinforcements and the dice gods were against me this time. I dismounted my Panzer Grenadiers and moved them towards the closest objective and house to provide some cover. I moved the half tracks up to the woods so to position them where they could open fire in defensive fire or offensive if need be. I then choose to move my panthers up towards Nathans line hopefully trying to kill some stuff. However when it came to shooting I fired my command Panther at Nathans PaK 40s and rolled a six which hit however he managed to get his save. My next shooting from the other panthers fired upon Nathans cheeky artillery observer which once again I managed to roll a six to hit the little bugger however Nathan must have prayed to the dice gods and managed to make another infantry save.
Now it was Nathan' turn and it seemed the dice god had left him as he failed his reinforcement roll. So he moved on to movement and began to push his infantry towards the second closest objective to him. He then positioned his StuGs in a pretty formation for the upcoming Panther push. So ended his movement phase and began his shooting. The first thing he did was rotate a PaK 40 to face my command Panther. He rolled and scored a successful hit however I rolled and beat his score and the shell merely bounced off and mildly annoyed the Panther crew. His next step was to use the observer who survived a 75mm shell bouncing off his head and zero in his artillery on my poor Panther platoon. He managed this on his first go and two of my Panthers were about to feel some pain. His rolls to hit seem to please the dice gods as both Panthers got hit however my rolls to save weren't so good. One Panther went pop and poor Barkman was shaken but saved. So ended the end of Nathan' shooting step.
Turn 2At this point I rolled two dice for my reinforcements and the dice gods smiled upon me. I got two lots of reinforcements and decided to bring on my 88 and Panzer Pioneers. I put my 88 in the opposite corner to where my main force was and brought the Pioneers in with my main force. Now onto my movement step I moved two stands and the command team of my panzer grenadiers into the building next to the objective and dug the rest of the team in next to the objective. I then began to attempt and move my half tracks into the woods next to the objective. Two passed thier bogging checks and two failed. I then moved the Panthers closer to Nathan' lines to try and do some damage however they failed miserably and did nothing but annoy the Finnish forces. So concluded my attempt.
On Nathan' turn he rolled his dice and successfully managed to get one of his platoons from his reinforcements. He brought his third StuG team on his reinforcement zone and moved them straight towards my newly brought in Pioneers. He proceeded then to move his infantry into range to contest the second objective and move his StuGs across the hedge row straight towards my command Panther (all of which passed thier bogging down checks) he positioned these StuGs in a formation I can only refer to as "rape" and so began the shooting. The StuGs which had surrounded my Panther commander had left a gap to allow the PaK 40 to once again fire on my Panther. Once again he hit and I saved, however here is where the pain began. His three StuGs in front of my Panther fired, hit and got saved. However his sneaky StuG which managed to get to my side armour fire, hit and blew my command Panther to kingdom come. From this point is kind of went downhill. His new StuG platoon he just brought on fired upon my Pioneers and hit and killed two trucks both of which I failed to save the stands inside them. Nathan then choose to attempt to range in on my Panther's coming up on his left flank. Once again he managed to range in first time. He fired on my Panther's this time only managing to bail one of them.
Turn 3
At the start of turn 3 I had my panzer grenadiers within 4" of my objective and won the game.
End of game report
Once this game was over myself, Nathan and Stuart had a discussion on how this game type was slightly flawed as despite how much stuff I had actually have lost Nathan pointed out I could have won by turn 2. It was a brutal fight and I agree I might now have played the force how it was meant to be played. The terrain layout was against Nathan as he had no way of getting any of his forces into position to contest my closest objective which I could reach at the start of the game
Basically as the terrain (which was pretty sparse) and game type were arranged I could not actual prevent James from taking an objective uncontested on the second turn.
ReplyDeleteThe three of us all looked through the scenario and layout and agreed that the way the scenario works is VERY difficult for the Defender to ever win this unless the Attacker does something very wrong in the first few turns OR the defender has a fast recce unit to get onto the objective ASAP. This unit would literally be sacrificed to keep the game going and allow slower units up to contest the objectives.
Due to hedgerows between my armour and the objectives I'd never be able to get my StuGs into contention within 2 turns and even then to get them there for turn 3 would have meant exposing them to free side shots from James' Panthers (one of whom was Ernst Barkmann). I'm all for some of your teams taking "one for the team" to keep you in the game but with a force so thin on the ground as my Pseudo-Finns I could hardly afford this luxury.
This oversight on reconnaissance in my list was a huge issue, however the likelihood of my being able to shoe horn recce into this list is unlikely.
Back to the drawing board...