Kind of a rematch here.. Same Russian player, but he wanted to play up against my Commonwealth British force that I am using as Canadians. Which raised a few eyebrows when I brought them out to a few at the club.. since they were expecting my overpowering Japanese or my newly blessed with blood Americans.
We did things a bit differently here as well.. Since the Russian player is quite new to the game, and I kinda beat him up badly in the last game, we would give him a few more advantages. So he was able to decide on the scenario, which side to take ( attacker/defender ) and set up the table. And I had no input to it before the starting of the game, so he had a lot of benefits going for him, and I was just to bring a more balanced force to try to play against him with. He even got to pick the force, and chose the Canadians in the end, only cause he had not seen them already, and knew how bad my other 2 forces were.
And to be even more crazy I tried a few new things in my force. I took really small units here.. how small? Like 2x5 man SAS and 2x4 man SAS units.. all with SMGs mind you, so still a threat, but crazy small for myself when I am used to units in the 10-18 range thanks to my Japanese forces.
I also gave my opponent a choice of going up against a 1 Platoon or 2 Platoon list.. and he had picked the 1 Platoon to reduce the amount of armor he might go up against. Which was smart considering that he had a T34 with 9+ armor running in his list.
So my list ended up looking like the above photo:
- 2nd Lieutenant
- Forward Artillery Observer (free unit)
- 2x4 SAS w/SMG
- M3 Scout Car Transport
- 2x5 SAS w/SMG
- 2 Bren Carriers Transports
- 8 Reg Infantry w/SMG
- 15 CWT Truck Transport
- AEC Mk I
- Crusader Mk I
-Up and At 'Em Rule
His list was similar to the last one, running with a few Inexperienced, a regular, 2 units of Vets ( one of which was an engineer ), his T34, and his other tank. A medic and he also ran it as 2 platoons. Plus he had 2 units of AT guns, a sniper team, and 2 units of Tank Hunters.
The mission he picked was Scenario 3. Which had the defender sitting on 3 objectives, and the attacker having to claim 1 to Tie, or 2-3 to win. All my troops are off the table, at least half of his troops had to be on the table ( 15 units, so 8 sat on the table ) and the rest were left in reserves. And of course the pre-bombardment allowance for my side if I could roll a 2+.
I rolled the 2+ :) And even killed an AT unit before the game even started, along with the rest of his forces gaining 1-2 pins to start the game with, aside from one unit that was sparred anything.
In Turn 1 I would bring everything on the table in Wave one. Trying to force some heavy hitting from the onset, and with him pulling most of his dice in the beginning I was hopeful of this to happen. he had left my left flank pretty open, but hunkered down more to the center and my right.
Originally my plan was to overwhelm his right side, as there was just a unit of Inexp troops, and a medic sitting there. And I figured my small units of SAS could deal with them easily enough. So I ran up the 2 Brens carrying 5 SAS each to one side, the truck with the infantry up behind the trees for cover, and the M3 to the center with the 2 units of 4 SAS to deal with the smaller units there.
My AEC was on my left trying to keep between the hard cover not to attract too much attention to his AT guns, and my Crusader on my right to get onto the road network.
So this was my original plan, with my opponent hoping to hold down the middle from letting too many vehicles through with his 2 units of Tank Hunters, and AT teams sitting around there. With his reserves to come in as and where needed. Smart plan, and I said as much, though poor dice pulling meant that I could get my transports out before his troops could do anything there.
Turn 2.. we see some mistakes being made.. by the Canadians actually!
I jumped out my 2 units of SAS from the Brens on the right to lay down some fire to the inexp troops there. Meanwhile my infantry in the truck go boom from small arms fire from said inexp troops ( needing 6s, and then 6s.. he rolled really well there! ) and putting that unit down for what would be the next 3 turns!
My central teams would jump out and do some nice damage to his small units in the middle, while his vehicles would miss everything that they shoot at. With mine doing likewise.
But I would use the FO to lay down a fire order for artillery support on the middle objective.. knowing full well this could backfire for me if I roll a 1 when its time to bring it in.
But going back to the mistake, I had forgot he had the Veteran Engineers off the table with their flamethrower at the ready.. Thankfully my SAS unit was too far away for it to be used, but both units would take some hits adding pins to them but no casualties. First dice in Turn 3 would be a deciding factor on this flank for sure... if I can get it I can get within a nice range to tear him a new one, or if he gets it then I can see much flames in my future.
Turn 3 was decent in that the artillery came down and smacked the heck out of the middle groups there. I can also say that this was pretty much the only thing that went well for me in this turn.
First dices .. not just dice.. but dices went to the Russian. His Vet FT unit came and turned my first 5 man unit into ash. Leaving nothing behind. His back up unit there or regulars also came and popped the other unit of SAS leaving nothing left ( well.. he also had a unit full of SMGs so this is not surprising ). So both of my Brens did some major "GTFO" of here moves.. though I then also forgot that they can only hold 5 members.. so the one on the right was more of a pain than something that helped me :)
In the center I was cleaning up some of the units and such with the troops around, and my HQ had hitched a ride in the M3 to fire the HMG on board. And I got some pins on the T34, but not much else occurred. Mostly a lot of long range shooting to happen from tanks, with not much happening.
Turn 4 photo went missing, so above is Turn 5. No idea what happened there..
But combined between them was the movement of my SAS unit on the left to move houses to take on his other Vet unit. Taking a casualty in the process and giving only pins back. The other one would go and charge up his FT unit after it moved too close, and causing some serious hurt. Though my Lieutenant in the M3 would move around the corpse of trees there to pop his Lieutenant, but stay just in range for his SMG boys to pop on back and assault the M3. Killing my Lieutenant, and then popping the transport as they are then the closest unit to it!
My Crusader would do nothing in Turn 4, but in Turn 5 he would run up the road there to take some pot shots at the vets, which turned out to be enough to kill and rout them out! Huzzah! Meanwhile his T34 would continue to fail leadership tests, and slowly move backwards to his side of the board again.
My AEC was moving back and forth around the tree corpse there to take shots at whatever was there and my forces were basically ignoring his other tank that has done nothing for the entire game.
On my right flank the regular infantry began to move again and were able to get to the other side of the trees, while my single SAS with SMG jumped into the building after killing the FT vets. Both unit ready for a charge against the Infantry unit sitting there.. and maybe the medic..
On the left, I still have the FO in the Bren, hoping to make it into range of the left objective.. it is going to be close I think, but there is hope!
Turn 6 sees a lot of movement here...
The remainders of the Russian troops are taken out. The right flank is killed in combat from the regular infantry. This was only due to the squad failing to activate to shoot at them before the charge ( he pulled a dice first ) and thus allowing me to get between the trees there to charge him.
The SAS guy took out the remaining SMG weilding Russians in the woods, with just morale support from the AEC ( who couldn't hit anything that close apparently! ). The 3 man SAS team was able to activate and made an advance to the center objective.
My left, the Crusader opened fire with 2 MMGs to the small AT team there, but with no effect other than a pin. The Bren doing nothing also, but the FO making a full run towards and getting within 3 to challenge the objective.
So at the end of Turn 6, I had claimed 2 objectives, and were contesting one ( but he still held control as far as we knew ).
Rolling for Turn 7, we actually did get it..
Only things happening though were his AT team assaulting my FO.. and losing? Doh! And his Medic getting charged by my regulars on the right, tearing him a new one 6 ways to Sunday.
End of the game was a sweep unfortunately for the Canadians.. I was hoping it would be a bit closer due to giving him a few more advantages on the game, but I think the luck of the dice played in my favour a few times. His T34 getting 5 pins by turn 4 was not helpful for him, and it not coming out of it never helped any. Nor his other tank being pinned from Turn 3 and not doing much from there also didn't help much for him.
Though I was happy to see him have a plan, and stick to it. And cause my plan to fail on Turn 2, making me go a different route overall. And we both took away a few thoughts on how to do better for future, and what to watch out for as well. Let's see how it goes then.
Hopefully I can get in a Tank Wars game soon.. having taken out the American armory lately, it would be a shame not to see them in action. Let's see if I can find an opponent though!
In the meantime.. enjoy!