by leopard » Sun Sep 10, 2017 8:38 pm
Another game, Defending in "Hasty Attack" v Reece, this is a mission that gets a bad reputation as impossible for the defender as there is no win condition other than the objectives, which go live on T1.
To be honest I actually don't think the mission is that bad, but could do with a condition about the attacker not being over the half way point by T6 as a "get on with it" and alternative way to win by pushing them back. It is however what it is..
Usual 80 point lists, Reece had his West Germans, looked like 4 mechanised infantry, three Jaguars which I assume are missile carriers, the mandatory six geopards (Reece assures me these are a mandatory part of the list and who is a humble leopard to question this), four missile launcher artillery things that look like the Soviet Hail but a lot more expensive and a pair of leopard IIs.
Blockov had the usual, a T-72 company with two minimum sized units, supported by three carnations, a pair of gophers and a pair of BDRM-2 scout cars plus a BMP-2 company with two minimum sized units, one with a Gremlin team attached, a pair of Shilka, three more carnations and two more BDRM-2, this backed up by a PRP-4 observer, three Grad rocket mortars and a quartet of Mil-24D.
Hmmm.. Defending with Soviets...
with 12 units, six ended up in reserve, the first of which was easy as the Gophers were wasted points here, joined by the scout cars, all of them for three, the next two being the T-72 then finally the Hinds.
Logic being the T-72 cannot operate until the Milan teams have been thinned out, and the Hinds are a waste of points while the Geopards live so actually the reserve rule helps here, indeed wish you had the option to always leave things in reserve then decide not to roll for them until you wanted to.
We started with the infantry dug in around the objectives, for some reason Reece put both of his next to each other so covering both was easy, all three artillery batteries deployed, pre-ranged on some likely looking corn fields and the carriers started largely out of sight, the larger of the two units in ambush again really just to keep them out of sight for now, the Shilka starting behind a building.
Reece deployed the geopards and infantry...
We settled in for a long slog, largely noted for a few things:
1. Reece being very cautious in his advance and really not making any mistakes, effetely screening his units and failing to fall for a few traps laid
2. Reece failing to fail pretty much any infantry saves all game (as in two platoons taking circa ten rounds of fire from two batteries of artillery and losing two teams to it in total... Another two platoons taking similar from one battery but not being dug in and losing no one to it... Excreta occurs so to speak (my Shilka were firing all this time, and killed one infantry team)
3. Reece failing to make pretty much every firepower test against dug in Soviet artillery (it took him a similar number of turns to shift about six Soviet teams blocking his way)
4. Most motivation tests on both sides passed, nothing important stayed pinned and very little ran off (except the surviving leopard after some BMP-2 killed the other one)
In the end a West German victory as the surviving Soviet infantry finally broke, not that there was much left, the T-72 having fallen to Milan fire pretty much as expected.
An amusing game, if a drawn out one.
Points for the future:
1. need to have a think of terrain, its needed to avoid having two rows of buildings/cover parallel to each other and the long table edges with an open killing ground between them, the game ends un the same every time, such features should be diagonal and include fences etc in the middle to break it up a bit
2. Reece needs to train his dice that firepower rolls matter, I need to trim my crews to load the guns
Blockov is wondering if BMP-1 or BTR-60 based infantry but more of it may be more useful, specifically some grenade launcher teams (its a pity the LMG teams are integral and not optional upgrades as one of them in a small unit would be useful). Also wondering about leaving the T-72 at home and running a second infantry formation (even a small one) to free points to bring a 4th artillery battery - they had rubbish dice this game but with average results they would have done the business here.
All good fun though