Challenge 2016Day OneLearnt a lesson from last year, used a sat nav so I actually found the place, forgot on the way back so it took ages as I got lost..
Eight players, the missions pre-drawn but the rounds drawn as the day progressed.
Game oneBolokov defends against some panthers in Fighting WithdrawalSomewhat unusual this, lacking my usual ‘Always Attacks, Infiltrating’ force I was actually defending, and defending against a panther player who has faced infantry before
and has brought some escorting infantry. The swine.
Still he deployed:
Something of a dense cluster, 2x3 panthers plus another as CiC, a pair of flak half tracks, thankfully not the armoured ones and a platoon of truck mounted panzer grenadiers, who decided to start on foot, in a wood, utterly out of sight. they also had limited Ju-87 air support
Germans had first turn so the dense formation wasn’t a risk.
Bolokov deployed first however, needing two pictures to capture all of them.
Right hand deployment, facing the Enemy
Strelkovy GREEN plus some heavy mortars, the Su-85 in ambush
To the left:
Strelkovy RED, with a minefield intended to prevent outflanking, which as you can see worked in that no panthers were anywhere near it..
Let the madness commence.
Turn oneGermans advanced and spread out a bit
The Luftwaffe arrived, and decided to pick on my mortars, essentially as they could hurt the tanks and my infantry, at range at least, couldn’t
German shooting managed the square root of not really very much and they ended the turn thus:
My turn saw no movement, I elected to keep the fragile Su-85 off the table for now, hoping to drop behind advancing Germans to get flank or rear shots, not really able to do much other than get themselves killed from the front.
My mortars got somewhat optimistic.
But managed nothing, the flak halftracks evaporated to volley fire from the anti tank rifles though so a platoon kill on my first turn, and the troublesome 20mm guns removed.
Turn twoGermans shuffled about a bit, and brought the infantry up to make sure any bright ideas about assaulting were firmly canned, he had seen all the pioneers and flame throwers just waiting for him.
The swine then proceeded to fire at the mortars directly with the cannons..
Hmmm. not a good day for the artillery, though they didn’t run, they were now #1 on the list to be withdrawn when the time came. Well they had that honour anyway but this made flipping sure.
Bit of stormtrooper movement ended the German turn thus:
Infantry nicely interlaced, but mistakenly left where I could see them..
My turn continued the theme of not daring to move, we did however open fire with anything that could on his grenadiers, resulting in them being somewhat reduced:
Yes, will settle for that, though sadly they didn’t run.
Turn ThreeGerman infantry pulled back, tanks staying put for the enhanced rate of fire.
Thankfully they failed to remove any more mortars.
So my movement was reasonably simple, nothing withdrew this turn, but one would on the next, so the mortars huddled behind the hill as they packed their lunch boxes.
Turn FourThe turn ended thus, my mortars having pulled back, sadly failing the motivation test so they counted as a kill. Grr.
A handful of other teams having being killed, but nothing important, this sort of set the tone for the rest of the game, I saw no point bringing the Su-85 ambush on, they would just get killed and harm my score, it was by this time obvious the Germans could not or would not advance further, and I had no need to risk casualties trying to assault them.
Turns five, six and sevenEssentially the same as the above, not bothering with pictures as that last one illustrates it all very nicely.
Turn eightLast ditch assault by the Germans, sending in their CiC, as if killed this cost them no scoring points.
That went well then..
Result5:2 victory, the mortars counting as destroyed the only weakness.
Ended in 4th place.