First Mid-War Battle and a Team Battle at that

Mid War

So Grimm had a Mid-War FOW tournament scheduled last Saturday. Up to this point I've only played late war games and only my Irish guard are really painted. So, I figured I'd stop by but only play if they needed a fill in.

Of course turns out with me, there were four. We decided on a two on two German versus Russian Mid-War fighting withdrawal battle. Each player had 1500 points. We rolled and the Germans were defending against the Russians.

The battlefield somewhere on the Eastern Front

My team mate has some wonderfully painted tigers. In fact he modified them to match those in Kelly's Heroes. Since this would be four models at 1500 points, I decided to bring my Fallschirmjäger. So, my army isn't painted but I was excited to use them. My list was 2x full troops, hmgs, pak 40s, heavy mortars, nebelwerfers,  LG40s, and commands all with anti tank.

German setup.

Now I've only faced Russians once before. They brought the kind of army I expected. Thirty or so T-30's, lots of troops, full Katyusha, some more tanks, planes, hammer of god artillery and cavalry! They also took Komissar Boris Ivanovich Vasilevsky the 24" Komissar. Naturally they needed the whole table edge to set up.

Tanks, tanks, and more Tanks!

Just a little artillery...

Lots of Russians. Do we have enough bullets?

Since my team was defending, our main goal was to hold. The objectives were in the middle of our deployment, middle right and far right. We planned to have the objectives leave from middle table to right starting turn six. Our right flank would be our final objective and hold it till turn eight.

Two tigers would slow the left flank while the artillery would pound the middle of the Russians. The first few turns saw the Russians moving forward while firing artillery. Our forces returned artillery, hmg, and tiger shots.

Russian arty strike on the Fallschirmjäger.

Tigers holding the left flank.

Right flank holding strong while weakening the Russian mob.

Russians prepping for first charge.

The Fallschirmjäger in the field managed to stop the first Russian charge due to distances but the Komissar held them together. The Tigers on the left pulled back. The following turn the Russians made their charge. Now fearless vets should be fine right? Well see the thing with my rolling... in rpgs I tend to roll very high or very low but in equal amounts. In mini war games it tends to be much more the low....such as now

Seriously! Nine ones!

To be honest this was a game of bad rolls for everyone. This was a survivable encounter had I rolled average. With this many misses the unit was heavily damaged and the 2IC fled.. Luckily between the 2IC, rockets, and tiger we held the objective.

Luckily the Komissar was out of range to help the unit and we retook the objective.

That tiger holding the objective....rolled a one and arty took it out, ouch.

So, we found ourselves in a bit of a problem. We had to hold the objective another turn before we could pull in, and two bases were defending. Could a tiger and the nebelwerfers hold off the tanks, cavalry and remaining troops in the unit for a turn? Now Cavalry is often tough to get in a good position. However, the Russians had gotten it perfectly set to charge the nebelwerfers.

Perfectly set charge on the flank of the nebelwerfers.

Turns out Nebelwerfers are snipers with rifles!

Nebelwerfers turn out to have practiced a lot with their rifles. The hit the magic five times and broke the cavalry charge. This meant we could hold the middle objective till end of turn six. Our right flank objective was secure and too far for the Russians to make by the end. This meant the middle right objective would be the deciding factor. The Russian troops had been damaged but not destroyed. A single Tiger was blocking the objective. The tiger took the risk and assaulted the Russians, he rolled a one during the counter attack and was destroyed. This meant the Russians started the turn with the objective. Game over.

Tigers have bad luck too.

This was a great game. I'm glad I made it to the store. My fellow players were entertaining and easy going. When everyone rolls bad in a game it can get quite hysterical. It certainly got me motivated to paint up my Fallschirmjäger. I find I enjoy Flames of War the most in these team type mega battles. Mid-War has a slightly different balance, I'm curious to see what Early-War is like.

Market Garden Ends... Managing Expectations

So our firestorm campaign came to an end with the German's winning in terms of victory points. However, a number of us got together for one big Final battle to drive the allies out. If the allies won they could tie. Each player brought 700 combat and weapons platoons. Ally players could bring 200 points of support each while Germans have 350 points each.

Each side had one player who took a list from a non-market garden list which was balanced. 

You remember the Pershing and King Tigers at Arnhem... right?

We also allowed air support. Allies had priority and Germans had sporadic. Having said that my only good rolls in the battle was air support. With sporadic support I managed to drive off three rounds of ally fighters and have the plane come in twice. Became a joke by the end.

The end of Kampfgruppe Hummel

During most of the campaign I played using Kampfgruppe Hummel. This was a unit put together quickly by the Germans to aid in Arnhem. It consisted of 14 run down tiger tanks. Which made a good excuse why my tanks failed so many rolls, they were old and run down. It also made a decent reason why my reserves never came in. In the end of this battle I had but one tiger left. Hummel was the only survivor. 

Hummel starting with Jagtiger allies

Either way the game was a lot of fun. My main part was to keep allied reinforcements from crossing the board. A double wide rocket template does help with that. Only a few allies got by so mission success?

As I've often seen in flames of war, tanks lost to infantry.  Unfortunately the lose of one players entire tank company the first turn meant that little amount of reinforcements was enough to give the allies the edge they needed at the objective regions. I actually thought it was nice since the campaign ended in a draw so everybody wins and everybody loses. 

Overall I enjoyed the campaign and hope we do another. I'd say even more than that I really enjoyed the big battle format. While the board was a little too small, it was fun having multiple commanders fighting over different parts of the board yet still all connected.

If we do another campaign I do think some limits to books are needed. 

Managing Expectations

So, Market Garden is one of the campaigns I am highly interested in. As I mentioned before, when first getting into Flames I decided to buy both a German and British army from this (in case the game didn't take off I could make a diorama). This meant the idea of doing this as Firestorm was great.

As I said I enjoyed the campaign but I wanted more in a way. Probably more building up things in my head. Missions weren't really specific to what you were doing. If you were attacking it didn't change things, same with a lot of locations not playing a part. Missing some of the map days didn't help. (One time the group started early and one I couldn't make).

The allowing of any book also had a bit of an issue. Most games I played were against Market Garden. One was against a Normandy list with the cruiser of doom. Which is bad enough in a normal game (battlefront is even changing its rules) but a battle  where no one should have air power, your AA options for defense is limited. Add in poor reserve rolls, random location, it definitely put down the campaign for me. I should point out my opponent didn't do anything wrong, we were just both playing the game in a different way.

The bigger issue is FOW is still a point based competitive game not a historical game. That isn't a bad thing but  when you think of it as the other it will be a disappointment. People told me modify your list to make it a front heavy list. Which is a great game advice but makes you wonder why bother with the rule to begin with? Is it to make an interesting mission or make list building the priority? A lot of people like it that way so not a problem, but I need to think on what I expect from the game.

Like I said overall I had a lot of fun, but have to think on what I expect from a game.

Next time, Summer Projects - French Indian War and Reaper

Round 2 - Market Garden Firestorm

Firestorm Market Garden Round Two into Round Three

So this round took a little longer to get in. A number of sad events happened with group members families. So we decided to do two week rounds. My game was delayed as well. Unfortunately before we played he rage quit the game store. So I played the allies commander instead. 

Great guy and great game (of course I played pretty poorly). Since I grew a beard (for no shave November) the group has referred to me as Scott Baratheon (we have a number of Scotts). The Germans were winning until General Baratheon went hunting....

Now, I would like to claim I made some of these decisions because I wanted a longer game after the drive to the store. In reality I didn't really focus on the mission. I could have had some of my tanks double move and with my opponent rolling average reserves I would have taken the second objective. However, after playing tin can tanks for so long (Shermans) I wanted to see how tough Tigers are. I think one of the other German players head nearly exploded.

So my tigers would attempt to dig out the american airborne hiding in the buildings of the first objective. Granted it might have work if I didn't fail almost every single penetration roll I made. My rockets hit every time, and on a 4+ would almost never break the cover. My Tigers 3+ almost never did. I also forgot to reroll motivations just about every time.  This would give his reinforcements enough time to get in and secure the second objective.

So Round 2 ended with 3 ally wins and 3 axis wins. Which seems a tie but probably left the allies in a slight advantage due to how attacks work on the map. You really should never attack from a territory worth points. Since you lose it if you lose the battle. However the allies still only have three more rounds to take enough victory points to win.

So round 3 attacks look like this

My battle should be interesting defending the Son Bridge. The opponent will have 2 Firestorm Sherman and I know he likes the heavy guns so the Tigers might be in trouble. However, since the battle is a lost cause hopefully I can lose only 4-3. Either way the campaign has been a lot of fun.

Market Garden Firestorm Begins

So as always it has been a little while. Various things have been eating into gaming time. The Carrion Crown campaign still occurs slowly and I have gotten into x-wing (great easy to get into game).

Market Garden Campaign

So my local gaming store (Brothers Grimm) is running the Market Garden Firestorm campaign in Flames of War. For those who don't know Market Garden was an ally operation in September 1944 to retake Holland and get the Arnhem bridge over the Rhine into Germany. The Market part consisted of a massive air drop of the American 101st Screaming Eagles, 82 Airborne, and the British Red Devils. The plan had them drop across the entire length of Holland and grab and hold all the bridges the Army would need. The Garden part of the mission would be the XXX corps lead by a tank spearhead rushing down the road across each bridge.

Lt. General Horrocks: I'd like to think of this as one of those American western films. The paratroops, lacking substantial equipment, always short of food - these are the besieged homesteaders, the Germans, well naturally, they're the bad guys, and XXX Corps, we my friends, are the cavalry, on the way to the rescue. ~Bridge too Far

The book and movie Bridge too Far are excellent in showing the overall idea of the battle (quite a cast for the movie). trailer link

The Devils Birthday by Geoffrey Powell is an excellent accounting of the battle.

Monty's people believed there would be little true defense or resistance from the Germans. This would cost both the troops and the people of Arnhem deeply.

Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: I've just been on to Monty. He's very proud and pleased.

Major General Urquhart: Pleased?

Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: Of course. He thinks Market Garden was 90% successful.

Major General Urquhart: But what do you think?

Lt. General Frederick "Boy" Browning: Well, as you know, I always felt we tried to go a bridge too far.

Now when I first started Flames of War I decided to pick a battle and build both sides of it. One in case the game didn't take off I would have both sides of a conflict. Also it served as a history building project. I'd have a display or such. So I have a built mostly painted Irish Guard (lead by Col Vandeleur played by Michael Caine in the movie) from XXX corps and an in process Fallschirmjäger that fought them on the road. Since I always play my Irish Guard the last few years I decided to be the Germans this time.

Firestorm is played with a map of the conflict, firestorm pieces, two generals and hopefully equal numbers of players on both sides. Battles are played like normal FoW battles however, you can get bonus units if a firestorm piece is in the location or you dedicate it to the attack. While I would have preferred army lists only from the source book, we have allowed people to use other lists from late war so more can play. However, anyone with a Market Garden/Bridge to Bridge list gets a bonus in the battle.

So round 1 the allies tend to have a lot of advantages. They start with far more firestorm troops in the battle areas and have an advantage in choosing the attack. The counter to this is the German's control all the victory point territories already. The allies have only 5 turns to take the majority of points away. This is made even more difficult by the fact that Arnhem and its area are worth the greatest number of points. Also If your supply line is broken you get disadvantages in battle.

So my first battle was a defense of the Weert Road. I would get a bonus Fallschirmjäger unit (9 troops bases FV and a panzerfaust commander) while my opponent would get a bonus unit of Shermans (CV 3 Sherman V's and 1 Firefly VC) as well as a bonus unit of Sextons (CV 4 sextons, sherman op, and command). So a bit of a points advantage to the allies. 

I decided to go with a fun list I had always wanted to take. I also need to since I couldn't make a legal Fallschirmjäger list since the firestorm troop used up my models from the required units. So I went with the Kampfgruppe Hummel list. This list was the Germans pulling any partially serviceable Tiger and sending it to the battle. They get the unreliable rule and do not get tiger ace skills, they also are only CT. However, you can take 9 of them with some minor support. Combined with the bonus Fallschirmjäger unit, I figured I at least could get to a minor loss.

My opponent took the British 11th Armoured Division consisting of Cromwell and Challengers. We decided to use the terrain that was already on the table in interest of time. We also made a few mistakes. My opponent received one less sexton for his firestorm and I played my rockets as CT when they were FV. I don't think it would have massively changed the game either way. I would have had a few more bombardments and he would have had one or to more AT9 shots over the whole game.

The left flank was some panzer III's two tigers, NW41 rockets and the fallschirmjäger holding an objective. They faced off against CS cromwells, challenger, universal carriers, and an infantry unit.

The right flank was the remaining tigers versus another challenger/cromwell unit, the sherman unit and the sextons.

The tigers would be defeated on the left flank after causing massive damage.

The right flank would come down to a lot of failed firepower tests.The allies had maneuverability, the tigers armor and power. In the end the Cromwell's made more firepower checks. So an ally victory of 4-3. While they take the territory all the firestorm troops have a chance of being destroyed. Not a bad result for turn 1 when the firestorm troops favored allies 2-1. 

This was the first time playing my opponent and it was a great time. Hope to play him again in the future.

Turn 2 starts on Wednesday.

Falling Behind

On a sadder note I've been behind on gaming due to my animals. My oldest cat Monster passed away. He tended to always hang out during games in the house (cat in the Unspeakable Words post) and was around for all projects at the house. He even claimed the mountain terrain as his no matter where we put it. I will miss him.

Of course when it rains it pours. One of my dogs busted his back leg and needed surgery to put in a metal plate. In the long run it probably means I'll work more on projects since I have to keep him relatively calmed. hopefully I will get the War of the Roses guys done. Maybe work on the zombicide models too.