King Tigers!?

Another days gaming and another game of Flames.

This time against Mark (yep Mark playing FoW...! :-) ).

I ran the same force as last week, whilst Mark had decided to try out a Pioneer Company:

HQ with hmg & mortar sections
2 Pioneer platoons
2 King Tigers!!
1 88 with extra crew in a gun pit
Battery of 10.5cm guns
3 2cm Flak guns

We rolled for a mission and ended up with Counterattack. Being mechanised, I would be the attacker.

The forces deploy...

Mine are deployed in a rather large lump ready to drive towards the currently undefended objective!

First I would have to get across the road where the King Tigers, 88, hmg's and 2cm guns could all see (neither of us had realised that the 2cm flak guns only had a 16" range!)!

The vehicles all get across easily (aided by a well placed smoke bombardment), but I hadn't noticed where the hmg's were. I was going to have to weather a storm of lead, but it was worth a chance. I needed to get the infantry moving early.

Luckily the placement of the King Tiger means only 1 hmg can fire, so casualties are light.

Mark's pioneers quickly control the objective utilising the woods as cover....

I recall how well my infantry did in the woods against Rob last week , so start to get a little nervous (well more nervous after wondering how I was going to deal with King Tigers). A well placed artillery bombardment doesn't help things....

Same as last week... my Guards re-roll saves the platoon, but the bailed tank refuses to un-bail for the rest of the game.

The King Tigers creep up to cut off my advance...

Time to put my balls on the line. I'll get 2 shots.

This time they counted.

And my armoured cars were at the objective.

Time to start whittling down some infantry.... This goes well. So well, Mark is forced to advance his second pioneer platoon (they no longer needed to hold the objective in his deployment zone with the early destruction of my second armoured platoon).

After hiding from King Tigers, the 88 and artillery observers, time is running out. I have to deal with the King Tiger. But I still have no idea how.... I do get one early chance when my artillery lands on it, but I fail the firepower check.

Still, I need to make a move. So everyone advances out.... surely so many targets for Mark would mean good survival chances? It's not working for Mark's infantry though...

Somehow everyone survives!? Then it is pointed out that I could actually get onto the side of the King Tiger...

One shot. It had better count.

6!

Don't fail me now firepower rolls....

6!

The game pretty much ends there. Somehow a 6 - 1 victory to me. The King Tigers had only killed one Sherman so really didn't dominate at all. My armoured cars had been able to disengage when targeted (although we got this wrong at 1 point when Mark fired at full RoF - he still should have had a shot).

If Mark had been able to dig in on the objective, then I think it would have been a very different game.

Still its good to be playing Flames again.

Thanks for reading. Until next time.

FlamesCon!

So I nearly forgot (very conveniently…) to register for FlamesCon (http://www.flamescon.co.nz/), but I made it just in time. Luckily there were still spaces in the tournament section that I was most keen to play in. So… it’ll be 2 days of Late War FoW, a total of 6 games over the upcoming Labour weekend.

My placings in tournaments are generally pretty average. I’m normally in the middle of the pack. It’ll be interesting to see how I go this time, having not played much FoW lately and definitely not much V3. Maybe I should get a game or two in!?!

I’m not taking a highly competitive force as I’ve never got the hang of running a full infantry list, but it is one of my favourite forces – British Paratroopers. List build is from the FoW book “Market Garden” as the Arnhem battle that the 1st Airborne Division fought in, is one of the battles I have always been most interested in.

It’s been too long since I last really used my Paras so it’ll be good to use them again. Can’t go too far wrong with gammon bomb wielding fearless veteran infantry with British bulldog!! :)

They’re also the first the FoW army (well first army actually) that I ever painted. Why I choose a camo army as my first attempt…. I’ll never know, but they turned out all right. Here are a couple of old pics:

The army list I’m running with will be:

Parachute Company HQ - CinC SMG, 2iC SMG (60 pts)
- AT - PIAT (20 pts)
Parachute Platoon - Command Rifle/MG, PIAT, 6x Rifle/MG (230 pts)
Parachute Platoon - Command Rifle/MG, PIAT, 6x Rifle/MG (230 pts)
Parachute Platoon - Command Rifle/MG, PIAT, 6x Rifle/MG (230 pts)
Parachute Mortar Platoon - Command Rifle, Observer Rifle, 4x ML 3” mortar (130 pts)
Parachute Machine-gun Platoon - Command Rifle, 2x Vickers HMG (80 pts)
Airlanding Anti-tank Platoon - Command Rifle, 4x OQF 6 pdr gun (late) (160 pts)
Airlanding Anti-tank Platoon, Royal Artillery - Command Rifle, 2x OQF 17 pdr gun (late) (165 pts)
Airlanding Light Battery, Royal Artillery - Command Rifle, Staff, Command Rifle, Observer Rifle, 4x M1A1 75mm pack howitzer (150 pts)
- Medium Artillery - Medium Artillery Support (30 pts)

1485 Points, 8 Platoons
(tournament limit is 1500pts – low for late war and will create some challenges for a lot of forces)

The build gives me 8 platoons which is a good number for 1500pts, but I have had to take a couple of small platoons to get there (HMGs & 17pdrs). I’ll have to be careful with them since they could be easy VP’s. I know the 17pdrs will attract a lot of fire!

The list does give me a solid core of infantry and a lot of good support. Will be rock solid on defense, but not sure how it’ll go if I have to attack. I must remember about night attacking!

Anyway, will post up an AAR after the tournament. Main thing will be to remember to take pics throughout as I tend to forget the more involved I get in the games.