Last club meet for 2018

Just a short post today...

Yesterday (Saturday here in NZ) was the last club day in 2018 for the Eastern Irregulars.

Depending on how you want to look at it, the weather gods were either in our favour (or not for those that had outdoor activities planned...) as it was a pretty crap day.

Hence a good turn out!

Flames of War, Saga and Chosen Men were the games on offer.

I would be playing Flames of War against Brent. My British rifle company vs. his Afrika Corp armoured force.

Guess I'll be defending... and Bridgehead was the mission rolled up.

I deployed my bridgehead defence forces. 6pdrs in ambush :-) The German armour prepared to trundle onto the board.

Brent spread his forces and amusingly forgot about the minefield I placed around the buildings - his Pioneers wandered straight into one of them!

I popped the ambush first turn to deal with some Panzers that were getting too close scaring the bejesus out of them (killing one to boot).

Brent tried in vain to dig out the guns with a single mortar, whilst using his Panzers with artillery capability to try and dig my infantry out. They just hunkered down and held on.

Time was ticking. My reserves arrived - porteed 6pdrs & Valentine II's. Aggressive (and somewhat suicidal) use of the Valentines stalled the German advance enough for a British win!

A combined focus on one flank by all of Brent's armour may have seen a different outcome.

Still, good to be back into Flames of War. Along with getting to gripes with V4.

A few shots of the other games...

Thanks for reading :-)

Carnage in Normandy

Friday night has been and gone again all too quick.

But at least I was in time for a game this week! :-)

Emails and messages earlier in the week meant Late War Flames of War - 1750pts.

Theatre of combat was to be Normandy. Shame I hadn't read the email properly by turning up with a Market Garden list. As least I wasn't the only one....

No amount of denial of knowledge was listened too as the emails were re-checked. Whoops :-)

Still, after some hasty rejigging, I had an armoured force of Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry from
Overlord ready to go.

Force consisted of:

HQ - 2 Sherman
2 Sherman + 1 Firefly
2 Sherman + 1 Firefly
2 Sherman + 1 Firefly
2 Sherman + 1 Firefly
4 25pounders + AOP
Full rifle platoon
Limited Typhoons

I would be up against Nick with a nice little list of Tigers.... bugger.

HQ - 2 Tiger
2 Tiger
1 Kingtiger
Motorcycle recon platoon
3 Nebelwerfers
Platoon of pioneers in half tracks

Apparently the mission that had been rolled up for our table was Cauldron. Double bugger.

Cauldron is definitely not one of my preferred missions.

Still it was game on. I lost the dice roll and would be defender.

That did mean that I got to choose a nice bit of bocage to hide my artillery in though.

I started with the rifle platoon and 25 pounders on the table. One Sherman platoon was in immediate ambush.... who immediately popped and went straight after the CiC Tiger.

With the inevitable result...

The German Tigers quickly advanced and soon the Pioneers joined them (doubling down the road).

At least a Sherman platoon had arrived (turn 4) to make the most of the doubled move. The Tigers had my infantry lined up though...

Some good shooting from the Sherman's gave the Pioneer platoon a good knock, but not enough for a morale check. At least my infantry scared off the assaulting Tigers!

Next turn... and the CiC Tiger was now at the bocage making his presence felt amongst my 25 pounders. The next assault from the Tiger platoon didn't go so well....

With the objective now contested and my Firefly's consistently failing firepower rolls, it was pretty much game.

I did at least get one Tiger from a lucky rear shot from the CiC Sherman.

There ended the game, a 1 - 6 loss.

There's not a lot I could have done differently on reflection. Any mission with delayed reserves is a tough one. The only change perhaps would be bringing on the 3rd Sherman platoon to join those engaging the Tiger platoon.

I had bought them on to the opposite flank to pester the CiC Tiger and threaten the nebelwerfers to prevent that flank collapsing, but the reality was that the real risk was on the other side.

Oh and the Typhoons were a waste of time... turned up twice. Couldn't hit anything, so flew away!

There were two other games in progress over the evening, also Normandy themed. Here are a few shots -

The first...

And the second....

Not a good day for the British forces with a loss in each game.

Next time! :-)

Thanks for reading.

Strike 1

So.... I was a little late on Friday night to games night. Poor planning and some very nice lamb steaks were to blame :-)

Still, it meant I'd left my team mate hanging in what was supposed to be a 2 vs. 2 battle in the desert using Mid War, Flames of War rules (North Africa).

Luckily, they had rolled up Dust-Up as the mission, so my entire force was in reserve. Fair enough :-)

The game was also well underway with British armour boldly advancing against a mixed force of German armour and infantry (the second German force was also fully in reserve).

Things weren't going well for the British unfortunately. I had my chance to join the game.... but no 5's for reserves could be rolled by myself in either turn 3 or 4.

The reserve German armour arrived though...

With their arrival, the game was conceded so we could get onto game two (most of the other British armour was already destroyed).

Meanwhile.... Lee & Brent were facing off against Nick's Germans.

Things looked good for the British, but apparently it was all a deception.... another victory to Germany in the end.

For our second game, we rolled up Fighting Withdrawal.

I would be fielding British Infantry:

HQ
Rifle platoon w/ light mortar, sticky bombs
Rifle platoon w/ light mortar
Rifle platoon w/ light mortar
4 25pounders
3 Carriers (1 w/ boys ATR)
3 Valentine Mk II

Ian converted from Armour to Infantry taking (IIRC):

HQ
Rifle platoon w/ ATR
Rifle platoon w/ ATR
Rifle platoon w/ ATR
4 2pounder ATG
4 3" mortar
3 Matilda

We were up against a horde of Italian armour and the same mixed bag of German armour & infantry from game 1 (commanded by Andrew & Paul).

The British forces dug in deep and waited for the onslaught to begin.

The Italian forces started to arrive and, much to their commanders chagrin, they all turned out to be Trained platoons! At least they were all confident.

And they were to be driven hard by their German overlord.... ;-)

The schwerpunkt was selected and the tanks lined up. The advance began.

Right up against the most heavily defended part of the British line...

Still, there was no mucking around though. Both the Germans and Italians got straight down to business (Paul & Andrew knew they had 6 turns to get the objective since it was clearly the first that we would remove now they were attacking there).

Effective use of "eyes and ears" by the Italian armoured cars resulted in a few British casualties just prior to the first assault going in...

First blood to the Italians as they destroy the most advanced British platoon. The German infantry also get stuck into the mortars on the hill. Assaults and counter-assaults here are fierce!

Meanwhile, on my flank....  I decide to get a little cheeky with my Carriers and decide that I may as well risk the Valentines...

So, I take on the German armour...

With not much luck... as the German's reveal their deception... the armour isn't the short barreled variants I thought they were, but long barreled!! Uh oh :-)

Back to the other side of the table and the bloody fight for the hill continues, whilst the Italians line up platoon number 2...

Amazingly my Valentines survive, so a quick handbrake turn for one last chance...

One German casualty, but the return fire destroys the Valentines.

On the Italian front, the second assault is launched...

...but disaster! The Italians hadn't noticed the Matildas slowly waddling they way across the battlefield. They're close enough now to provide defensive fire as the Italians roll in.

Suffice to say, the assault is stopped dead in its tracks. The Axis forces concede defeat at this point as they have little left. So, 4 - 3 to the British.

Fair play to Paul & Andrew. Assaulting a large quantity of dug in Veteran infantry was always going to be a tough ask. They played it right though, concentrating on one point..... just not sure why they didn't choose the flank on the other side.... it was rather poorly defended (my bad - I really should have paid more attention to that).

The other option could have been to keep the German armour further over on my flank to stop any movement and keep me pinned down (I was advancing my rifle platoons over to support Ian).

I potentially should have tried to bring my Valentines around the flank with the Carriers rather than getting a bit gung-ho with them, but they kept the Germans occupied for long enough.

All good fun.

Thanks for reading. Until next time.