Saturday, April 18, 2009

Firestorm Campaign 14/04/09



This is the first week of Camp Cromwell's Firestorm campaign. Our intention is to take 2 weeks per turn playing the 4 turn version.

Battle 1:
Russians in Tolochin attacking Berezino.
No retreat Mission - Steve's German Sturm Coy + 1 Panzergrenadier Firestorm troop defending v. Rich's Strelk plus 2 T34/85 Firestorm troops. The Russians attack was glacially slow, but maybe that was a cunning tactic as the Gods of War had lots of time to whittle the Germans down. The Russians lost heavily, but in the end the Germans just ran out of troops. It was narrow 4:3 win for the Russians.

Battle 2:
Russians in Zhobin attacking Berezino.
Encounter Mission - Byron's Tankovy with 2 T34/85 Firestorm troops v. Barrie's Sperrverband with no Firestorm troops in Encounter Mission.
There was a large wood covering almost half the table on the German right. The rest of the table was flat with scattered villages & farms. The Strelk deployed in the woods with T34s & Honeys in the open. The Germans put Pak 40's & Artillery protecting the objective in the open, infantry on the left & only Marders in the woods. The odd thing about the battle was that both sides' reinforcements all came on on their left flank. While the Russians tanks traded blows with the German anti-tank, artillery & eventually Stugs, Barrie was having kittens as the Strelk & Shermans advanced steadily towards the objective he could only protect with 3 Marders in the woods. One Marder was popped by Shermans, another bailed by rifle fire - all the Strelk had to do was pass tank terror the game was won. But they threw a 1 and on the other flank the Stugs took their objective. Strangely, considering the battle was won by one bad die, it was a 6:1 victory for the Germans.

Aftermath of the 2 battles:
In the Steve v. Rich battle the Russians lost 1 T34/85 Firestorm troop even though they won.
The Germans have to retreat from Berezino - the Firestrom Panzergrenadier was retreated to Osipovich.
In the Byron v. Barrie battle, the Russians lost both their T34/85 troops in their defeat.
The Russians have to retreat from Zhlobin - 1 SU76 to Buda-Koshelevo, the remainder to Berezina.
The Russians have lost Zhlobin, but retain LOS to Berezina & Berezino.
The Germans have lost Berezino & have a lot of troops out of supply in a big pocket - Orsha/Bykhov/Mogilev/Zhlobin.

Next campaign battle:
The dice were cast & the Russians have the initiative for the next battle. It was hoped that Nick would fight this in Launceston on Thursday but it didn't happen. Instead it will be the first battle next Tuesday.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

unfortunatly I forgot to take the LeIG 7.5s and a panzerschreck team there for 85pts down from the start