My Hungarian Infantry's Dogs of War Tournament

Round 1: Dust Up v. Denis Kosta’s Strelkovy

Denis charged forward immediately with infantry and T34’s atttacking the Hungarian infantry & HMG Coys holding the closest objective. The Strelk over-ran the HMGs and pushed back the infantry. Then the T34’s hit the infantry and discovered that they had 2 Panzerschreks attached, plus cmd, CIC & 2IC all with panzerfausts. The T34s fell back, decimated, then failed morale. The Strelk fell back into a wood and there was a lull as both sides brought up reserves. The Hungarians advanced infantry and supports on their objective on a hill while the 2 Stug platoons moved to the centre. The Soviets made another attempt to attack the objective, this time destroying the defenders. But one Stug platoon was close enough to move to contest the objective while the other one supported the infantry attack on the Hungarian objective. The infantry was repulsed, but the Stugs took the objective and survived a mortar bombardment to give the Hungarians a 4:3 win.

Round 2: Fighting Withdrawal v. Rob Holloway’s US Armour

Rob hung back in the woods until his artillery disposed of the 88’s in the centre, then he charged the centre objective (which could not be pulled up). The Honeys got to the objective in good time, but the Hungarians had kept a Stug platoon in reserve behind a hill and another in ambush.  They came out to contest the objective and hold on for a 5:2 win.

Round 3: Breakout v. Leigh Watson’s British Rifles

Once deployed Leigh’s army could put down 5 templates – 5.5”, 25pdr, 2 x HMG and air. Constricted by terrain, the Hungarian infantry bunched up to advance on the objective and made a perfect target. The Hungarians were decimated and almost entirely pinned down for several turns. Their salvation was once again the 2 Stug platoons coming on from reserve which rushed to the objectives before the Brits could. Finally unpinned, the Hungarian motars and artillery now returned the favour, pinning down much of the British infantry & HMGs – who were reluctant to rally. Finally it came down to a shirt fight in the cornfields in the centre between the Stugs and Cromwells while both sides rained down heavy artillery and brought infantry support. The Brits also brought 6 pdrs to bear. The Stugs died, but they sold themselves dearly, taking all the Brit armour with them and holding off the Brit infantry just long enough for the Hungarian grunts to reach the objectives for a 4:3 win.

Round 4: Free For All v. John Mumford’s Cossacks

The Hungarians dug in on the objectives on both flanks with 88s and Stugs lurking in the centre. The Soviets advanced on both flanks. Cossacks and KV85’s on their left and ISU122’s on their right. Their scouts covered the objective on their right, while the cossacks left some behind on the other objective. The cossacks and KV85s swarmed over hill and slammed into the Hungarian line, cossacks first. The Hungarian infantry fought magnificantly. They were eventually overwhelmed, but they took plenty of cossacks with them. The cossacks then went on to hit the artillery behind, quickly destroying them. But the Hungarians had not been sitting on their thumbs, the Stugs had advanced in the centre towards their objective and shot up few cossacks as well – enough to get them below half strength. John then threw 1 for morale, 1 for commander re-roll, then 1 for the commissar and the cossacks evaporated. The 2nd Stug platoon had turned right to dispute the Soviet objective and supported by the 88’s managed to get enough kills and bails on the KV85’s to force a morale test on them – which they also failed ! The remaining Soviets on their right went on a desperate rampage after VPs, but they had nothing available to stop the Stugs taking the objective. A 5:2 win for Hungary.

Most Valuable Platoon Award

The Blue infantry platoon rated a citation for defeating a T34 platoon in game 1, the Red Infantry platoon likewise for taking nearly half a maxed out cossack platoon with it in game 4.  But together the 2 Stug platoons arguably won every battle and share my MVP award.

Overall result

Under the standard FOW scoring system, my 4 hard fought wins were trumped by 3 big wins and a loss...so second place.  But I can't complain, I was dead lucky to beat John anyway...the war gods move in mysterious ways.