Nick in Launceston -- Firestorm Bagration Round 3

Due to the intensity of the Nick vs Starn battle, I have no results for the other battles.  The post will be editted as appropriate.

Nick had Artillery and SU76's as firestorm troops.  Starn had Tigers and Tigers as his firestorm troops!!!  Nick opted for a IS-2 Company -- 9x IS-2 plus some tankodesantniki.  Starn opted to reinforce his Tigers with King Tigers -- the perfect IS-2 antidote.  Fortunatly, the King Tigers could not be everywhere, so where they werent the IS-2's advanced, and where they were the IS-2's hid (in a forest or behind a hill).  The IS-2's on one flank chewed through the tigers, killing four tigers for one IS-2.  And then the heavy artillery killed one of the king tigers!  Things looked grim for Starn.  But do not underestimate a King Tiger -- ever, ever, ever!!!!!  As some reinfocements arrived, the tiger was free to move away from an objective, and moved to the center of the table, where it could take pot shots at either side of the table.  Starn also agressivly advanced his observers, so they could spot the IS-2's hiding in a woods.  The observers were killed by the tankodesantniki charging out of the forest, SMG's blazing.  But one of the IS-2's had to come out of the forest to keep the platoon in command, and it bogged on the edge of the forest, in plain sight of the King Tiger.  Scratch one IS-2.  The King Tiger then took a pot shot at an IS-2 on the other side of the table, and failed its stormtrooper move.  The IS-2s rushed to get side shots while they could -- an IS-2 got bogged.  And the others missed the side shots.  Return fire bailed an IS-2.  Again the king tiger was still exposed after failing stormtrooper, and the last remaining IS-2 in the woods moved to get a shot, and bogged.  Return fire bailed the last operational IS-2 in this platoon, they failed morale, and one IS-2 platoon was down.

The King Tiger steadily advanced on the other flank.  However, by this time the other IS-2 platoon had destroyed all before it, including all of the two infantry platoons that were guarding the objective, causing Starn to have to take a company morale test, which he passed.  The King Tiger killed another IS-2, but the platoon (with one IS-2 left), survived the morale test.  If it had failed, Nick would have been on company morale as well.  Finally, Starn's company failed morale, and Nick achieved victory, by the narrowest of possible margins.

Hail Caesar 13/09/11

Jim & Mike Carthagians & Gauls
v.
SteveJ & Leigh's Romans

The Romans deployed their 2 legions in the centre with a division of mixed cavalry & auxilia on each flank.  The Anti-Romans deployed Gauls on their right, Carthaginians on the their left, cavalry on each flank, and elephants in front of the Carthaginian spearmen.

For once the Romans were agressive & began a general advance.   The Carthaginians advanced their elphants in the centre with some cavalry covering their left.  The spearmen followed up at safe distance.  The Gauls waited on the hill.

The Romans halted their general advance but pushed on with their left flank.  The weak Gallic cavalry was quickly defeated leaving the Gallic infanty's right flank exposed.  Any thoughs of charging out of trouble were thwarted when auxilia bow fire made the Gauls fall back behind the hill. 

On the Carthaginian left, the opposing flanking forces were happy to stand off and throw stones at each other.  In the centre, the elephants charged Leigh's legion.  Steve prepared his 2 divisions for an attack on the Gallic infantry. 

The elephants and the Leigh's legion slugged it out as the Carthaginans tried to manoeuvre their spearmen into the action.










Steve's legion got good command dice and charged over the hill into the Gauls as his cavalry hit their flank guard.   The flank guard beat off the cavalry then charged on into the infantry behind pushing them back as well.  But it was all in vain - the other infantry units were overwhelmed by the legion and the division broke.

The spearmen failed to move fast enough to attack Steve's legion's flank and when the elephants ran out of hot dice and broke, it was game over with the Anti-Romans having lost 3 out of 5 divisions.

So that's 4:1 to the Romans in our 28mm Hail Caesar battles.  This time it was the strong Roman left destroying the Gauls that won the battle.  With the 2 Gallic divisions doomed, the elephants had to win to keep the Carthaginians in the fight.  The 28mm elephants looked magnificant and they got the legion to breaking, but not close enough.   The Carthaginian's failure to get their best division, their spearmen, into the action was another cause of their defeat.  But a fine time was had by all, and the 28mm arms race continues.

Sunday School 11/09/11

Jim's Fucilieri v. Rich's Strelkovy.
2000 pts on 8x6 No Retreat - Maharajah practice match.
Description censored by military inteligence.

Nick in Launceston -- Firestorm Bagration Turn 2

Week 2 of the Firestorm campaign.  (For more details, see the Launceston Gaming Club forum, and then look at the Flames of War topic).

There were 4 battles, with a 5th cancelled due to last minute family duties. 

Nick B (Udarny) vs Daniel (Panzergrenadiers): 5-2
Rob (Tankovy) vs Nick R (Grenadiers): 4-3
Declan (Tankovy) vs Starn (Grenadiers): 1-6
Terry (Udarny) vs Darren (Panzers): 1-6

Declan and Starn completed their game before Nick B and Daniel completed setup.  Starn realised Declan loves his heavy tanks, and put two king tigers in his list. 

Terry and Darren were over not long after, with the panzers having a fun time in rolling farmland.

Rob and Nick R had a hard battle.  Rob sacrificed his Stuarts in a death or glory charge onto pionerrs and Pak 40s -- it was death, but they did some damage, and pinned down both the Pioneers and Pak 40's to enable the following Shermans to get into combat.  Meanwhile, there was a furious firefight between ISU 122's and Sturmoviks vs Tigers.  Eventually, Rob managed to get onto an objective with a horde of tanks.

Nick and Daniel had a long game, being the last game in the club to finish, and Daniel almost managing a draw through time.  Daniel had fortifications -- But Nick had mine roller and flame thrower tanks.  The Russians picked an objective, and charged with just about everything.  While the objective had minefields and barbed wire, it was hoped that the minerollers would clear then. JagdPanthers and Pak 40s and Hummel artillery were knocking tanks over, particularly the mine roller tanks.  However, some SU 76's on the other flank managed to get in range of the Hummels and silence them.  And the mine roller tanks survived a couple of morale checks.  However, both surviving mine rollers failed to clear the mine fields, with one being destroyed by mines, and the last one by a JagdPanther.  While this was happening the Udarny got into range, some flame tanks cleared some barbed wire, Udarny Sappers cleared a minefield, and the Udarny poured through the gap.  Nick miss-played his assault, carelessly involving two platoons that didnt need to be involved, but Daniel rolled low, and the Udarny got in to assault.  When all was over, Nick was consolidated on the objective, and Daniel had to launch an assault with 2 JagdPanthers onto Udarny with sappers to contest the objective.  The assault failed, and Nick won with an eviscerated force.

Rome v. Carthage Round 4

Mike & Jim's Carthargian & Gallic Army
v.
SteveJ's Romans

Both sides deployed with their right on the edge of the table and their left held back.  The Romans had their Auxilia division on their right and their two legions left and centre.  The Carthaginians had their Gallic cavalry on the right, Carthaginian cavalry & elephants on their left. In their centre they put the Gallic warbands in front followed by skirmishers and their spearmen in rear.  (The pics are all taken from behind Carthaginian right).

The Romans began to move their right across to behind the legions, advanced their centre legion and formed a line with the legion on their left.  The Gauls were charging forward with cavalry on their flanks when suddenly disaster struck when their Spearmen threw blunder dice and suddenly turned around and ran for the rear.

Cavalry and elephants were pushed forward to support the Warbands' flanks as they gallantly charged the RH legion.  The 2 warbands on the right were faced with just 1 cohort each & with cavalry support they pushed their opponents back.  The other two faced 2 cohorts each, one was quickly beaten while other was pushed back.

While the 2nd legion and the auxilia were still being redeployed, the 1st legion was being hammered by warbands, cavalry and elephants.  After some initial success it became fragmented and was swamped by elephants, warbands and cavalry.

There was a bit of a lull in the fighting as both sides sorted themselves out facing at right angles to their initial front.

The Romans had some sucesses as the Carthaginians renewed the attack.  On their right, the Carthaginian cavalry was well held and two cohorts broke a spear unit.  On their left, a counterattack by the Auxillia finally broke the Gallic foot.  But their centre was hard pressed by the spearmen, and the Auxillia couldn't stop the massed cavalry charge on their left. 

So the Carthaginians finally won one after 3 defeats.  And that was despite 2 blunders.  They seemed to be a problem at the time, but in fact didn't really hurt.  The infantry got good dice later to catch up & the cavalry blundered forward, more or less in the right direction anyway.  The elephants were a great success - taking out 2 cohorts & hurting 2 more before they were stopped - take note SteveP.

Sunday School 04/09/11

Rich's Strelkovy v. Jim & Byron's Finns

2000 pts on 8x6 table - Breakthrough mission, Russians attacking.  The Russians are attacking from right rear to left.

The Russian infantry attack on the village & wood was disrupted by a Finn infantry counterattack towards the GODs battery in their rear.  The Russians diverted a Strelk unit to deal with it & the attack on the village ran out of steam after taking the first row of houses.  After the Russian infantry was destroyed, the Finn infantry advanced on the GODs.

The Finns prepared a reception committee of KVs & antitank guns for the Russian flanking force of T34s.  The T34s took out the antitank guns, but they needed the GODs to get lucky & take out the KVs.  The T34's gradually died under the fire of Finn artillery & KV's leaving no Russians near the objectives & giving the Finns a costly victory.

Nick in Launceston -- Firestorm Bagration

The lads up north started their firestorm campaign.  In total, 10 players signed up, 5 on each side.  The initial matches were held with much anticipation, testing of army lists, etc.  The most impressive thing though was that there were more FOW games than all others combined, with some fantasy games being pushed to the overflow.

The variety of army lists seen was pleasing too.  Noted were JagdPanthers, Shtraf hordes, lend lease tank hordes, and balanced armies with a bit of everything.

Results were:

Nick B (Shtraf) vs Darren (Panzer): 6-1
Rob (Tankovy) vs Starn (Grenadier): 6-1
Terry (Udarny) vs Daniel (Grenadier): 1-6
Dennis (Strelkovy) vs Shane (Panzer): 4-3

One more game is being played over the weekend - the Father / Son matchup of Nick vs Declan.



 

Hail Caesar 30/08/11

SteveJ's Romans v. Jim's Carthaginians

This week we tried putting the Romans in small units to better represent their organisation.  The Romans had 2 infantry divisions of 5 legionaries and 2 auxilary bows, all small units and 2 divisions of 1 heavy cavalry 1 auxilary spears (all standard sized). 

The Carthaginians had a large Gallic contingent of 5 warbands with 2 skirmisher units, 3 units of freshly painted citizen spearmen, and 2 divisons of cavalry, one with 2 mediums, the other with 1 heavy, 1 medium & 2 light. 

The Romans deployed in their back left hand corner of the table.  The Carthaginians deployed with cavalry on their left, then spearmen with cavalry in reserve behind and Gauls on the right.  The first pic is taken from the Roman right as the  Carthaginains begin to advance in echelon, right forward.  The Roman cavalry on their left is advancing beyond the far wood. 

The second pic (and all subsequent ones) is taken from behind the Carthaginian left.  The Roman cavalry in the foreground is attacking the Gallic right.  The Gauls are charging at the Roman centre which is advancing to meet them.  A cavalry melee is happening on the far flank and the Carthaginian centre is throwing bad command dice and going nowhere.

The Gallic infantry had a hard time fighting the Romans unsupported.  The cavalry fight on the far flank had a lull as both sides regrouped after the Romans won the first round.

The Gauls broke, but the spearmen finally got moving and attacked the RH Roman infantry division.  The Carthaginan cavalry finally won the cavalry fight on the far flank, but the Romans managed to slip their Auxilia unit past the cavalry onto the spearmen's flank.  The spearmen survived the flank attack though giving ground and the citizens gradually got on top of their oposition.

The Romans on the hill broke and Carthaginians were still in with a chance at this stage.   Both sides only had to lose 1 more division to fail morale.  The spearmen were in reasonable shape, the 2nd cav div was covering their right flank and the 1st cav div had cleared up it's opponents and should have been coming to help.

But the Carthaginian 1st cav dithered and the Roman combined arms  pressure on the 2nd cav was too much.  It broke and with it Carthaginian army morale.

That's 3 Roman wins in a row, but another great game & we both enjoyed it win or lose.  And it looked great.   The use of small units for the Romans worked well - it gave the right feel of tactical flexibility.  We again used command ratings of 8 generally with the Gauls +1 if charging at enemy in sight & -1 otherwise - this works well, it makes doing fancy stuff with them realistically difficult.  We tried having the CIC as an extra general for the Carthaginians, allowing a re-roll for command in the division he was with.  In theory it should have provided scope for overcoming bad command dice if he was put in the right place, but he either wasn't or just threw more bad dice anyway.  The other house rule we used was to make sweeping advance compulsory for Gauls who charged.