At Nick's 28/11/08

Game 1: Jim's Panzers v. Tony's US Infantry in 1500 pts MW HTL, US defending.

The terrain favoured the defence with a lot of cover on one end of the table & bugger all on the other. The defender got to choose & of course defended the end with the scrub. Infnatry with 3 Bazookas in a gully around the forward objective, 105s on the rear objective & Shermans in ambush.
The Panzers (all MkIIIs & IVs) charged forward in line abreast losing one to air attack on the first turn & anotehr to the 105s on the 2nd. Then the Shermans popped out of ambush in some scrub close to the MkIVs. The MkIIIs ignored the Shermans and went straight for the objective. They lost tanks to the bogging rolls & to the Bazookas & failed to take the position. The Shermans then turned their guns on the MkIIs & finished them off.
It was a tough ask for the Panzers & they needed some luck they never got.

Game 2: Jim's 7th Armour v. Nick & Tony's Panzers in 1510 pts LW HTL.

The Germans had lots of MkIVs & Stugs + 2 AAHTs but no infantry. They put their objectives in the open.
The Brits had lots of Cromwells, some Fireflies, bugs with 50cal & a rifle platoon. They put one objective in the closed ground on their left flank, the other in the centre.
Two long lines of tanks faced each other in the centre. On their right the Germans had just their SPAA to face the bugs & rifles.
The Germans crept forward with their tanks - precipitating a slug fest between the tanks. The Brits used smoke to force the Stugs to keep moving with ROF 1, but even so were getting the worst of it. Clearly the Panzers were eventually going to win on that flank.
But on the British left their bugs and rifles were creeping forward towards the objective while the SPAA waited behind a hedge. Once close enough, the Brits rushed forward with both spraying the SPAA. The bugs got 1, the Piat missed, but a lowly rifle team got the other leaving the bugs on the objective uncontested. The Germans had to pull a MkIV platoon out of the tank fight to try to reclaim the objective. They opened fire on the bugs, but they used their recon evade to dive behind a house while still within 10cm of the objective. A nervous search of the rule book confirmed that evading teams can still hold an objective & that the Brits had won.

Pic 1: The Panzer burn at the end of the first battle.

Pic 2: An unimaginative deployment from both sides.

Pic 3: The Panzers turn right to take on the bugs.

Pic 4: The German High Command ponder where they went wrong.