Flames of War post today. Battlefront, the nice people who bring (read, sell) me Flames of War, put out a special, "Valentine's Day Massacre" scenario for the game. Details can be found here
The basic idea was that it was a team game, everyone was limited to taking an infantry formation, and no one could take more than one armoured platoon (or for me, company) in support. We played my Soviets, plus Randy and Mike's Amerikanski imperialists, against Dave and Daniel's Fascist invaders of the Rodina (with them also running Randy's Germans, so it was three against three). 1500 points each meant 9000 points on the table in total. And despite the fact that the armies were only half painted, and we only got about three turns in, it looked fantastic, and was a blast.
The table was 12' by 5', and had loads of terrain:
The armies deploying. The first shot is a view from our left, before the forward detachments went down - in my case, a company of lendlease Shermans. Mike is on our left, with my Soviet infantry and heavy morters in the middle, and Randy is on the right, with his heavy artillery distributed along our base line. I only have one full company of infantry painted, and need two for the core of an infantry force, so was forced to use unpainted models (boo, hiss).
Some shots from turn one (we were attacking, and had first turn). Randy's Shermans moving into the ruined cathedral. See that observer hiding in the ruins? Guess what happens to him?
The centre-right, turn one: My infantry and Randy's trudge forward. See those lone bases on the other side of the table? More observers. Guess what happened to them, too?
Our centre-left. You can see my shermans gunning for the German line (see those Stugs? Guess what happened to them?). On our left, Mike and Dave were kind of in a stalemate - both had limited artilley, both had veteran infantry, and neither had the kind of fire support necessary to pin the opposition. Had the game gone on longer, I could have punched through with my tanks, and supported Mike, but we ran out of time. At the bottom right, you can see my heavy morters. I love those guys. Cheap, effective, and with enough range to be a real threat. Mmmmm. Morters.
Here you have the last stand of Daniel's Stugs. My Shermans had advanced under the cover of the wheat field, blunting his fire to the point where, while he bailed out a few of my tanks, none were take out of action. At this point, he's lost one Stug to artillery, and the rest are about to pull back into cover of the forest.
My Shermans rolled up, and proceed to gun down both his tanks and the Neiblewuffers to their right. You can also see some of Mike's infantry advancing in support - again, if we had time, the plan was to swing left and break the infantry stalemate.
On the right, Randy's tanks had run into some trouble. Daniel pulled off a fairly effective assault by infantry on tanks, using the ruins and a smoke bombardment to cover his infantry. This was, I think, the highpoint for him - he had brought a load of artillery, but for some reason couldn't range in to safe his life. You can see the aftermath here, with the remaining tanks in the platoon pulled back from the ruins. And no, that observer didn't make it either.
A couple of angles towards the close of the game.
This was a hoot to play. If we did it again, I'd say we definitely need more time - set the whole day aside, with some time to break in the middle. As it was, we had to stop just as things were getting interesting. From a tactical perspective, I'd say next time we'd do well to concentrate our armour - the potential for a stalemate between infantry is high, and having mobile direct fire support would make all the difference for us as attackers. There's some talk of doing it again, but with armour-heavy forces - can't wait ;)
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