Flames of War campaign week 2 this Wednesday gone...
Only got one game in because only half the crowd turned up. After reviewing the campaign mission here's the setup.
He deploys a platoon and his fortifications, inlcude two mahcine gun nests around the monestary at the top of the hill. I deploy randomly on board edges. I roll a 3, and deploy my 45mm A/T guns with 2nd in command facing his machine gun nests. I then roll a 5 for my rifle/machinegun platoon (with attached commissar) and deploy them in the enemy left flank.
All attackers have cautious movement. This means that if I move normally and don't shoot/assault, I'm +2 to hit (ie a 5+ rather than 3+). I advance on him, my AT guns move up. He fires and misses everything. I use volley fire @ 16" and destroy his machine gun nest. My troops move to point blank range and then assault without shooting.
They storm into the base and start handing out death. The A/T guns shoot up the german infantry gun. End of round three, opponent hands in the towel.
The problem with campaign games.
Real life is rarely fair, I had Russian Infantry. They were confident and trained, but nothing to write home about. I was facing German elite SS Totenkopf troops with MG teams. A single platoon for me is 8 bases (9 with Kommissar). My opponent didn't even have that at the top of the hill. His elites were nullified by the 5+ to hit that cautious movement gave me. My A/T gun didn't help either.
Outnumbered and outmanuevered, it was a tough fight, but could he have won?
Options.
Totenkopf have options. For example, by moving all his machinegun teams to the left flank of his hill, he could have delivered devastating firepower, making an assault highly difficult. His choice of the infantry gun also had limited usage. It's low powered and lacking range, useful on the assault, but useless in defence. The machine gun nests ARE good, but only really against rifle/MG troops. With the machine gun nests better placed he could have challenged my location. Bringing the infantry gun to bear on my A/T would also have helped. MG teams are good, but some Heavy machine guns with RoF 6 would have been better AND harder to kill.
I think he could have held me off and forced me off the hill with his machinegun teams. All he had to do was get 5 hits and any charge would fail. Shooting would get me nothing as it's harder to hit vets than trained troops. Using 'stormtrooper' move would have allowed him to get into position to meet the charge and still fired every turn at the full rate of fire.
On the game, I rused a total of 5 points, and my opponent just the 1, but he could have made me bleed for it. And it didn't really feel like a win.
In a nutshell, apart from my A/T guns, I had little advantage. Which gets me thinking on the options for round 2 and 3. Is dropping the antitank guns really the best idea. Or it more a better one?
Thoughts on a postcard please...
