We were playing 1500 points, Late War.
I ended up playing in the first round only, but that game was pretty interesting.
The scenario was Free-for-all.
I was playing the following list:
Strelkovy Batalon (Guards) - Fearless Trained
HQ: CC, 2iC Rifle, Komissar, 4x PTRD
Strelkovy Company: Cmd Rifle/MG, Komissar, 7x Rifle/MG, 7x SMG, Maksim HMG
Strelkovy Company: Cmd RIfle/MG, 7x Rifle/MG, Maksim HMG
Scout Platoon: 5x SMG
Heavy Mortar Company: Cmd Rifle, Observer Rifle, 6x 120-PM-38 mortar
Guards Heavy Tank Company: 3x IS-2 obr 1943
Tank Destruction Company: Cmd Rifle, 4x 57mm ZiS-2
My adversary ran the following:
Panzerspähkompanie (Lehr) - Confident Veteran
HQ; CC Puma
Panzerspäh Platoon: 2x Puma
Panzerspäh Platoon: 2x Puma
Panzerspäh Platoon: 2x Puma
Panzerspäh Platoon: 2x Puma
Aufklärungs Platoon: Cmd Panzerfaust SMG, 6x MG, 4x Sd Kfz 251/1
Aufklärungs Platoon: Cmd Panzerfaust SMG, 6x MG, 4x Sd Kfz 251/1
Anti-Tank Gun Platoon: Cmd SMG, 2x 7.5cm PaK40
Panzer Platoon: 3x Panzer IV H
Rocket Launcher Battery: Cmd SMG, Observer Rifle, Kubelwagen, 3x 15cm NW41
All in all, his list had a lot of platoons, but most of them were pretty anemic. Only the Aufklärungs platoons and maybe the Panzer IVs could make a threatening assault into a decently defended position. If I could stop those platoons, I could mop up the survivors at my leisure.
The scouts and AT guns were protecting the objective on my right, as well as the mortars positioned behind it.
On the left objective, my small Strelk company would be waiting, with the big company in the forests between the objectives. Depending on the situation, they would be able to rapidly more in and support a threatened objective or launch a counter-assault. Each company had a pair of PTRDs.
The IS-2s were fairly central and forward. If I wouldn't need them in defense, their job would be to move forward and attack an objective.
My adversary decided to throw his strength at my clearly weaker left flank.
His larger number of platoons (10 vs 6) allowed him to set this up easily.
Most of the forces on this flank would do very little.
After Recce Deployment moves and my first turn, this is how things looked.
The big Strelk company has moved forwards into the cover of the central woods, the IS-2s have doubled towards my threatened left flank and all other units tried to dig in. Only the mortars failed.
German turn 1. The wave of German steel roars forward, towards my lines.
A smoke bombardment covers some of the Strelkovy on the objective, but very little damage is done.
There is some significant damage, though. The forward Pumas manage to kill the observer for my mortars, who was sitting on the extreme left.
Now those mortars only had a few gaps between the forests to aim through.
Through one of those gaps, they are able to target the massive cluster of German units.
Damage is fairly limited, though, with a single half-track destroyed (along with its passengers) and a single Panzer IV bailed.
Meanwhile, the IS-2s have moved up into position to see the enemy, but their first volley goes wide.
Next turn, they should be able to move onto the objective and make it nigh unassailable.
But first, a turn of German attacks awaits the stalwart defenders of the Motherland.
To start things off, the Nebelwerfers strike at my mortars, which have failed to dig in repeatedly and suffer accordingly.
An assault by the Panzers manages to push the defenders back, but not off the objective. The infantry have dismounted behind them so they're not infantry piñatas for the IS-2s.
Soviet turn 3
Although the defending infantry fail to unpin and fail to dig in, the IS-2s have now moved in to support. Firing on the move, they hit two of the three Panzers, knocking out one and bailing the other (1s on 2+ firepower tests, yay!) and sitting in an excellent position for defensive fire.
German turn 3.
The battle plan from the German leadership was literally "Charge, while ignoring the IS-2s." Unfortunately for him, things didn't really go as planned. The Panzers charged forward, but caught a 122mm round each with predictable results.
After seeing this, neither infantry platoon was even willing to charge.
This left the main German platoons horribly exposed in front of a large force of Soviets, including the heavy tanks, and within sight of a pissed off battery of heavy mortars perfectly willing to rain down high-explosive death on them.
The German player decided there was nothing else he could gain in this situation and surrendered, giving me a 6-1 win.
Bonus feature: what else happened at the tournament?
After that match, one other player and myself dropped out of the tournament; it was quite hot and both of us had been quite busy.
Instead, I ended up doing a bunch of other stuff.
I spent quite a bit of time helping the other players with a bunch of rules questions, since we've got a fairly inexperienced local community. It didn't help that a few of the players had not been able to prepare as much as they had wanted.
The store owner and me also gave a demo to a local wargamer who wanted to have a go. He ended up commanding a force of five Confident Veteran Panzer IVs against a trio of Fearless Trained IS-2s in a game that had a lot of careful maneuvering, trying to trick each other into bad positions away from our objective, until the shooting started.
The German side managed to outflank and knock out two of the three Stalins in the end, forcing the remaining tank crew to give up their weapons and surrender.
Things looked quite dangerous for them at several points, but they managed to pull through without losing any of their tanks.
Meanwhile, the panzerspäh were catching some participants off guard, like in this matchup in round two.
This battle eventually had various vehicles from both sides moving to flank each other around the objective, although the defending Germans managed to hold on long enough to grind the mechanised force to a halt.
In the end, the final scores were rather unusual as well. Three different players had each scored the highest number of tournament points, with no clear tiebreaker available.
So we redistributed the prizes slightly, giving them a joint first place. If they want to decide who's really the best among them, they will have to do so at a later date.
In case you'd like to know, the top three players were running the following lists:
-Germans, Grenadierkompanie (Grey Wolf)
-Germans, Panzerkampfgruppe Wallenberg (Nachtjäger)
-British, Rifle Company (Nachtjäger)
All in all, there was plenty of hunting the enemy at night going on in this tournament.
After this tournament, the next major Flames of War event we're planning to run locally will be an Infantry/Mechanised Aces league, although we might modify the rules a bit to match the local faction distribution.
That should be pretty interesting as well. If you're in the northern Netherlands, you're welcome to join in!
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