You know if a game is good if you can still go back and play a set of rules that brought you to wargaming. Everyone has an entry level wargames rules set that got us into this hobby we are still doing. For most people who know Kalissa and I, this was Flames of War. And I still like to go back to it from time to time. In this case, I had an opportunity to play a game with a newer member of our wargaming group named Robert. He has a few armies for Flames of War. Of course, I will play!
So the plan was to meet up at a place called Hit Point Hobbies in Aberdeen, NC, since it would probably be easier to get to for him. Also, I still keep running into road closures do to the last hurricane. I did not feel like putting someone through the maze that GPS might take him. Not a problem.
I brought a 1750 point list of Panzer Lehr Panzergrenadiers. The actual points spent was 1725. I consisted of Confident Veteran Grenadiers with a lack of halftracks. I only brought four of them. I don't know if that would have been a game breaker. I have three Pak40's, two 8.8 Flak guns with extra crew, three Panther tanks, and a Reluctant Trained riflemen men. It was not the best list. This was especially true when going up against American Armored Rifles. My side lacked some mobility, but it was a pre-made list I randomly chose.
Robert brought his American Armored Rifles. Two platoons of his infantry armed with the works, a recon platoon, a platoon of four Priests, four M18 Hellcats, and an armored platoon of three Sherman tanks (two 76 mm and one Jumbo). All of his stuff was rated Confident Veteran. One of the Shermans was a proxy unit for the Jumbo, but he made it easy to identify.
The mission we rolled for was "Hasty Attack". Robert was on the defense while I attacked. With Robert's Americans having delayed reserves, I figured I needed to get up to positions for good assaults. I "doulbe-timed" my Panzergrenadiers to get as close as possible. My Panthers were there to pick off armor. Needless to say, the whole plan seemed to go wrong. One issue was the lack of my reserves. They did not make it until turn 3 when his delayed reserves started to show up. Second, I lost my Panthers on turn two, so that left the Sherman tanks available for whatever was needed. Three, my list did not have good qualities for an attack force. When I raced my Reluctant Trained riflemen up at the double, I did not expect to be met by all of the reserves immediately afterwards. They were killed in one round of shooting! The whole game was a slaughter for the Germans. They failed to get to any objectives based on all failures to assault, defensive fire, and bad morale rolls. The only thing my guys did well was roll saves. By all accounts, they should have all died on turn two. The game ended as a 6-1 in Robert's favor.
Despite all of this, it was a fun game. I think that Robert might of felt bad beating me up so bad, but I am used to this. I tend to win maybe 10% of my games, but I love to play and model. What can I say!
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| The board. |
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| The rush of the Germans. |
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| The Panthers are gone! |
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| More Germans rush to the train station. |
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| A fierce firefight breaks out! |
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| The rest of my AT assets. |
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| I fail to assault leaving this tank the ability to back up! This denied a platoon kill. |
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