AAR – Welsh Guards vs FJ’s – Road Block.

Hello All Welcome once again to another exciting AAR. Once again I'm up against Winner’s FJ’s – but we thought we'd take a different approach to this game. For a start we're playing the mission ‘Road Block’ this was in the Wargames Illustrated back in September I think, but with it being a possibility at Corrivalry in February and also a nice different mission, we thought we'd give it a go.  We'd agreed before hand to slightly theme our forces, and also to pick matching armies, so I returned to my Welsh Guards and Dave went for Von de Heytes FJ’s.

Guards Lorried Rifles HQ Full Rifle Platoon Full Rifle Platoon 3 Cromwells and Challenger 3 Cromwells and Challenger 6 Universal Carriers 4 25 Pounders 2 Bofors

Fallschirmjagers VDH + 2 Trap Teams HQ + 2 Panzerschreks Full FJ Platoon Full FJ Platoon 3 Pak40's 4 10.5cm Artillery (CV) 1 Jagdpanther 4 HMGs 3 Mortars 3 Mortars 2 Recoilless Guns 2 Flak 88's (CT)

Generated by WWPD's BatRepper Software

The Board and Deployment

The set up on the mission is unusual as we knew we had to have a road on one side, and spent a little bit of time constructing a realistic(ish) setting to game over. For this mission Dave selected one of my units to ambush – choosing a Tank platoon. Dave would get a free shot with his ambushing unit – but casualties inflicted don’t count to platoon loss or moral loss – so if I loose a while platoon I’m not down a point from the get go. There were some other unusual rules in that all my forces had to face one way down the road, I was hit on my side armour and couldn’t use gunshields. All in all I was expecting pain at the start.

I deployed the Cromwells on the road between a hedge and a field – hoping for the cover to save me. Alongside them no the road I deployed a carrier platoon and an infantry platoon.

Turn 1

Dave deployed half his force with the Pak 40’s ambushing, he also deployed both FJ platoons, the Jagdpanther and his artillery. The game started with the ambush and the Pak 40’s opened fire on the Cromwells killing 2 of them, my carrier platoon headed off to daves deployment area.

As my reserves were ‘rushing to the rescue’ I had 2 platoons arrive, I decided Synergy was the way to go so had my Infantry on the cromwells, they raced up behind a wood to threaten Dave’s artillery. At the Same time my already deployed infantry decided to try and take out the PAK 40’s along with the remaining Cromwell. Sadly the assault was a disaster as over 3 rounds of combat I think I hit twice (a shot from a Cromwell taking out one) but it left one gun and the commander.

Dave continued to use the Pak’s to shoot at my comwells killing another, the JP fired from far away and missed, meanwhile both FJ platoons started slogging towards objectives.

Turn 2

As Always if at first you don’t succeed try again. The reserves this time was my other carrier patrol and again they went after the Pak 40’s. My infantry dismounted from the tanks and moved into the wood, but not peaking out the far side, whilst my tanks went round the side and destroyed a couple of the artillery pieces. Sadly combat was again a failure as the one Pak 40 destroyed one carrier on the way in, both missed in combat and Dave killed one, before the other bugged out!

Dave continued to move his forces towards the objectives, I was very glad he was doing very poor storm trooper roles. He’d so far got no reserves either. His artillery direct fired at my Cromwells and missed, but his Pak 40 bailed the remaining Cromwell on my right.

Turn 3

My infantry adavanced towards an FJ platoon, but I was going to be just out of range to assault, but I did manage to use the tanks to get rid of his artillery. Meanwhile my Artillery arrived and finally managed to remove the last Pak 40. In doing so it freed up the remaining Cromwell and US to start shooting at the advancing FJ’s.

Dave stayed still with his FJ trying (and failing) to dig them in. he did get some recoilless rifles and HMG’s in from reserve to shoot at my tanks (no luck) and infantry respectively – killed a couple of stands, but a fairly surreal Mexican standoff continued. He also deployed his 2 trap teams one failed against the cromwell, and one failed to shoot the artillery

Turn 4

My last reserves the static bofors arrived among the artillery. I moved the infantry into assault range and also the tanks. Whilst the infantry pinned the FJ, and the remaining carrier on the left took out a recoilless gun, my tanks were less useful with their smoke! However I assaulted, which was very bloody, and whilst dave ended up with only a couple of teams, so did I – and lost the IC and 2IC in the process. Meanwhile on the other side with the advancing FJ’s my artillery, carrier and crmowell attempted some more damage – to minimal effect.

Dave got his mortars on this turn, but decided to hide the rest of his broken FJ platoon behind the hill, whilst advancing the HMG’s to try and finish off my infantry – they killed one platoon but the man held! Meanwhile the other FJ approached my remaining infantry platoon which had been static in the middle all game, but my defensive fire was too great!

Turn 5

I was now noticing time was running on so decided to go for the win – anyway I could – as if I lost I would loose the game. I started by getting units into place to assault Dave’s FJ advancing to the right objective, whilst my cromwells looked for some easy VP’s in the back field – if I’d had more time I think I should have moved the cromwells to the other objective as they would have been more effective there!

So the cromwells took out Dave’s HMG’s this was his 3^rd platoon lose, 3 more to go to break him. I also moved the Cromwell and Carrier to assault his FJ’s having pinned them with the artillery. However despite killing a few stands Dave passed his moral test whilst I lost my units remaining there.

Dave moved into the wood and took control of the objective whilst the Jagdpanther shot the artillery.

Turn 6

With no way to contest the objective I went to try and get 3 more platoons. The cromwells moved to assault the Flak 38’s recoilless rifles and remaining FJ platoon. The artillery still had one FJ team under the template – It was a long shot to kill it and hope they broke.

In the end Dave passed his save under the artillery template, and whilst the cromwells killed the Recoiless guns and Flak38’s they broke off from combat with VDh and an FJ command team. Dave had the objective and won the game.

Epilogue

It was a great game! It was lovely to play a really unusual mission and a nice new challenge, I loved that we had pretty themed lists and had a really close game. I would highly recommend everyone giving this mission a go as it’s really good fun.