Wednesday 8 July 2015

Great War AAR - Germans Infanteriekompanie Vs British Rifle Company - The Big Push

Hello All 

It might have taken 11 months but myself and Winner Dave have finally got around to playing a game of FoW Great War together!

We decided to play each of the core missions twice, once as the attacker and once as the defender. I won the first dice off and was the attacker in The Big Push, your classic assault on the trenches.

For the first game we kept it to the forces in the army deals we got summer last year, we will propably change the armies a little over the next few games, I for one want to try out a Stoss Platoon or two!

So here is are first battle report, that has been 11 months in the making.

Note:- We got a couple of rules wrong (not surprise it being the first game) mainly trench reserves (Winner didn't roll for it) and shooting at damaged tanks. 

Also I ended up having to write this post twice as Blogger went odd and deleted my post and my memory wasn't great the second time around. I think I got it right but I may have made a few mistakes. Sorry.
British Rifle Company (Trained)
  • HQ + Sniper
  • Full Infantry Platoon
  • Full Infantry Platoon
  • 4 HMG's (Turned into 4 HMG Nests)
  • 1 Mark IV Male
  • 1 Mark IV Female
  • 1 Whippet
  • 2 OQF 18pdr (Artillery Detachment)
German Infanteriekompanie (Trained)
  • HQ + 2 Flame Throwers + 1 Granatenwerfer
  • Full Infantry Platoon
  • Full Infantry Platoon
  • 4 HMG's 
  • 2 A7V's
  • 2 Trench Guns

SETUP AND DEPLOYMENT

Dave deployed one infantry platoon and two 2 QQF 18pdrs.
Dave's left flank
Dave's right flank
The German left flank
The German right flank

The middle of the German lines.

TURN 1

The Germans move out on their left.
And the middle.
and the right
The A7V shoots at the infantry killing a base with it's MG fire.
The 18pdrs open up on the lead German tank and cause two points of damage.
Ouch!
The MG nests make a mess of the German infantry on the Germans left flank.
The same happens on the German right.

TURN 2

The Germans start to cross the wire.
The lead A7V fails to fix any damage, but the other one moves up to take
revenge!
The Germans on the right also start to cross the wire.
The active German tank blows up one 18pdr.
A trench gun finishes off the other one.
A lucky rifle shot destroys an MG nest.
And the mortar kills an infantry team.
A trench gun also kills a base.
The Germans on the left storm trooper over the wire.
As do the troops on the right.
Dave passes his company moral test and then gets a reserve platoon.
He also brings the sniper onto the table.
The Mark IV immediately takes revenge for the 18pdrs damaging the active
A7V.
The HMG Nests continue to rack up the kills on the German right.
The one on the left is less effect and only kills one team.

TURN 3

The Germans pour towards the trenches getting their flame throwers ready!
The troops on the right do the same.
The flame thrower on the left hits twice!
On the right it hits once.
One of the A7V's fixes its self and returns fire on the Mark IV cause some
damage.
On the left flank the Germans assault into the trench and kill one base.
The British counter attack killing the Platoon commander.
and the Germans fall back.
On the right the assault is far more successful and the Germans just walk in to
the trenches.
The British reserves arrive.
The 1IC moves over to contest the objective.
The MG fire hits it's mark and puts the Germans on a moral test.
Which they fail...

TURN 4

I chose to withdraw the left flank platoon so along with the routed platoon I
now have two fresh platoons.
The both deploy on the right and charge at the wire.
The damaged A7V fails once again to fix itself, but the active one destroyers
another HMG nest.
It's MG fire kills two stands of infantry, finishing off the last of the original
infantry platoon.
The second wave of infantry then kills the 1IC, clearing the way to the
objective.
The Germans storm trooper to the wire.
The newly arrived British infantry keeps on coming.
The Whippet arrives from reserve, and it's MG kill an infantry team.
The two remaining HMG nests pour fire onto the German infantry.

TURN 5

The front platoon fails to unpin and digs in, the rear platoon starts to cross the
wire.
The A7V that got two damage markers at the beginning of the game finally
fixes one! But the other one bogs down crossing the trench...
The HMG's start to move over.
The HMGs fire at the newly arrived infantry and through shear weight of fire
kills a team of infantry.
The trench gun has much better luck and kills two teams!
The infantry Infantry Vors! into the trenches.
The Mark IV Female arrives from reserve.
The Female finds the mark and kills and infantry team.
As does the HMG nests (the team that dies was from the unpin platoon)
Which causes the Platoon to break within reach of the objective...

TURN 6

The recycled platoon arrives on the Germans left where there are no HMG nests
The other platoon unpins and starts to cross the wire.
Nothing happened in the shooting phase ans the rest of the platoon crosses the
wire with a Infantry Vor! move.
The Whippet and HMG nests rip into the right flank infantry platoon.
The Mark IV shoots and...
...disaster for the Germans as one of the A7V's is destroyed!
The infantry runs off... Not good as the Germans will lose at the start of the next
British turn if a tank can push it to get into the trenches or the Infantry that
turned up last turn can't pass an Infantry Vor!

TURN 7

It doesn't come down to that as a trench gun destroys the Whippet breaking
Dave's British.

4-3 to Ben.

Well that went down to the wire! One failed to hit or firepower on that Whippet or a Infantry Vor roll and I would have lost the game! Still cracking good fun and something very different from normal FOW.

I really didn't understand how tough the Tanks and HMG nest were going to be to kill. The Land Fortress rules really make the tanks a focus point of the game. Sure we did get a rule wrong about ROF against tanks when they are damaged, but they are still tough cookies.

I think I should have tried to clear the wire with the first wave of infantry, I will try this next time I play this mission. You might end up losing a platoon of infantry doing so (well maybe not, I guess as they don't move to cut the wire they would be in bullet proff cover), but the ease you would be able to get the following troops through would really put the pressure on.

We both really enjoyed the game and expect a few more after actions reports very soon.

Thanks for reading Ben.

Generated by WWPD's BatRepper Software.

4 comments:

  1. An excellent report, full of action and daring do's!

    ReplyDelete
  2. A very interesting and exciting game report!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Excellent report, beautiful game!

    ReplyDelete