So with the new Market Garden books out this weekend, myself and 'Winner Dave' organised a game, it's only his second outing with his FJ, but he had won the 1st.
we set up the terrain as you can see, and rolled up Hasty attack, I elected to attack at night, so Dave went on the defensive. Dave choose to deploy his heavy Mortars on the back line, and one of his FJ platoons on his right flank/middle (+VDH). He left the HMG's in immediate ambush. I deployed my Light Battery and one Para platoon on each flank, one with Frost (left flank) and one with my IC (right flank). The HMG's then deployed on Dave's left flank and I took my spearhead moves.
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| View from my right flank |
Dave took (IIRC)
VDH with 4 Trap teams
HQ with mortars (*3) and Shreks (*2)
HMG platoon
2 Full FJ platoons
1 Small FJ platoon
Heavy Mortar Platoon
4 Pak 40's
I had
Frost
HQ with 2 PIAT
3 Full Combat Platoons
1 section of mortars
2 Platoons of 4 6PDR's
8 guns of Airlanding Light Battery with medium support
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| Objective in my half |
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| Objective on my left flank |
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| Dave's immediate ambush, and my right hand objective. |
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| Spearhead move right |
A quiet turn on both accounts, my Para's on the right moved into the wood up ahead, whilst the observers scrambled for better views, the Para's on the left also moved up.
Dave attempted to range in with his mortars, but otherwise it was uneventful.
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| Hiding in the woods - sneeky para's |
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| Dave moved his IC and 2IC forward |
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| Frost and Co continue the advance |
The Para's on the right moved to the very edge of the wood, whilst the airlanding light battery managed to pin the HMG's and kill Dave's IC, Frost continued his advance and opened fire with no effect. In dave's turn he managed to pin one of the ALB's observers, and fired at Frost's para's but again was ineffective. My third Para platoon also advanced onto the board.
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| having taken artillery fire dave's spotter got out of dodge |
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| Frost march's on |
The Para's on the left flank moved into assault range but when they assaulted Dave managed to pin them back, losing a couple of stands. On the right flank, the Para's moved into assault range with the artillery pinning the HMG's but in the end only the observer over there dies. Meanwhile the 3rd Para platoon advanced as the mortars and 1 squad of 6PDR's arrived.
Dave had no reserves arrive, his spotter failed to see anything again, and his HMG's did little better, whilst they VDH and the 2IC managed to pin my right Para platoon they only killed one PIAT team.
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| The HMG's pin me, but look at that lovely ranged in marker! |
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| Frost's charge fails |
Morning broke as the remaining 6PDR platoon arrived, the Artillery finally got to do an 'All Gun's repeat' vaporizing 2 HMG's whilst the Para's shooting killed the remaining one, leaving only VDH and his IC defending the objective on my right flank. Frost and co opened up on the FJ platoon and killed one dug in squad.
Finally I assaulted on my right flank destroying the remaining HQ units, Dave rolled for reserves at the start of his turn and failed to get any, and we called it. Victory for Frost!
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| Frost! |
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| King of the hill! |
Discussing after the game Dave felt there was little he could have done to stop me, with his three platoons against my 4. I suggested to him that his plan to deploy a mortar to each FJ platoon may not have been brilliant, and he would have done better using them to form a platoon led by the 2IC and then splitting the HMG's between two platoons and deploying both FJ platoon's with the HMG's and Shrecks.
My one thought is that Brit Para's are quite lethal on the attack, especially with the artillery support, i'm just sad i never got to fire all 8 guns at once.
Well role on this weekend's games and the new Market Garden Books!
I'm far from an expert, but I agree, deploy the two full FJ each with a PZShk, and 2 HMG attached teams. And 2ic with the mortars.
ReplyDeleteBring the rest on as reserves. Sit tight with the FJ and try and pin/hurt enemy artillery with the mortars.
If you can attach out the trap teams too, so much the better. That way you are going to have 2 pltns of 10+ elements sitting on each objective. A far more tricky task of attacking these, and as FJ you have a half decent chance of counter attacking too...
But hey, who'd listen to me - I lose all my games ! ;-)
Thanks for the advice, I'm at that "trying different configurations out" stage. I don't think it had dawned on me quite how easy gun teams are to kill once they've shot.
ReplyDeleteWhilst a bit of list reconfiguration is in order I still don't think I could have altered the outcome of the game as by the end of the game Adam had his entire army on the board and I had not made a single reserve roll, couple that with dawn breaking just when he needed it to...ahh Flames of War is broken, I'm giving up and taking up D-wars instead :)
There you go Adam, you broke me, hope you are happy.
Glad to know I'm in good company...they don't call me winner Dave for nothing!
Sometimes it just isn't your day... the mission, terrain, scenario, troops or whatever can just mean you are on a hiding to nothing.
DeleteHopefully it doesn't happen too often...
Hi, I'm hoping this list was meant to be all-comer for a tourney and not yout thought of an effective anti-para list :)Might wish have short stummel platoon to have in reserves if needed, allowing for you to CA those MGs, you might also want to drop the short FJ for LGs or similar, then just sit on the objectives with full FJS and MGs and see the berets fall :)
ReplyDeleteAlso, 3 Pak40s instead of 4 would give you points to put into something that works on infantry as well. Take this with grain of salt, but if you'll have to attack that para list, it ain't gonna be fun moving those Pak40s to help you with, 4 trap teams seems a bit extreme too, as they aren't that helpful against infantry...
ReplyDeleteHi Mikko, thanks for your comments. I tend to play with what I have (which is very little). I'm terrible at making lists and usually end up with stuff I want to paint as opposed to sitting down and studying what would be good for X.
ReplyDeleteAt the moment, this is my list for any game I play as it's what I have in my carry case, that's just how I roll :)
I think there may be some changes when the new market garden books finally reach my hands, but my resolution was to do a tank company so will be looking for advice on a competitive tourney style list.
As for the 4 tank trap teams, you could well be right, perhaps that is too many. I'm taking 4 for 2 reasons...1) cos they are what I've got in my case and 2) I've not used them before so I want as many opportunites to experience their playing style. Unfortunatley I had surrendered before I even got to deploy them, lesson learned, deploy them sooner!
Have you had any experience of using LGs? I thought there rules meant they'd end up getting blown away quickly and easily.
I am very much like you... now a year later I have collected and painted nearly all Germans option for my troops... the dilemma I now have is knowing what to choose from a bewildering array!
DeleteBest of luck with your list building!
LG's are cheap, so reserve if there are reserves, if not, keep behind your defensive FJ platoon, do not shoot with them, gtg and concealed so nobody is shooting them over 16", when your FJs get assaulted, use their DF, ROF2, AT9 and FP 3+ per gun is nothing to sneeze at. When you attack, you can use them to kill hardpoints, like MGs and so on. They are fragile so don't do any gung ho things with them. If you add pzfaust to the cmd, they might be enough to make the tank assault to go south...
DeleteThanks Mikko. I've got the models, but I ended up using the bases for other things. I guess for 55 point you can't go wrong. Definitely worth a try at some point I think
DeleteNice batrep, I really like your terrain and how the table looks
ReplyDelete