Canadian Armoured Recce vs Fallschirmjagers – Free For All

Hello DrCox here

So another Saturday evening, and another titanic fight between myself and Winner Dave. I felt like returning to my Canadian’s and more importantly trying something new, for this I decided to try the new Armoured recce, they looked an interesting beast to tackle, with the potential to be very very hard to hit!

So we played 1750pts and our lists were:-

DrCox's Canadian Recce

Hq – 2 Shermans

Combat platoon – 2 shermans, 2 fireflies

Combat platoon – 2 shermans, 2 fireflies

Recon – 2 Stuarts

Rifle Platoon

AA – 2 bofors SP

4 Sextons

Winner's Fallschirmjagers

VDH and 4 traps

HQ 3 Schreks, 2 mortars

FJ platoon with Fausts

FJ platoon with Fausts

1 HMG sections (combat attached to FJ platoons)

Heavy Mortars (2 sections)

Scout platoon (2 sections)

4 Pak 40’s

The field of battle

objective on my right

objective on my left

dave's objective on his left

dave's objective on his right

So having rolled mission, I choose the long edge with the hill to deploy on, I kept my Stuarts in the middle, Sextons on the hill, Bofors protecting my left objective, rifle platoon on my right objective, and one Sherman platoon with 2IC on right flank, and the other Sherman platoon and Company Commander in the middle.

deployed shermans

 Dave deployed his two FJ platoons with their HMG’s across an objective each, his PAK’s in the middle, scouts on his right flank, and both sets of mortars on the left flank.

FJ's on defence

Prior to turn one my Stuarts moved between the two Sherman platoons – I don’t like those trap teams.

On turn one, the two Sherman platoons moved up, I decided to get them into range for eye’s and ears and mistakenly thought they’d be GtG (dave only reminded me when we went to buy beer at the end of this turn!) meanwhile the AA moved up on my left flank as did the observer Sherman. My shooting was entirely ineffective

Who has the worst luck me failing my saves, or dave failing the firepower?

dead observer

In dave’s turn he hit three shermans I’d left to close together but due to his bad dice rolling they were only bailed. He revealed 2 trap teams, one failed miserably against a firefly, whilst the other wasted my observer Sherman – at least only 2 more to surprise me!

bofors hit the trap team

I spent the next couple of turns moving my shermans up my right flank, lifting GtG with the Stuarts and whittling down the mortars. Dave in an attempt to stop me redeploying my other Sherman platoon over there, moved up his FJ platoon and scouts on my left flank, forcing my shermans to move that way, bogging a lot it seemed. Meanwhile the bofors hit some infantry including taking out the trap teams.

Dave smoking me

Dave continued to frustrate my shermans plans to sit back and shoot by smoking them forcing them to move, gradually though due to their advance he was forced to move his Pak 40’s to respond, in the meantime his FJ platoon on my left had got bogged down in the woods. 

FJ moving forward

Dave was getting frustrated with his inability to destroy my shermans and moved his FJ platoon on the right to try and attack my shermans, but also my IC and a stuart. Sadly the Sherman and stuart managed to pin the platoon with their shots all hitting!

Shermans advancing

Redeploying Pak's

On the left side my Bofors destroyed Dave’s scout platoon, whilst the shermans used their MG’s to take down the FJ now in the open. Dave did manage to pick off a couple of bogged shermans though.

After Dave learnt how to smoke he kept doing it!

With the ongoing fire from the Shermans eventually the FJ platoon on the right fled, with that the Stuarts whipped round the back and took out a bogged down Pak40 whilst the Shermans picked off another and the Company Commander.

Dave attempts to charge some shermans

A stuart and a sherman hold back an FJ charge

Despite trying to move the other FJ platoon back, the stuarts hit the mortars in the backfield, avoiding the other PAK’s shooting at them. 

Shooting Dave's FJ in the open

Without being dug in Dave's FJ vanished

Mortar fire on my left flank kept dave pinned

Me clearing the left flank

With VDH holding the objective on his own and Stuarts behind him sherman’s in front, Dave winnered out…

VDH on his own!

I enjoyed the Canadian recce, it’s hard to hit, and has lots of firepower. I think that if I get round to properly redoing the list I’ll possibly drop the sextons for a land matress, and maybe the bofors for more stuarts, but a list I like a lot!

The winning shot!

 Well hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading

Dr Cox