Fallschirmjager v US Tank Company - No Retreat

Good evening all and thanks for reading, Winner Dave here.

This is my first AAR, so be gentle with me.

Ben cam round this morning for a game, I've been working on my terrain recently so I could put a board together.  Ben brought his buildings, which is why you can see 2 sets of the battlefront subscription building sets. Here's the board from 2 photos and a map I've thrown together on photoshop.

I was using my FJ's and Ben was using his newly painted Chaffee Company he got for Xmas.

A roll of a 3, then a 4 and it's only "No Retreat"

I'm defending so I choose ends, we place objectives and I decide to keep in reserves, Light mortars, heavy mortars and 3 StuHs

I deploy 2 full platoons of FJs, each platoon command has a faust.  I decide not to put the Pak40s in ambush, mostly because Ben has an AOP and I don't want it messing with my ability to deploy them.

Here's how that looked

Then Ben deployed

Here you can see 2 platoons of Chaffees, 2 Recon platoons, the security section for Hellcats and in the rear there's some 105mm Artillery.

I've got the objectives well covered in FJs and Pak40s.  Then 2nd Platoon is covering the flank.  I was surprised that Ben spread out his deployment, as I expected him to focus down his left flank and make a concerted effort on the objective on the road.

Ben makes his recce moves by pushing his platoons forward and we're off!

Turn1 - BD

After the recce move Ben only needs to do a little re-organising on his right flank, then opens up on the infantry.  A theme begins developing straight away goes like this...

I say "HOW MANY DICE!!!"

Ben rolls, hits, I fail saves, Ben fails firepower tests

Rinse and repeat

It's a similar theme for first platoon, except they are pinned.

Also his AOP is hovering over my Pak40s, but fortunately he fails to range in....sad face for Ben.

Ben's left flank chaffee platoon with CinC and 2ic, with recon elements move up to attack first platoon.

Ben's right flank, chaffees, recon and I think security section.

Recon doing a stirling job of keeping those snow covered woods clear of trap teams.

Chaffees, darn machine gun toting dealers of death.

Turn1 - WD

I don't get reserves
I need to unpin 1st platoon and of course roll a 2, fortunately Mr CinC is on hand and I pass the re-roll.

I decide to go early with the trap teams and place 2 down.

2nd Platoon has 2 panzershreks attached form the HQ, so they move about, one gets into range, shoots and misses a recon jeep.  (It was a long shot anyway)

In my assault phase one trap team gets blown away by a tonne of defensive fire, the other one manages to assault Ben's artillery observer a kills him.

1st Trap team goes down, he assaults the jeep, but gets cut down by defensive fire from the Chaffees.  A minor miscalculation on my part.  I focused too heavily on getting him deployed that I didn't think about what I was going to use him for...very silly.

2nd trap team down, they assault and kill the observer...its a laugh init?

The obs fail to stop the assault because they are too distracted by the localised snowing phenomena.

PanzerShreks get brave and move up, the guy in the woods stormtroopers backwards after that.

Turn2 - BD

Again a bit more re-organising, Ben pushes even closer to 1st platoon.  When shooting, I fail a bunch of saves, Ben fails a bunch of firepower tests.

However, this time the artillery ranges in on a Pak40 on the 3rd attempt.  I fail a save, Ben fails FP...again!

Ben getting all up in 1st platoon's face

Are those crops to scale?

We can take em!

Uh oh ranged in

Moving away from the shreks

Turn2 - WD

So I get a reserve roll.  i'm thinking I could do with some smoke, so my 2ic turns up with the light mortars from the HQ section.  Shame they can't fire this turn.

Grrr, a pak40 has a ranged in marker on it...he's got to leave the safety of his foxhole and get out from under it, so he moves.

2nd platoon's shreks fire at a jeep, hit but the jeep saves, they then consolidate into one building.

1st Platoon's shrek moves forward into a building hoping for a lucky shot

Pak40s open up, but all miss. :(

I move the deployed trap team off to cause mischief with Ben's artillery.

Turn 3 - BD

By clever positioning, I have to allocate most hits to the two Shreks that are in the building when Ben open's up on them.  Even after 11 hits, only 1 goes down.

Ben's artillery ranges in again on the moved, fired, pak 40.  First time, so he benefits from time-on-target.

I roll two 5's, Sorry Ben :)

One dead panzershrek

Turn3 - WD

Ever wondered why they call me winner Dave?  Well you're about to find out, in a move that is so full of winner Dave it really explains it beautifully.

So i've got the smoke, I've got tanks in front of me, and a full and large platoon of FJs, just itching for some action.  There's only one thing for it...move up, pop smoke and CHARGEEEEEEE!!!!!

Only Ben points out that I'm charging from crops, so I have cover anyway.  So the smoke is a bit pointless.  Oh yeah...Uh oh this is going to be very very bad isn't it.

I don't know how many dice Ben threw, but he was using his, mine and a few extras we have lying about.  About 7 stands die.  I fail morale check and CinC fails re-roll.

In one fail swoop, i've killed one of my most important assets.  Lost my company commander and left the way wide open to an objective.

Why did I do this, well to be honest I did not do the math at all and for some reason got it into my head that if I can get smoke down, then I'm okay to charge.  Also I was thinking, well what else do I do?  Ben's tanks are going to slowly whittle my platoon down anyway, the Pak40s are going to die to artillery fire eventually and I don't really have anything significant coming on from reserves....so what are my options???  in retrospect I should have held on a little bit longer...like 5 turns longer.

Oh yeah, Heavy mortars turn up from reserve.

Moments, from death

Heavy mortars arrive, whilst they can't fire this turn, for the rest of the game they manage 1 bail

This sneaky little guy has worked hi way up to Ben's artillery and promptly dispatches that howitzer in assault...Nice.

Map update...this takes longer to do than I first thought, but I'm a bit out of practice with photoshop...i'll get better.

Turn4 - BD

So, Ben and I know that in reality this is game over...but we play on.

Ben kills 2 pak 40s and pushes up his right flank.  He doesn't pin 2nd platoon so decides not to assault.

The chaffees on his left flank move forward to take the uncontested objective.

Ben takes the objective...err wouldn't it better to keep them in cover???

Shooting

Two, dead but we only have 1 litko token on us

Turn4 - WD

At this point, all I want to do is kill one of his platoons.

Here come the StuHs...

They work surprisingly well, killing 3 chaffees.  The Pak 40s look for revenge and kill 1.  The heavy mortars bail another chaffee.

Ben makes his platoon morale check, but i've done enough damage to stop him from owning the objective.

I also popped a trap team, but he died from defensive fire.

The trap team assaulting the artillery, continues his reign of terror and kills another howitzer.

Turn5 - BD

In a surprise to us both, the game has continued.  Ben de-cloaks the hellcats but they have to move and I think only manage to kill 1 StuH

Turn5 - WD

I move the StuHs up to contest the objective and kill off the remaining chaffee, so I have my platoon kill at least.

Pop the final trap team and he finally manages to assault a jeep and kill it.  The trap team assaulting the artillery kills another piece...he's just freakin awesome.

2 StuHs left, and i have the objective in contention...but not for long

Killing some artillery

Don't worry about the machine gun

Oh....

Turn6 - BD

Ben's tank destroyers make mincemeat of my remaining StuHs and I shake his hand. 5 - 2 BD

Thoughts...

I really screwed up with the assault thing, but hopefully I won't make that mistake again.  I'm learning all the time and one day...one day I'll do it right.

I hope you've enjoyed this, my first AAR.  Feedback is always welcome.