AAR - Mid War - Mixed Tankovy Vs Panzer Pioneers - Dust

Hello All  I'm back again with another AAR with my Mixed Tankovy building up to Reading Warfare, this time I was playing Robin. As Robin is doing Early War at Reading he asked me what I waned to play against, I said "take something my Mixed Tankovy will struggle against". So I got to Robin's and found I was playing against Panzer Pioneers again... but the list was different (no Brummbars! But Panthers...).  We rolled up Dust Up, I was going to ask to re roll it as I had just played the same mission against KP last time out (see the AAR here), but I then thought it would be good to see if I had learned anything from my last game. Hopefully I learnt something.

Mixed Tankovy HQ KV-1e 6 KV-1e 10 Matilda CS 8 Stuarts + AAMGs 4 BA-64 Limited Seagull

Panzer Pioneers HQ + Panzerknackers Full Pioneer Platoon + Panzerknacker Full Pioneer Platoon + Panzerknacker 3 Pak 40s 1 Looted KV-1e (CT) 2 Panthers 3 Nebs

Deployment

The Board

I deployed aggressively, I left three Matildas behind on the objectives
in case Robin got early reserves. 

Robin deployed to defend his objective from both my main force and my
reserves.

The Pak40's were spread out to cover all the approaches.

Turn 1

The Soviets won the dice off to go first and charge forward.

The KV's open up with MG's but do no damage.

Robin smokes the Kv's to stop them using their main guns.

Turn 2

The KV's keep coming and use the wheat field to give them cover.

The Matilda's Move onto the hill to give the KV-1's fire support. 

The Soviet Airforce arrives and pins the Pak40's.

Again Robin smokes the KV's but this time also block the line of sight for
the Matilda's...

Turn 3

Very boring turn, the KV's move up and do no damage and Robin smokes
them. No reserves for either of us.

Turn 4

Reserves! The Stuarts arrive but thanks to the terrain they all have to make
bogging tests...

...and one bog's.

The KV's move to the side to block the line of sight to half the paks and
focus on the Nebs.

The Stuarts open up and kill one of the Pioneers.

In Robin's turn he forgoes smoke to shot at my KV's with his Paks

Destroying one.

The Nebs focus on the Stuarts also destroying one and bailing another one.

Turn 5

My last reserves automatically turn up and again all have to make bogging
tests, with one car failing.

No other movement for me and the KV's take out a Neb.

The Stuarts concentrate on the Pak40's and take one out.

In Robins turn the Panthers arrive from reserve.

And promptly destroy a Matilda. 

Turn 6

The rest of the Matildas move back to protect the objectives (by which I
mean sell their lives to buy me time!)

The mobile recon doubles over towards the panthers, hiding behind a forest.

The Stuarts again shoot up the Paks, pinning them but otherwise they cause
no damage. 

After causing no damage in the shooting phase the KV's charge the Nebs
and infantry. The pak's defensive fire shot is bounced and the KV's run
over a Neb and one stand of pioneers.

Robin's Germans pull back and the KV's keep coming.

Robin tries to withdraw the Nebs off the table but fails his skill test and so
they are destroyed.

Robin gets both reserves and start to move towards the objectives.

One of the Panthers moves up to shoot the arriving Matildas.

The far Panther misses but the closest one destroys two more Matildas.

The Paks shoot the Stuarts and take out two more.

Turn 7

The Matildas move up to save the objective and to catch the Pioneers in the open.

The BA-64's move up behind the wood to contest the objectives if the
Matildas rout.

The KVs keep coming, taking aim at the Pak 40's...

...and take out one of them putting the Paks on a test which they pass.

The Matildas catch the Pioneers in the open and destroy over half the
platoon. But the pioneers hold.

With the Pak's mostly dealt with the KV's charge into the infantry again.

They only destroy one team and again Robin pulls back.

The KV's push Robin's infantry back after the combat, at this point the
objective is in my hands

But robin is able to sneak the 2IC around the sides and contest the objective.

The combined fire from the Panthers and Captured KV reduces the Matildas
to 3 tanks,,,

...and they fail their morale test.... why do I spend all these points on
fearless troops?

Turn 8

The BA-64's are able to move up and contest the objectives, yes one of them
is face to face with a Panthers! (I never said it was a safe plan!)

The Stuarts move up to help clear the objective.

The KV's attack the German infantry to try and clear the other objective,
forgot to say some of the infantry failed to dig in after the last assault.

The Stuarts take out the remaining Pak40 and the platoon commander runs off.

One of the pioneers in the open is taken out by MG fire.

The KV's again assault the Pioneers.

And again only take out one team.

Robin falls back again and if he fails to unpin the game is mine!

The Stuarts assault the observer for a free move.

The Panthers and looted KV move up to shoot the armoured cars.

Killing one and bailing the other two, they pass their test buying me another
turn to win the game!

The pioneers unpin thanks to the 1IC and move up to contest the objective.

The rest of the platoon storm troopers to try and hide from the KV's.

Turn 9

The turn starts badly as the two armoured cars fail to remount.... again why
do I spend the points on fearless! I now have to try and break robins army,
two platoon kills will do it. But the plane fails to show and the best I can do
is one...

We play on for the rest of my turn just to see what would have happened if
the BA-64's had passed their test. The KV-1's wipe out the pionners...

...and the Stuarts kill the 2IC....

...even with 3 of them bogging on the way out. If one of the BA-64's had
passed the test I would have had both objectives and Robin wouldn't have
been able to stop me... oh well!

4-3 to Robin, but man I feel like that one was taken away from me... failing the 3+ Morale test on the Matildas and then 2 Motivation tests on the BA-64's to keep the objective contested was a little unlucky... saying that Robin failed almost every 4+ unpinning test he tried to make so I guess that sort of balanced out. Still that could have easily been a 5-2 win to me.  On the positive side I felt I played a lot better than I did against KP and really dictated the the game. It would have been nice if the plane had been a little better, that's two games now with the grand total of 2 pinned platoons and no casualties. Still too late to change the list. I have another couple of practice games coming up before Warfare so hopefully I will do a little better before that weekend.  Thanks for reading Ben

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