Late War AAR - 29th Infantry vs 9th Panzergrenadiers - No Retreat

Hello All  I have had a hankering to play some themed games and so I asked Andy if he'd be up for a Normandy Bocage game with his German vs my US. He was really up for it so rocked up at his house with a bucket load of Boccage terrain and we set out to play.  We decided on 1675pts, Andy was using the 9th Panzer Division in the form of Grenadiers as thats basically the only list he could make from what he had. I was using the 29th Infantry as I had just painted up some Crocs and I wanted to use them. We rolled up No Retreat and as I was auto attack thanks to the Crocs I was the attcker.

US 29th Infantry HQ + 2 Bazookas Full Infantry Platoon + Pioneer Upgrade + Flame Thrower Full Infantry Platoon + Pioneer Upgrade + Flame Thrower 4 81mm Mortars 4 M10's Cav Recon 4 105mm Artillery 4 155mm Artillery 3 Churchill Crocodiles - Allied Platoon AOP

9th Panzergrenadierkompanie HQ + Panzerschreck Full Grenadier Platoon + Faust Full Grenadier Platoon + Faust Full Grenadier Platoon + Faust 4 12cm Mortars 3 Pak 40's 5 Panzer IV's 4 10.5cm Artillery

SETUP AND DEPLOYMENT

The German artillery holds the back objective. Pak 40's are in ambush.

Two platoons of infantry hold the forward objective, one platoon is in the church.
There is also an observer in the church tower.

The US right flank

The Crocs, TD's and Cav recon move up the middle.

The recon move.

TURN 1

The US infantry moves out.

The Cav Recon moves up to spot the Infantry next turn.

The TD's and Crocs roll out.

The AOP circles the Axis infantry.

The Mortars smoke the observer in the church tower.

The artillery ranges in with Time On Target, but fails to cause any damage.

The Germans counter bombard the recon but also fail to cause any damage.

TURN 2

The Infantry continues to advance.

The middle platoon gets to the bocage and for some reason I thought it was a
good idea to bunch up... no idea what I was thinking,.

The Recon moves towards the artillery

The TD's spread out.

The Crocs continue their advance.

The Artillery repeat bombards but again causes no damage. The Mortars fail
to smoke the German observer. 

The German artillery makes me pay for my mistake as I fail 5 saves out of 7
hits!

The first German reserve turns up, the 3rd platoon of infantry.

TURN 3

The Infantry fail to unpin or dig in...

The Crocs near their target.

The TD's and recon head towards the reserve area.

The active platoon of infantry continues the advance.

This time the mortars smoke the observer.

Another repeat bombardment causes no damage...

The Panzer IV's arrive from reserve.

The reserve infantry platoon moves up to the edge of the bocage.

Seeing the Crocs getting close the artillery trys to deal with them from afar
but all the shots miss.

TURN 4

The Infantry get into position.

The Crocs move up and start the flame thrower.

The Security section moves out.

Again the mortars smoke the tower.

The Crocs kill five infantry teams! The artillery also repeat bomabrds and
causes no damge... why did I spend all those points on the artillery!

Ambush! The Pak 40's pop out behind the Crocs.

The artillery continues on the TD's and recon but only bails one vehicle 

The Pak 40's destroy the Croc that hadn't fired yet and bails another one.

TURN 5

The M10's ambush to target the Panzer IV's 

and the Pak 40's.

The second infantry platoon finally unpins and advances.

The first infantry platoon goes in for the assault.

But the mortars, 105mm artillery and 155mm artillery all fail to smoke the
tower and the flame thrower misses....

The M10's kill a Pak 40.

One Panzer IV bogs and the others advance towards the M`10's

One Pak turns to face the new target.

Bailing one.

The other pak re bails one of the Crocs.

The Panzer IV's bail one M10 and destroy another.

The infantry that failed to assault the infantry in the church are battered by
the artillery.

and then by the newly arrived German Mortars (sorry forgot to take a photo of
that for last turn).

The platoon then runs off.

The Panzer IV's storm trooper towards the M10's

TURN 6

The remaining US infantry move into the Hotel.

The AOP finds a new target.

The light mortars smoke the tower again, a turn too late...

The Artillery destroys one Panzer IV and bails another.

The Cav recon moves up to shot the side of the Panzer IV's but fails to hit.

The Panzer IV's move up to the bocage to target the M10's

Between the Panzer IV's and Pak 40's one more M10 is destroyed and another is
bailed.

TURN 7

The infantry continue to move into the building.

The Cav recon moves up to help the M10's

The artillery looks to take advantage of the Panzer IV's that bunched up to
but only bail all three.

The Crocs kill one German infantry man. They pass their second platoon moral
test.

The Paks destroy another Croc

Who then run off.

The Panzer IV's remount but cause no damage to the M10's.

TURN 8

Looking to try and kill a platoon and head towards the Pak40's

The flame thrower kills one.

The artillery load real shells this time and kills takes out two of them and bails
a third, but the platoon holds.

The infantry charges, one dies to defensive fire but they get the charge off.

The German commander counter attacks killing the bazooka

The infantry kills the pak40's platoon commander

and then both platoons runs off. At this point I call the game,

5-2 to Andy. I could have kept on attacking and if I had killed the Panzer IV's I would have had a good chance of winning, but it was late and it was going to take a long time.   I made a mistake bunching my infantry up so much at the beginning when I should have run them up the road to spread them out, this basically cost me that platoon. The second real turning point was when I failed to get the assault off against the church, failing to smoke with 8 dice and failing to hit with the flamethrower was unfortunate but to fail all the saves afterwards really cost me any chance of winning the game. This was my first time with infantry in Boccage and I have learnt a lot. I do think the Boccage rules need a change, I think you should be able to cross bocage on a skill test with infantry when you first make contact with it and them cross automatically next time if you fail the skill test (a bit like buildings). Still cracking game and I think next time we will try it on a 4 by 4 and see if that makes it easier to use. Thanks for reading  Ben

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