| Hello All, Welcome to the second AAR from my weekend at Matt's. Matt was once again using 21st Panzer Grens but this time the list was a little different having Tigers instead of Panzer IV's and the FlaK 8.8's.  I was trying out a 51st Highlanders list I quite liked the look of. I'm not sure about playing with reluctant troops as I like to use my British Infantry aggressively but it a lot of tournament players have been using them as I figured I'd give them a go. We rolled up Fighting Withdrawal, one of my favourite missions. I chose to night attack (stop me if you have heard me say that before), I wasn't sure if that was the best idea as I would be relying on Defrocked Priests and Reluctant troops to get the job done, but I love to attack and you need to try these things out. |
21st Panzer Grenadiers (Confident Veteran)
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51st Highlanders (Reluctant Veterans)
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SETUP AND DEPLOYMENT
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| The M10's and a platoon of infantry deploy on the left flank. |
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| The British middle. |
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| The British Right. |
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| The German right flank. |
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| The German middle. |
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| The German left flank. |
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| Spearhead move. |
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| Spearhead and Recce moves. |
TURN 1
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| The M10's follow the infantry on the left flank towards the middle of the table. |
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| The British middle gets moving. |
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| The Carriers and Infantry in Priests spread out. |
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| The Churchills brave it alone on the British right flank, the British maintain fire discipline and do not try to shoot this turn. |
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| Matt advances the Pak 40's to get a better line of sight. |
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| The Tigers Ambush! But fail to see anything... |
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| The observer spots the M10's and the Nebs rain down fire on them, bailing one. |
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| The Pak's stormtrooper forward. |
TURN 2
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| Not wishing to get bombarded again the M10's spread out. |
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| The Priests also spread out a little, but try to keep the pressure up. |
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| The 6 pdrs hold back to not get too bunched up and let the wasps move up. |
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| Seeing the Tigers appear a head of them the Churchills go hull down behind a hill. again nothing in the British army shoots. |
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| Von Luck arrives from reserve. |
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| The 10.5cm (Sf) H39 spots the Priests and blows one up, killing all the troops inside! |
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| A Pak40 manages to pick out an M10. |
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| The Nebs fire down death on the 6pdrs and Wasps, destroying a Wasps and killing two AT guns. |
TURN 3
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| The M10's regroup to focus on the 10.5cm (Sf) H39's, |
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| The Infantry get out of the Priests near the center objective. |
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| The other platoon of infantry also get out of the Priests having seen what happens if you stay in too long! |
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| The Churchill's shoot at the Pak40 (Sf) H39's and hit one blowing it up. |
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| Despite moving the M10's manage to hit and destroy 2 10.5cm (Sf) H39's. |
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| On Matt's turn night does not lift, but the Nebs still find the mark destroying another Wasp but the infantry survive the bombardment. The remaining Wasp fails it's morale test and runs off. |
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| The Pak 40's shoot at the M10's again and blow another one up. |
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| The Tigers score a couple of hits on the Churchill's and their armour does not save them. One is destroyed and another one bails. |
TURN 4
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| Day light breaks, the British infantry moves up towards the 10.5cm (Sf) H39's and Nebs guarding the objective. |
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| The M10's reposition to support the infantry moving towards the objective. |
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| The Carriers re-position and... |
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| ...shoot at Von Luck killing him in his car. |
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| The British artillery finally opens up and pounding the Nebs and 10.5cm's. One 10.5cm (Sf) H39 is bailed and a nebs is destroyed. |
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| Even with the 1IC's re-roll the 10.5cm (Sf) H39's fail their morale test and withdraw. |
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| With the path to the objective now open the infantry assault... |
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| ...after a swift combat they kill the Neb platoon commander and the Pak38 driving the nebs back... |
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| ...But the nebs pass the morale test for being below half strength. They are just (and I mean just) contesting the objective. |
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| Matt pulls the Tigers over to try and help the nebs, they shoot up the infantry pinning them and killing one base. |
TURN 5
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| With the Tigers distracted the Churchills move forward. |
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| As does the second platoon of infantry. |
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| The Carriers move up to shoot at the Pak40's and keep them busy. |
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| The Infantry fails isn't morale test to unpin... |
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| The remaining two M10's shoot at the lead Tiger taking it out! |
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| The artillery then bombards the other Tiger also destroying it. with that Matt calls the game. |
| 6-1 to Ben. That was quick and brutal! Once day light broke on my turn 4 was where I needed to be and I took advantage of a couple of good breaks. taking out the 10.5cm (Sf) 39H, failing the morale test with the 1IC re-roll was unlucky, as my infantry got to the objective was key and made what would have been a risky assault a walk in the park (even if they did get pinned down and stopped me from taking taking the objective...). After that Matt was on the back foot and had to move the Tigers over which brought them into line of sight of my M10's, again it was good like to kills both in one shooting phase. Overall I don't think Matt did much wrong, I might not have deployed my FA 2 or 1 tanks in an exposed position even if they were concealed. One or two lucky hits and they won't last long. They'd have been better hiding behind buildings or wood and storm trooper back behind it after shooting. One of the things I have really enjoyed about all the Normandy games I have been playing recently is that things like Tigers are still scary! Yes I have some AT 14 but there is a lot less good AT that can destroy them and (more importantly) there is far less the British and US have that can take a hit from them. It's nice to mess around with the "meta" like that and is something I think I'll look to keep on doing in my local games. Thanks for reading and until next time Ben |
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