The Battle of Hill 2525

[Hayabusa]

Played in a Flames of War miniature game today at my local game store and got in two games of the mini tournament between Axis and Allies. I brought my Irish Guards to the tables for my first one vs. one games, as all of my previous experiences have been in large mega-battles.

The first game didn't go so well for me, as I had poor placement and was quickly defeated.

The second was much more competitive. It was my armoured squadron against a German infantry company. The scenario was called "Breakthrough" where the board was divided into four quadrants with the enemy defending two diagonal squares when I had only one and had to reach and keep the objective on the opposite side.

I started in a little village and put my infantry support inside of the buildings and my tanks outside near the road. My scout tanks moved along the left flank and peppered the entrenched Germans with machine gun fire while my main squad moved to engage the troops on the other side of a row of houses.

A poorly thought out bayonet charge around the houses killed a squad of my infantry, but the tanks managed to take out that platoon with a pincher attack, crushing some troopers while shooting the others. A few small squads elected to surrender when they failed their morale check.

German StuG reinforcements arrived from the northeast, but missed their shots at my two Firefly tanks. They returned fire, destroying three of the six. I continued to make my way towards the hill, while the Germans on the western portion of the battleground began to fall back towards the hill to defend it.

On the third turn, it was my turn to see if reinforcements would come in near the hill and managed to roll high enough. Coming in full throttle, an armored platoon raced up to the top of the hill and began to defend their position as a group of German halftracks began make their move from the southwest.

On the race to the hilltop, my second commander was killed as was two of my Firefly tanks and a Stuart recon tank. On top of the hill, with all off my armored forces, the final battle began in earnest. Wave after wave, infantry forces climbed up the hill and assaulted my tanks but fell on the counterattack. At the end, the enemy didn't have the morale to make one more assault and fled, leaving me the victor.

Yeah, it was certainly a fun game and my first victory at Flames of War.

[Egalitarian Thug]

1. Would you mind if I ask how old you are?

I only ask because, from your brief description, it appears that you have a very limited knowledge of tactics and capabilities in a semi-realistic battle setting. Bayonet charge? Infantry assaulting armor?

[Hayabusa]

2. 28

And the bayonet charge was actually assaulting another infantry squad on a street. I called it a bayonet charge because it sounds cooler. Yeah, it was a bad move and I paid for it by losing a squad to them.

And none of my infantry assaulted any tanks, it was a last-ditch move by my opponent (who ran a mostly infantry list) to try and get my armored platoon off of the hill objective. And he had some panzerfausts in those squads, but they weren't able to destroy any of my tanks.

[Egalitarian Thug]

3. Re-read my post and it reads pretty dickish. My apologies, that was not my intent.

Is this a WWII era game? I ask because there are so many sources of well proven and devastating tactics tactics available out there and this sounds like some kind of a tournament.

If this game seeks realism, the Panzerfaust and bazooka were both useless in real combat situations and since the opponent was unable to take even one of your tanks indicated it might be.

[Hayabusa]

4. No problems

Truth is, when I saw the title only, I was thinking "Oh no, someone telling me to grow up and stop playing with 'toys'" and I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't.

Flames of War is a WWII era game, focusing only on the European theater of operations. The closest that they've come to Asia was a short-lived Vietnam War expansion that's not that popular in my area.

As for Panzerfausts, the game seeks a bit of realism. They have Anti-tank 12, which means that I would have to roll better than a 12 using my tanks armor rating and a six-sided die added to it. If I fail, he'd have to roll a five or better to destroy the tank.