More Italians v Indians - 1500 points - Breakthrough
Blindfury's honey was out of town this past weekend, so we decided to take advantage and get a good game of FoW in. The usual 1500 points of Italians vs Indians, with some slight tweaks from our last fight. I had two full fortified platoons, a battery of 75/27s, a battery of 100/17s, a platoon of three M11/39s, a platoon of three L3/35s, a platoon of three L3/35 flamethrowers, and my trusty Falcos. 8 Million Bayonets was not that kind to me, I ended up with a lot of Reluctant Conscript troops, but I guess that's the risk I take. Blindfury brought two full Rifle platoons, two full HMG platoons, a full mortar platoon, a platoon of three 2 pdr portees, a platoon of three valentines, and sporadic air interceptors.
We set up the terrain per the book. FoW's random terrain generator has actually been fairly good to us, and helps eliminate a lot of the blind spots and terrain clumps that I'd always run into playing 40k. So we split the table up into six 2'x2' sections, and rolled the dice. We ended up with a village, a blank spot and two oases on one long edge, with a blank spot, two rocky outcroppings and a blank spot along the other. So a lot of open space, with a couple obvious choke points.
This time the mission was "Breakthrough", where the defender picks two opposing corners of the board, and the attacker sets up in the third corner, with two objectives going in the remaining corner. I picked the corner with the village and it's opposite, which left me with decent terrain to secure, and left blindfury with a lot of open space. He opted to put the objectives in near the oases, so that he'd have some cover when he was trying to take them.
My setup was a fortified platoon and my 75/27 battery in the village, and a fortified platoon, my 100/17 battery and my L3/35 tankettes in the other corner. My M11/39s and L3/35 flamethrowers were left in mobile reserve. Blindfury set his Valentines, his portees and both infantry platoons as close to the rock outcroppings as possible, trying to find cover from the village. He left both HMG and his mortar platoon in reserves.
A couple interesting things about this mission. First - victory conditions don't take effect until round 6. So Blindfury couldn't just march his valentines in and take the objective. We both had reserves, but his reserves actually came in right behind the objective as a flanking maneuver. And finally, Blindfury exercised his right to do this battle as a Night Fight, which limits range and movement and keeps my Falcos grounded until day breaks.
Turn 1: BF's first turn saw him moving forward through the rocks, in an attempt to close in and crush my one fortified position. His one infantry platoon rushed one of my artillery observers that had been up on the rocks, and his valentines moved up screening most of his troops. His fire was actually minimal - Night Fight! and I survived unscathed. My first turn saw my tankettes backing away from his advancing troops, and I unloaded on anyone I could see. That was primarily his infantry that rushed my observer, and I managed to eliminate three stands and pin the unit.
Turn 2: BF's second turn saw his troops rally (damned fearless!), and launch an assault on my poor observer. His valentines also managed to punch into my fortified position - taking out some of the barbed wire but leaving the troops and nests unharmed. My plucky tankettes advanced, opening fire on the already injured infantry troop. Three more died and they were pinned, but the fearless bastards wouldn't rout! My HQ called down an artillery barrage on the advancing valentines, managing to bail one out.
Turn 3: BF's valentines remounted and continued the charge into my fortified platoon, killing four stands and forcing them to retreat. His portees moved up on my advancing tankettes and knocked one out. My tankettes continued to go after the wounded infantry group and managed to reduce them to one single stand, but again fearless saves the day. The real surprise came from my fortified platoon. My 100/17 battery fired directly into the oncoming valentines, bailing one. My 45/27 nest with my fortified platoon managed to bail out another. With only one remaining tank, my HQ launched an all or nothing assault. They managed to bail the last tank, which resulted in my winning the assault, automatically destroying all bailed tanks. The number of ones that BF needed to roll was legendary, but the end result was that his invincible valentines fell to a couple guys with binoculars.
Turn 4: Despite the stunning loss of BF's valentines, he pressed on with his portees and remaining infantry in through the gap between the rocky outcroppings. His portees unloaded and wiped out my platoon of tankettes. Daylight finally broke, and my fortified position finally eliminated his injured infantry platoon, but the rest of my fire fell harmless.
Turn 5: BF's remaining infantry unit moved forward towards the objective. He also had both of his HMGs come in from reserves, and they moved to the objectives. One HMG platoon managed to reach his objective outright, the other needed to move it doubletime. Both of my reserves made it onto the board, and both did a mad dash towards the HMG units holding the objectives. I unleashed artillery hell on both of them as well, pinning the unit that doubletimed it, but completely missing the other unit. It was up to my Falcos to come in and neutralize them - but they were chased off by BF's air interceptors.
Turn 6: BF's HMG unit managed to hang on to the one objective, so the day is his.
So despite some amazing turns in misfortune, Blindfury pulls out an incredible last minute win.
As with every game, there's always tons of "what-ifs". What if my artillery had pinned his HMGs on turn 5? What if my HQ didn't take out his valentines? What if night had ended earlier or hung around longer? What if I had decided to move my troops from the village position towards the objectives? But despite that, I feel like it was a game well played. BF's tactics continue to baffle me, he is a much more aggressive player than I tend to be. Last game I didn't handle it so well, but I feel like I did it right this time, by setting up my artillery to have full fields of fire, and by keeping my flamethrowers in reserve so they could come in where the threat was. Had his valentines continued to roll through my position, my flamethrowers would have dropped right in, nice and close and ready to fire.
I also feel like we are getting the rules down, which makes for a much smoother game. We still take forever, but that's part of the enjoyment. Taking your time, enjoying an adult beverage, and talking everything out makes for a good time, as opposed to the super-competitive atmosphere I've seen at con games (especially in 40k). The win isn't as important, so it's easier to just enjoy the play.
I've also really enjoyed the better documentation of the games. This time I snapped pics at the end of each turn, and by flipping through them I can get a real sense of how the game went, which makes it a lot easier for me to look back and see what strategic errors I may have made.
We set up the terrain per the book. FoW's random terrain generator has actually been fairly good to us, and helps eliminate a lot of the blind spots and terrain clumps that I'd always run into playing 40k. So we split the table up into six 2'x2' sections, and rolled the dice. We ended up with a village, a blank spot and two oases on one long edge, with a blank spot, two rocky outcroppings and a blank spot along the other. So a lot of open space, with a couple obvious choke points.
This time the mission was "Breakthrough", where the defender picks two opposing corners of the board, and the attacker sets up in the third corner, with two objectives going in the remaining corner. I picked the corner with the village and it's opposite, which left me with decent terrain to secure, and left blindfury with a lot of open space. He opted to put the objectives in near the oases, so that he'd have some cover when he was trying to take them.
My setup was a fortified platoon and my 75/27 battery in the village, and a fortified platoon, my 100/17 battery and my L3/35 tankettes in the other corner. My M11/39s and L3/35 flamethrowers were left in mobile reserve. Blindfury set his Valentines, his portees and both infantry platoons as close to the rock outcroppings as possible, trying to find cover from the village. He left both HMG and his mortar platoon in reserves.
A couple interesting things about this mission. First - victory conditions don't take effect until round 6. So Blindfury couldn't just march his valentines in and take the objective. We both had reserves, but his reserves actually came in right behind the objective as a flanking maneuver. And finally, Blindfury exercised his right to do this battle as a Night Fight, which limits range and movement and keeps my Falcos grounded until day breaks.
Turn 1: BF's first turn saw him moving forward through the rocks, in an attempt to close in and crush my one fortified position. His one infantry platoon rushed one of my artillery observers that had been up on the rocks, and his valentines moved up screening most of his troops. His fire was actually minimal - Night Fight! and I survived unscathed. My first turn saw my tankettes backing away from his advancing troops, and I unloaded on anyone I could see. That was primarily his infantry that rushed my observer, and I managed to eliminate three stands and pin the unit.
Turn 2: BF's second turn saw his troops rally (damned fearless!), and launch an assault on my poor observer. His valentines also managed to punch into my fortified position - taking out some of the barbed wire but leaving the troops and nests unharmed. My plucky tankettes advanced, opening fire on the already injured infantry troop. Three more died and they were pinned, but the fearless bastards wouldn't rout! My HQ called down an artillery barrage on the advancing valentines, managing to bail one out.
Turn 3: BF's valentines remounted and continued the charge into my fortified platoon, killing four stands and forcing them to retreat. His portees moved up on my advancing tankettes and knocked one out. My tankettes continued to go after the wounded infantry group and managed to reduce them to one single stand, but again fearless saves the day. The real surprise came from my fortified platoon. My 100/17 battery fired directly into the oncoming valentines, bailing one. My 45/27 nest with my fortified platoon managed to bail out another. With only one remaining tank, my HQ launched an all or nothing assault. They managed to bail the last tank, which resulted in my winning the assault, automatically destroying all bailed tanks. The number of ones that BF needed to roll was legendary, but the end result was that his invincible valentines fell to a couple guys with binoculars.
Turn 4: Despite the stunning loss of BF's valentines, he pressed on with his portees and remaining infantry in through the gap between the rocky outcroppings. His portees unloaded and wiped out my platoon of tankettes. Daylight finally broke, and my fortified position finally eliminated his injured infantry platoon, but the rest of my fire fell harmless.
Turn 5: BF's remaining infantry unit moved forward towards the objective. He also had both of his HMGs come in from reserves, and they moved to the objectives. One HMG platoon managed to reach his objective outright, the other needed to move it doubletime. Both of my reserves made it onto the board, and both did a mad dash towards the HMG units holding the objectives. I unleashed artillery hell on both of them as well, pinning the unit that doubletimed it, but completely missing the other unit. It was up to my Falcos to come in and neutralize them - but they were chased off by BF's air interceptors.
Turn 6: BF's HMG unit managed to hang on to the one objective, so the day is his.
So despite some amazing turns in misfortune, Blindfury pulls out an incredible last minute win.
As with every game, there's always tons of "what-ifs". What if my artillery had pinned his HMGs on turn 5? What if my HQ didn't take out his valentines? What if night had ended earlier or hung around longer? What if I had decided to move my troops from the village position towards the objectives? But despite that, I feel like it was a game well played. BF's tactics continue to baffle me, he is a much more aggressive player than I tend to be. Last game I didn't handle it so well, but I feel like I did it right this time, by setting up my artillery to have full fields of fire, and by keeping my flamethrowers in reserve so they could come in where the threat was. Had his valentines continued to roll through my position, my flamethrowers would have dropped right in, nice and close and ready to fire.
I also feel like we are getting the rules down, which makes for a much smoother game. We still take forever, but that's part of the enjoyment. Taking your time, enjoying an adult beverage, and talking everything out makes for a good time, as opposed to the super-competitive atmosphere I've seen at con games (especially in 40k). The win isn't as important, so it's easier to just enjoy the play.
I've also really enjoyed the better documentation of the games. This time I snapped pics at the end of each turn, and by flipping through them I can get a real sense of how the game went, which makes it a lot easier for me to look back and see what strategic errors I may have made.