The annual X-mas Fow event has been concluded at "Bunkerkommando" Lund. A series of three battles for each player are played. Each player fields an army of 1500 pts chosen from any late war book. The order of battle is as follows:
Axis
Ausbildung 500 (I) (CT)
Ausbildung 500 (II) (CT)
German Grenadiers (CV)
German SS Panzergrenadiers (FV)
Allies
British tank (CT)
US armored rifle (CV)
US tank (CV)
Soviet tankovy (CT)
Round 1
The first mission is played as a random Meeting engagement mission. All players have access to special game cards witch can influence the battle in one or another direction. I failed to note with player had witch card and the battles below are to some extent influenced by these.
Ausbildung 500 (I) vs US armoured rifle (Allied win)
After a few lucky artillery strikes destroying a king tiger and a panther, the Germans fight an up hill battle against two platoons of dug in bazookas. A last brave tiger assault is attempted, but just barley fail to push the US of the objective.
Ausbildung 500 (II) vs Soviet tankovy (Axis win)
In this battle the heavily outgunned Soviet tanks stands low chance against the heavy German tanks. The Germans takes no casualties.
Grenadiers vs British tank (Axis win)
After an initial push the British tanks finds them self in having abandoned their own objective, witch is secured by the flanking German reserves.
SS panzergrenadiers vs US tank (Draw)
After three hours of bloody fighting this battle was considered a draw.
Round 2
This round is played as a random defensive battle.
SS panzergrenadiers vs Brisish tank (Draw)
After heavy fighting both sides finds them self in a standoff where the surviving SS grenadiers is to heavily dug in on the objective. In no manner an assault could possibly dig them out without cheating the dices. The game ends in a draw due to time shortage. A fun and even game.
Ausbildung 500 (II) vs US armoured rifle (Axis win)
A quite fun game where the Germans just succeed with every save and morale on their heavy tanks. The US infantry is slowly grinded down in a reversed "Fury-movie" manner. They did however have some help of a special game card, giving the heavy tigers the equivalent of Japanese national tank rules.
Grenadiers vs Soviet tankovy (Draw)
A hard battle for both sides with heavy losses. The Germans just failed to hit the Soviet tanks, but the Soviets also failed to penetrate the line. The battle over due to time shortage.
Ausbildung 500 (I) vs US tank (Axis win)
On this quite open battlefield the German heavy tanks brutally destroy the US Sherman before they could achieve anything.
Round 3
The last round is played as a Random mobile battle.
Grenadiers vs US Armored rifle (Axis win)
It's Cauldron and a good alpha strike from the US rifle kills one of the infantry platoons early on and claiming the objective. To many causalities causes the US armored rife to break due to failed company morale before turn 6 (and the possibility to win on objective).
Aubildung 500 (I) vs British tank (Axis win)
With a quite open battlefield the British tanks fare pore against the heavy German tanks. This Cauldron battle is quickly over in a German victory.
Ausbildung 500 (II) vs US tank (Axis win)
The Axis score a fast victory in this match up, with superior tanks against humble horde of US Shermans.
SS panzergrenadiers vs Soviet tankovy (Draw)
In this surrounded mission the German SS grenadiers fends of a horde of soviet tanks. The time is up before the game ends and with a heavy death toll on both sides this can be considered a Draw.
Comments
This series of battles resulted in a convincing Axis victory, with only two games won by the Allies. The match ups where not very good, as few allied tanks stand a good fighting chance against the "over represented" German heavy tanks (not counting any jumbo shermans or teleport tank destroyers). This obviously affected the results. It's however interesting to see so few infantry companies, as infantry battles tend to end up more static.
Bottom line, this was a very fun series of battle, with some nice influence of random game cards. As usual its more about finding the good match ups to get the funniest battle.
