Pesky Commies

Winter is definitely biting, another dreadful night and to cap it all it poured down, we arrived a tad early at the club and we had to stand around in the rain, thankfully for not too long before Matt the Key turned up. I can't judge the traffic at the moment with all the roadworks so I am either late or early.

Bolt action had been arranged and there was four of us, so I thought we don't want the game to be too big so 600 points each should give us a reasonable force and a tank. I didn't sit down and make my list up until a few hours before the game when I realised that if you want a tank you are not going to get much more bang for your buck. I said I was taking my Hetzer so I was stuck, in support I managed two infantry squads, a First Leiutenant and a sniper, I did give the infantry panzerfausts for that extra anti-tank capability.

My team mate Andy had brought three infantry squads, two Hanomags an MMG and a 60cm mortar, so no A/T weapons, one halftrack had a 37mm gun on it but against Russian armour it was pretty pointless. The enemy had about six or seven infantry squads, a lot of them inexperienced but also one elite, MMG, sniper, flamer, a truck and a T34/76. Both Simon and Johnny had some lovely troops, I particularly liked the guys with Molotov Cocktails, Andy's early war Germans also looked very good, these are all in the main Warlord Plastics, sadly I do not have the patience to glue them together and would forever be fearful of breaking rifles and sticky out bits, but they are lovely.

The game begins.

We set up a simple scenario with three objectives, two were fairly close on our right and we naturally put most of our forces to siezing them, way over on our left I put the Hetzer with nice open fields of fire to the crossroads, I also felt secure as the T34 was about the only thing which the Soviets had which was a threat, I also put a squad with the tank for protection. As the game kicked off I managed to get a shot off at the dreaded flamethrower and whooped with delight at killing it, only to be told the Russians have a special rule where you mistakenly shoot the second team member and not the flamer as he carries something which looks like the flamethrower. Now considering how awesome these snipers are at taking people out why mine would be dumb enough to fire at the dummy flamer I cannot understand, anyway the upshot was we did eventually kill the team as they made their way to the cover of the nearby hedges.

Objective ahead.

Deliberations.

I had kept my Hetzer off until the end hoping to get a shot at the T34 but Johnny got the last die in the bag and he clanked on, turned and let loose only to miss, I now prayed for my die to come out first next time. I was in luck, a German die, no matter what was going on elsewhere I used it to shoot at the T34, miss, it shot back, miss. A large firefight was in progress on my right as Andy dug in around the objectives, his little mortar and MMG tried their best to take out Simon's sniper to no avail but they did keep his head down. I now made a mistake and threw my Hetzer support squad forward blocking it shooting at the T34 and allowing them to take fire from one of the buildings, the T34 fired again and missed, I fired at a Russian squad trying to outflank me with the remote controlled MG and also missed. Johnny's inexperienced squads were taking quite a beating but were refusing to run, mind you at times Andy's shooting was pretty ropey. I managed to get my suicide squad up into 'faust range of the T34, two charges smoked towards the target, duds!

The stand off.

Two objectives were contested as the game neared its end and neither of us would be able to claim them, this left the one on my left which the T34 sat on, I lost my squad just as I had decided to retreat them but it meant the Hetzer could again fire, kill the T34 and no one could claim the third objective and a draw would ensue, you know what's coming, a miss! So a slight victory for the Soviets.

The Soviets make their bid.

Andy holds on.

I thought I had done better this time and not rushed in until that daft moment I sent the support squad forward, the tank duel was frustrating for both of us, if either of us had managed to knock the other out flanks would have been rolled up. I haven't had a lot of BA games but I cannot remember any of my tanks brewing up the enemy, I did knock out a KV1 with a Panzerfaust once but have not been able to repeat that since. Anyway, a good game on a lovely table with some really nice figures, the rules are beginning to stick now so we can only get faster, we also managed a good bit of banter and that's what its all about.

And a big thanks to Ryan who, at a loose end, acted as dice meister.