Kampfgruppe Anders

Before we had our epic War and Conquest struggle yesterday we played a Bolt Action game on the Saturday, I haven't played BA in a while and Stewart has only a couple of games under his belt but we had all day. I am not keen on the scenarios used in the rules so I decided that the British had made a successful attack on a village in Normandy and were awaiting the inevitable German counterattack, this attack would be an armoured Kampfgruppe from 2nd Panzer Division. The British would get reinforcements but they would be unsure what would turn up and on which road and when.

I was the British and Stewart took the Germans, I originally had three infantry squads with some heavy weapons support and an artillery observer, I had to rely on a 6pdr AT gun and a Cromwell for anti-tank weapons, I had an armoured car also. The Germans came on in numbers with five squads, two in halftracks and two in trucks, they also had an armoured car and a small halftrack as well, the real punch came with a Panther, Panzer IV and StuG III.


As they arrived the Panther took a long range shot at the Cromwell which was behind a stone wall, the shot bounced off but it had given me a shock, however I decided to leave the Cromwell where it was hoping the Panther would not be a lucky tank. I did withdraw the armoured car as it was looking down the barrel of the StuG. I had set up my 6pdr to deny the main road to the Germans but of course as they now came down both sides it was in a useless position.

The tank duel continued and I hit the Panther but my shell bounced off, I think I hit it twice and got nowhere. The Germans now poured fire on my advanced squad behind a hedge, due to their cover and being afraid to pop their heads up they took very little casualties, I moved the armoured car over to this part of the battlefield hoping to use it against the halftracks and German infantry as and when they broke my front line. In his urge to kill my guys Stewart forgot my PIAT team hiding behind a tree, the enemy armoured car ventured into range and bang, it went on fire and its turret jammed, but it was not knocked out, my armoured car also took a shot and missed. Around this point the Cromwell brewed up from a Panther shot.

The German assault on my right was not pressed as much as on the left, I loosed mortar rounds, small arms and dropped a barrage on these troops, all I got out of it was setting the Opel truck on fire, I did hit the top of the StuG but did no damage, I was most dischuffed. The StuG eventually gave me an opportunity to assault it with one of my squads, these brave lads clambered all over the vehicle but sadly to no effect apart from dispersing from their efforts. There was now nothing to stop the StuG turning on my centre squad.

I did get more British troops and the first to arrive was a Sherman tank on the left hand road, I drove it into the same area as the burning Cromwell, I also moved the 6pdr to this side but left it in the middle of the bridge sealing off the road, what was the chances of more stuff coming on that side? Pretty good as it happened, a Churchill now rumbled on on the same road, gah! By now I only had one squad in the village and the last one was coming under increasing pressure, seeing as I had backed my armour into a corner and it was move six we called a halt, Kampfgruppe Anders had won back the village, my famous curry and the pub beckoned.

I would play this again but instead of rolling for each reinforcement and what turned up I would make one roll for all of them, albeit they might come on on different roads still, I would also start rolling perhaps from move 3 and maybe make the game a little longer as we used a big table and a lot of troops. A good four man game perhaps. One thing which did stand out was the change in going Down, this now gives a -2 rather than a -1 to hit and this allowed my front line infantry to survive for far longer than they should have, we think we will go back to -1 for home games in future.

A good weekend of wargaming, more tomorrow night and back on the bloody War and Conquest field on Thursday, the year is picking up. Oh and I am now 99% OK.