Post by Tiger505 on Jan 12, 2009 23:49:16 GMT -5
Well I find myself sitting at home reflecting on the best gaming weekend I have had the pleasure of experiencing. The fact I had agreed to go despite having not qualified was a bit daunting as I expecting the grinders to be very grueling and did not really expect to get into the big show. So to begin I took my 600 point force which was exactly 6 Stug IIIGs into the meat grinder. So 6 Stugs making up my CIC, 2IC and 1 platoon of 4 that was my gamble and it paid off. I won’t go through a detailed account because after 8 games before 730 it’s frankly a blur but I earned a slot in the top 8 and my shot for the next day. The icing on the cake was I ended the day with the 2nd place finish after learning how annoying Gothmog can be with hellcats. I ended my first day at Hcon with 11 games played and many lessons learned on making a hand full of tracks function.
Now that I had actually gotten into the tournament I had to dig into my bag and break out the one army I truly enjoy using. Since I had used 6 tanks to win my shot I figured I would use 6 bigger tanks to have some fun. 6 Tiger 1Es making up my CIC, 2IC, and combat platoons backed by 2 Sdkfz 7/1 tracks with a short unit of FJ. BTW I love the online options for tigers! I had based my army on the SS 102nd from the area of Hill 112 at Normandy. That means the FJ are standing in for SS Grenadiers from 9th and 10th it was the only way to get FV infantry in the points allotted.
Round 1 and Encounter begins with 6 tigers facing off against a short priest battery (with spotter plane), 2 armored rifle platoons on foot, and an engineering platoon with all of its bazookas. The table gave him a town in the middle and his right flank had perfect terrain to filter through denying my shots. From my side I had a nice ridge in the center and hill on my right flank to deploy reserves from depending on where they showed up. My ace skills where storm trooper on a 2+ for both combat platoons, reroll hits on the 2IC, and motivate on a 2 with the CIC. Turn 1 saw him two moves into the board on my left and me unable to bring any fire against his advance. The engineers filtered forward into the fenced off areas behind the buildings. My first turn saw 3 tigers (2ic and 1 platoon) double time to cover the objective on the left which I had left open to begin with hoping the draw him out of waiting me out while dug in. My right flank tiger platoon with my CIC advanced to the right of the buildings and opened fire on the AR platoon that was dug in managing to kill 1. Turn 2 saw him start to smoke my tigers which he would continue to do through the game forcing me to constantly move. My turn two saw me dress my defense on the left facing the wood that was about 6 inches from that objective, I also got my FJ platoon and lucked up having them walk onto the board near the wood on my left flank ready to dig in and free up my tigers for mobile action. My right hand units open MG fire on the engineers pinning them and killing several stands. Turn 3 saw him sitting inside the wood on my left and bring forward two platoons of infantry on the right forcing me to accept a bazooka loaded assault or dance back and MG which I did finishing off the engineers and leaving his CIC stranded. His reserves started to come on starting with a unit of 3 Sherman’s which promptly double timed out of my LOS towards the objective I had left open. I fell back on the right keeping MG pressure on the unit of infantry that was chasing me and sitting myself up to face the Shermans when they tried to bounce my objective. The next few rounds saw me doing the storm trooper dance gunning his infantry on my left as he stacked his units on my right as they came onto the board. He finally tried to jump me after I withdrew the tiger platoon leaving only FJ and my 2IC on the left but it failed and the resulting return fire killed off that platoon. Now in a last ditch effort he unloaded arty and his Sherman’s trying to bail some tigers to let his recce unit assault. That failed, and the games ended as a 6/1 win. At this point he had only arty to attempt stopping 6 tigers from running over the last 7 stands of his remaining AR platoon.
He made a couple of critical mistakes during the game.
1 He attempted to fight a mobile battle with foot infantry vs. armor.
2 He repeatedly failed to correctly calculate the balance of force at the points of contact.
An examples of this are his attempt to move and assault 7 stands of FJ and a Tiger with RR misses over open ground on the right flank with a single platoon.
3 He used smoke to force my Tigers to move but moving didn’t reduce my MG ROF.
The next round I sat down on the stage with another town in the middle across from 3 crocs and an 8 gun priest battery. He also had 4 m10s in ambush backed by air support. The LOS was broken up by random hedges and a wood on my right flank made the perfect ambush area to stop my advance. In reserve would be 2 units of infantry and some recce carriers. He deployed 1 objective in a huge wood on his end and the other one I deployed forward on the left to use the buildings so my FJ platoon could stop flanking from his M10s. I got 1 platoon with rerolls, 1 platoon motivated on a 2, the 2ic got clever Hans and CIC ROF 3. I deployed the reroll unit opposite the crocs with the other platoon on its right and the independents on the far right flank. The AA unit started in a position to cover ¾ of my force while the FJ advanced with the center unit. My FJ promptly got pinned and remained so for about 6 rounds totally scraping my plan. I managed to advance on a 6 tank front which was broad enough that I was constantly threatening to flank the crocs and turn his line. I lost 1 AA gun early and with the FJ pinned it really limited my options. Because I couldn’t use the infantry to hold the woods I pushed the 2IC into the middle of the woods to prevent him from ambushing on my flank armor. His ambush was popped at the hedgerow in front of my right flank and whiffed. Two m10s died to Tiger fire then he ran them far, far away and I wouldn’t see those again. Just as I had 4 Tigers in place to start smashing the priests and 2 Tigers that could also flank the crocs I managed to roll snake eyes for an arty template and he made both FP tests. At this point I knew I was done as the CIC was dead and I was now totally out of position to force the crocs off the objective I needed. I tried to kill some platoons and failed as Tigers got burned and shelled the infantry got Mged to death breaking my army for my only 1/6 loss.
If I could redo the game I would swap my CIC to my left flank and send one platoon down the middle of town and the other 3 Tigers up the right flank. This would have given me a bit more redundancy if I Murphy went nuts and took 2 out again.
Well now I got shuffled to the beautiful marsh board that I had prayed to never see. On the bright side this happened when the mission let me totally avoid ever driving into it. Across from me was a person I had meet during the grinders as a judge. The objectives went into the far corner wood and just between the town in the middle (a theme that only broke twice) and the wood on my right. Deployed in that wonderful Tiger trap was a large motostrelk unit, a small motostrelk unit, 5 t34 85s, and an armored transporter unit with FT. In reserve was 3 KV 85s, BA 64s, T70s and an ATR platoon. I deployed 4 Tigers to directly attack the small strelk and two Tigers to guard my left flank against the only open reserve route. My FJ went on a flank march and the AA sat up to support the right flank Tigers. The first few turns saw the t34s get caught trying to move and smoked and his reserve all stacking onto the board from the right flank. I managed to whittle down the small strelk and the armored transporter but my FJ died a horrible death when they arrived plowed under by a millions soviets. My basic plan was as always to destroy all ranged threats to my tanks to gain tactical mobility and dominance of the field. Once I cut out the ranged threats it leaves me a totally free hand in dealing with the remaining units. After about 7 turns of dancing I finally managed to take out one KV and drive the others under cover so I tried my luck in the town. I caught the transporter platoon out of cover and managed to gun down their platoon leader and an assault into the buildings broke them to outside the town. Sadly the 2IC was there and quickly brought the FT back and burned my lead Tiger and assaulted it and another one that was bogged from the first assault costing me 3 tanks total! My last 3 tanks proceeded to again assault the buildings and force the infantry back this time successfully establishing themselves on the objective. The next round saw the remaining KV 85s lose a close range gun duel and the rest of the game was me making grinding noises as I ran over helpless soviet infantry. The last turn saw me park a Tiger in the only place he could get a unit in to contest and pull a 4/3 win. The last 4 turns also saw him make a mad dash with the t70s trying to kill my AA unit to force a company moral and every turn I was thanking god for H&C.
The only thing I could have done different in this game is backing off and letting him claim 1 Tiger when he burned me. It would have saved me 2 tanks. The other thing I may have tried is to flank march the AA tracks and used the FJ as an assault force into the right flank woods.
The second day rolled in and upon finding my table I began to cry. As my opponent walked up he said those magic words everyone wanted to hear. “Sir, Sir what army do you have? I have American tanks sir with 76 mm and m10s and . . . . . . . . . . .” I very quickly tracked down Joe and asked with a grim expression how this had happened. How did I bounce down to a person with only 3 points? Well I was told my opponent for the day had not shown up and he was the odd man out so with a sigh and a feeling of dread I went back to face my doom. Now most people upon finding a child across the board smile and think what luck, but for me I know I am going to die. You see karma hates me it truly does and if I so much as THINK about taking advantage of his youthful mind to gain a 6/1 or even try to survive the game I will GURRENTE I ROLL ONLY 1s. So the mission, Fighting Withdraw and the only time in the entire tournament I have to defend. I have a low hill and ridge on my left flank woods in the center and a ride on my right. The only real long range field of fire is on my right flank where I place my objective. He places both objectives on the left as tight as he can. I put my AA, CIC and 1 platoon of Tigers on the left flank and my 2iC in the center woods blocking the road. I deploy my FJ on the back of the right ridge on the lone objective. All 6 tanks get the Clever Hans Skill. He deploys 4 m10s (yes on the board), 5 Sherman 76mm, 5 Sherman 75s, a full AR platoon walking, SP AA, and scouts with priority air support P47. He puts every bit of his army ALL of it on my left flank totally ignoring the right side objective with the lone platoon defending it. Turn one sees the entire horde advance about 50 bog checks and an air strike that for some reason rolled attack dice before the movement phase later he says he is done. I pop my ambush on the back hill fronting the m10s and go hull down with 3 Tigers on the ridge in front of the objectives. A grand total of 6 shots needing at most a 4 to hit see 2 m10s die and that’s it. I then fail my storm trooper checks (I think I made 1 maybe 2 all game). He again calls air and has to be reminded he can’t place the planes off board to use them before pushing it all forward with glee and opening fire. Needing 5`s and 6`s to hit he proceeds to burn his first tiger. My next turn I shuffled back and set myself up to engage the 76mm platoon and whiffed only managing to kill 1 Sherman. He returns fire killing two more tanks with front armor shots one of which needed a 6 to hit! Well at this point I am about ready to strangle him because I have had to explain slow traverse every turn, air craft every turn, and how his m10s behave when an armor save is failed. I have to give kudos to the I95 guys who where helping judge because two of them had to basically live at my table. Now three or four rounds of Tiger’s firing away and Shermans only bailing and remounting is really making me despair when I finally snap. What pushes me over the edge is a group of his giant dice literally being bowled into my tigers. Now I am not the best painter in the world but I worked hard to make those look decent and watching parts fly through the air as he dice bombed me broke something inside my head. Two turns latter my 3 surviving Tigers had broken his army and I walk away smoldering as I tried to return the judges super glue. 4/3 win
This is a game that really got on my nerves. He made so many mistakes I can’t begin to list them but with the normal child’s luck exploiting them was hard.
1 He allowed me to focus myself into 2 areas for my defense instead of stretching my 4 platoons over 3 objectives.
2 He totally ignored the loan infantry on my right making the battle occur at my strongest point.
3 He used his airstrikes on the infantry he was ignoring not on armor or my aa.
4 He didn’t use the ambush ability on the M10s meaning he reduced his ROF when they came into action
Now at this point I really did need to calm down and I lucked up and meet Jeff Huff. He deployed 3 Brit Para platoons and held an assault platoon in ambush for the cauldron and had a beautiful little town to defend. I started with 6 Tigers up. I really lost track of turns quickly. I had a CIC with rerolls, 1 platoon with ROF, 1 platoon with Hans, and a 2IC with motivate on a 2. The really memorable part was how two Tigers stalked up and down the board like circling sharks waiting on his reserves. The 6lber platoon walked onto the board firing 1 volley at a Tiger platoon before being promptly run over. I had deliberately used a platoon as bait for the 6lbers. He was going to get 12 shots of which 6 would hit meaning the best shot he had was a 16% to penetrate with a 4+ firepower. The 75mm pack howitzers decided to run away rather than be assaulted after watching the grisly demise of the 6lber platoon. Only the mortars and tetrarchs managed to reach the town. My ROF and RR Tigers spent something between 10 and 15 turns firing again and again at the same two units in the town finally killing the FT and reducing both to less than 50%. My 2IC circled the entire board chasing the tetrarchs and forcing his mortars to stick inside buildings and stop smoking my gun line. Finally with 30 min to go I advance into the assault. My FJ lead off finishing off the last of one of the Para platoons before breaking and leaving the table (the FJ passed a total of 4 moral checks in the entire tournament). This left me 6 Tigers to clear the town. I had to depose of 2 full platoons of Paras, a 30% strength Para pioneer unit, and the last of the mortars. There was also still two tetrarchs wandering around somewhere acting suitably afraid. Into the streets I go hoping I would be able to suck them out of the buildings. Two turns and 3 assault rounds latter I have lost 2 Tigers and I had managed to chew another unit under 50% and smash the company command team out of the street. YES I think I have him now 5 out of 8 on the board 2 under 50 and 1 at 50. Sadly that was not the case as I discovered he had some named higher command team. So back into the town I go again with the Tigers. In three rounds I lose nothing killing stand after stand of Para until that fateful 4th round where I roll 5 twos in a row on bog checks breaking my company, survivors 1 Tiger, about 7 stands of Paras, 3 mortars and 2 tetrarchs. ¾ loss
Well I was very pleased despite my loss I counted the sheer destruction I caused on a very tough and numerous enemies to be quiet a feat of arms. So it was with delight I walked to my next game and discovered I would be fighting Tankovy in the woods.?.? I must say we where both quiet perplexed as to why we where stuck in the woods but we got down to business my 6 Tigers deployed shallow on the edge of my wood line with FJ on the right objective and AA back stopping my left. He deployed 4 SU 122s on each flank with 19 t34s across the center (10 85s) and the battalion CO with the AA on my right. He had priority tip 3ms in support. Well I figure I had 2 choices, A go away from the board get rocketed and swarmed or B sit tight and ambush. Stalking Tiger it was and for 4 rounds I did absolutely nothing but dig in and go to ground. He declined his air and advanced on turn 1. On turn 2 he didn’t get air and advanced again. Turn three the air missed my CO tank due to only 1 plane (at this point it was 1 plane or nothing his tank or the board edge would eat the others). Turn 4 he moved up and engaged missing with all his shots and leaving me open to fire in my next turn. I opened fire and managed to nail one 85 and a couple of 76s but not nearly what I had been praying for. His next round saw the first Tiger explode and then I managed to bog one myself but I did kill a few 85s and bailed 2 others. He failed to remount and pushed up leaving his battalion co to trade fire one on one with a Tiger. This turn I finally got some leverage with an infantry assault on the right hand SU unit taking it out in a flurry of faust fire, and bagging his CO with an 88 round. I also managed to break the right flank T34 unit leaving his objective exposed. His return fire bailed two Tigers but I was in luck managing to fail with 3s consistently. This turn I had 3 t34 85s my left hand Tiger could see and the only one not bailed was the company CO who was promptly blown to #$%^. That took his left hand company under 50% and they broke leaving him to a company moral check he auto failed thanks to the smoldering battalion co. This really was a game of dice the short range played entirely into the Soviet hands but the burned out based in the middle meant that even though it was short range he would only be able to bring a handful of 85MM shots against some of my tanks. He could really only mass fire at my CIC and 2IC. The objectives where PERFECT in this game. He was attacking towards a group of SS infantry killing soviet POWs and across from it was a POW camp full of Germans. Across from the Soviet HQ objective was a German sniper hide complete with pole and with a Soviet body hanging from it.
He did make several errors. First, he allowed me to force him into the buildings which filtered him and drew him to close to use his air support. Second he allowed his CO to duel a Tiger 1 on 1. Three, he allowed me to assault the SU unit from the rear negating its Def Fire. Those three errors lost him this game.
So at the end I finished with 4 wins and 2 losses for my first trip to nationals. My record was 6/1, 1/6, 4/3, 4/3, ¾, and 6/1 giving me a total of 24 points and 5 great opponents.
Now that I had actually gotten into the tournament I had to dig into my bag and break out the one army I truly enjoy using. Since I had used 6 tanks to win my shot I figured I would use 6 bigger tanks to have some fun. 6 Tiger 1Es making up my CIC, 2IC, and combat platoons backed by 2 Sdkfz 7/1 tracks with a short unit of FJ. BTW I love the online options for tigers! I had based my army on the SS 102nd from the area of Hill 112 at Normandy. That means the FJ are standing in for SS Grenadiers from 9th and 10th it was the only way to get FV infantry in the points allotted.
Round 1 and Encounter begins with 6 tigers facing off against a short priest battery (with spotter plane), 2 armored rifle platoons on foot, and an engineering platoon with all of its bazookas. The table gave him a town in the middle and his right flank had perfect terrain to filter through denying my shots. From my side I had a nice ridge in the center and hill on my right flank to deploy reserves from depending on where they showed up. My ace skills where storm trooper on a 2+ for both combat platoons, reroll hits on the 2IC, and motivate on a 2 with the CIC. Turn 1 saw him two moves into the board on my left and me unable to bring any fire against his advance. The engineers filtered forward into the fenced off areas behind the buildings. My first turn saw 3 tigers (2ic and 1 platoon) double time to cover the objective on the left which I had left open to begin with hoping the draw him out of waiting me out while dug in. My right flank tiger platoon with my CIC advanced to the right of the buildings and opened fire on the AR platoon that was dug in managing to kill 1. Turn 2 saw him start to smoke my tigers which he would continue to do through the game forcing me to constantly move. My turn two saw me dress my defense on the left facing the wood that was about 6 inches from that objective, I also got my FJ platoon and lucked up having them walk onto the board near the wood on my left flank ready to dig in and free up my tigers for mobile action. My right hand units open MG fire on the engineers pinning them and killing several stands. Turn 3 saw him sitting inside the wood on my left and bring forward two platoons of infantry on the right forcing me to accept a bazooka loaded assault or dance back and MG which I did finishing off the engineers and leaving his CIC stranded. His reserves started to come on starting with a unit of 3 Sherman’s which promptly double timed out of my LOS towards the objective I had left open. I fell back on the right keeping MG pressure on the unit of infantry that was chasing me and sitting myself up to face the Shermans when they tried to bounce my objective. The next few rounds saw me doing the storm trooper dance gunning his infantry on my left as he stacked his units on my right as they came onto the board. He finally tried to jump me after I withdrew the tiger platoon leaving only FJ and my 2IC on the left but it failed and the resulting return fire killed off that platoon. Now in a last ditch effort he unloaded arty and his Sherman’s trying to bail some tigers to let his recce unit assault. That failed, and the games ended as a 6/1 win. At this point he had only arty to attempt stopping 6 tigers from running over the last 7 stands of his remaining AR platoon.
He made a couple of critical mistakes during the game.
1 He attempted to fight a mobile battle with foot infantry vs. armor.
2 He repeatedly failed to correctly calculate the balance of force at the points of contact.
An examples of this are his attempt to move and assault 7 stands of FJ and a Tiger with RR misses over open ground on the right flank with a single platoon.
3 He used smoke to force my Tigers to move but moving didn’t reduce my MG ROF.
The next round I sat down on the stage with another town in the middle across from 3 crocs and an 8 gun priest battery. He also had 4 m10s in ambush backed by air support. The LOS was broken up by random hedges and a wood on my right flank made the perfect ambush area to stop my advance. In reserve would be 2 units of infantry and some recce carriers. He deployed 1 objective in a huge wood on his end and the other one I deployed forward on the left to use the buildings so my FJ platoon could stop flanking from his M10s. I got 1 platoon with rerolls, 1 platoon motivated on a 2, the 2ic got clever Hans and CIC ROF 3. I deployed the reroll unit opposite the crocs with the other platoon on its right and the independents on the far right flank. The AA unit started in a position to cover ¾ of my force while the FJ advanced with the center unit. My FJ promptly got pinned and remained so for about 6 rounds totally scraping my plan. I managed to advance on a 6 tank front which was broad enough that I was constantly threatening to flank the crocs and turn his line. I lost 1 AA gun early and with the FJ pinned it really limited my options. Because I couldn’t use the infantry to hold the woods I pushed the 2IC into the middle of the woods to prevent him from ambushing on my flank armor. His ambush was popped at the hedgerow in front of my right flank and whiffed. Two m10s died to Tiger fire then he ran them far, far away and I wouldn’t see those again. Just as I had 4 Tigers in place to start smashing the priests and 2 Tigers that could also flank the crocs I managed to roll snake eyes for an arty template and he made both FP tests. At this point I knew I was done as the CIC was dead and I was now totally out of position to force the crocs off the objective I needed. I tried to kill some platoons and failed as Tigers got burned and shelled the infantry got Mged to death breaking my army for my only 1/6 loss.
If I could redo the game I would swap my CIC to my left flank and send one platoon down the middle of town and the other 3 Tigers up the right flank. This would have given me a bit more redundancy if I Murphy went nuts and took 2 out again.
Well now I got shuffled to the beautiful marsh board that I had prayed to never see. On the bright side this happened when the mission let me totally avoid ever driving into it. Across from me was a person I had meet during the grinders as a judge. The objectives went into the far corner wood and just between the town in the middle (a theme that only broke twice) and the wood on my right. Deployed in that wonderful Tiger trap was a large motostrelk unit, a small motostrelk unit, 5 t34 85s, and an armored transporter unit with FT. In reserve was 3 KV 85s, BA 64s, T70s and an ATR platoon. I deployed 4 Tigers to directly attack the small strelk and two Tigers to guard my left flank against the only open reserve route. My FJ went on a flank march and the AA sat up to support the right flank Tigers. The first few turns saw the t34s get caught trying to move and smoked and his reserve all stacking onto the board from the right flank. I managed to whittle down the small strelk and the armored transporter but my FJ died a horrible death when they arrived plowed under by a millions soviets. My basic plan was as always to destroy all ranged threats to my tanks to gain tactical mobility and dominance of the field. Once I cut out the ranged threats it leaves me a totally free hand in dealing with the remaining units. After about 7 turns of dancing I finally managed to take out one KV and drive the others under cover so I tried my luck in the town. I caught the transporter platoon out of cover and managed to gun down their platoon leader and an assault into the buildings broke them to outside the town. Sadly the 2IC was there and quickly brought the FT back and burned my lead Tiger and assaulted it and another one that was bogged from the first assault costing me 3 tanks total! My last 3 tanks proceeded to again assault the buildings and force the infantry back this time successfully establishing themselves on the objective. The next round saw the remaining KV 85s lose a close range gun duel and the rest of the game was me making grinding noises as I ran over helpless soviet infantry. The last turn saw me park a Tiger in the only place he could get a unit in to contest and pull a 4/3 win. The last 4 turns also saw him make a mad dash with the t70s trying to kill my AA unit to force a company moral and every turn I was thanking god for H&C.
The only thing I could have done different in this game is backing off and letting him claim 1 Tiger when he burned me. It would have saved me 2 tanks. The other thing I may have tried is to flank march the AA tracks and used the FJ as an assault force into the right flank woods.
The second day rolled in and upon finding my table I began to cry. As my opponent walked up he said those magic words everyone wanted to hear. “Sir, Sir what army do you have? I have American tanks sir with 76 mm and m10s and . . . . . . . . . . .” I very quickly tracked down Joe and asked with a grim expression how this had happened. How did I bounce down to a person with only 3 points? Well I was told my opponent for the day had not shown up and he was the odd man out so with a sigh and a feeling of dread I went back to face my doom. Now most people upon finding a child across the board smile and think what luck, but for me I know I am going to die. You see karma hates me it truly does and if I so much as THINK about taking advantage of his youthful mind to gain a 6/1 or even try to survive the game I will GURRENTE I ROLL ONLY 1s. So the mission, Fighting Withdraw and the only time in the entire tournament I have to defend. I have a low hill and ridge on my left flank woods in the center and a ride on my right. The only real long range field of fire is on my right flank where I place my objective. He places both objectives on the left as tight as he can. I put my AA, CIC and 1 platoon of Tigers on the left flank and my 2iC in the center woods blocking the road. I deploy my FJ on the back of the right ridge on the lone objective. All 6 tanks get the Clever Hans Skill. He deploys 4 m10s (yes on the board), 5 Sherman 76mm, 5 Sherman 75s, a full AR platoon walking, SP AA, and scouts with priority air support P47. He puts every bit of his army ALL of it on my left flank totally ignoring the right side objective with the lone platoon defending it. Turn one sees the entire horde advance about 50 bog checks and an air strike that for some reason rolled attack dice before the movement phase later he says he is done. I pop my ambush on the back hill fronting the m10s and go hull down with 3 Tigers on the ridge in front of the objectives. A grand total of 6 shots needing at most a 4 to hit see 2 m10s die and that’s it. I then fail my storm trooper checks (I think I made 1 maybe 2 all game). He again calls air and has to be reminded he can’t place the planes off board to use them before pushing it all forward with glee and opening fire. Needing 5`s and 6`s to hit he proceeds to burn his first tiger. My next turn I shuffled back and set myself up to engage the 76mm platoon and whiffed only managing to kill 1 Sherman. He returns fire killing two more tanks with front armor shots one of which needed a 6 to hit! Well at this point I am about ready to strangle him because I have had to explain slow traverse every turn, air craft every turn, and how his m10s behave when an armor save is failed. I have to give kudos to the I95 guys who where helping judge because two of them had to basically live at my table. Now three or four rounds of Tiger’s firing away and Shermans only bailing and remounting is really making me despair when I finally snap. What pushes me over the edge is a group of his giant dice literally being bowled into my tigers. Now I am not the best painter in the world but I worked hard to make those look decent and watching parts fly through the air as he dice bombed me broke something inside my head. Two turns latter my 3 surviving Tigers had broken his army and I walk away smoldering as I tried to return the judges super glue. 4/3 win
This is a game that really got on my nerves. He made so many mistakes I can’t begin to list them but with the normal child’s luck exploiting them was hard.
1 He allowed me to focus myself into 2 areas for my defense instead of stretching my 4 platoons over 3 objectives.
2 He totally ignored the loan infantry on my right making the battle occur at my strongest point.
3 He used his airstrikes on the infantry he was ignoring not on armor or my aa.
4 He didn’t use the ambush ability on the M10s meaning he reduced his ROF when they came into action
Now at this point I really did need to calm down and I lucked up and meet Jeff Huff. He deployed 3 Brit Para platoons and held an assault platoon in ambush for the cauldron and had a beautiful little town to defend. I started with 6 Tigers up. I really lost track of turns quickly. I had a CIC with rerolls, 1 platoon with ROF, 1 platoon with Hans, and a 2IC with motivate on a 2. The really memorable part was how two Tigers stalked up and down the board like circling sharks waiting on his reserves. The 6lber platoon walked onto the board firing 1 volley at a Tiger platoon before being promptly run over. I had deliberately used a platoon as bait for the 6lbers. He was going to get 12 shots of which 6 would hit meaning the best shot he had was a 16% to penetrate with a 4+ firepower. The 75mm pack howitzers decided to run away rather than be assaulted after watching the grisly demise of the 6lber platoon. Only the mortars and tetrarchs managed to reach the town. My ROF and RR Tigers spent something between 10 and 15 turns firing again and again at the same two units in the town finally killing the FT and reducing both to less than 50%. My 2IC circled the entire board chasing the tetrarchs and forcing his mortars to stick inside buildings and stop smoking my gun line. Finally with 30 min to go I advance into the assault. My FJ lead off finishing off the last of one of the Para platoons before breaking and leaving the table (the FJ passed a total of 4 moral checks in the entire tournament). This left me 6 Tigers to clear the town. I had to depose of 2 full platoons of Paras, a 30% strength Para pioneer unit, and the last of the mortars. There was also still two tetrarchs wandering around somewhere acting suitably afraid. Into the streets I go hoping I would be able to suck them out of the buildings. Two turns and 3 assault rounds latter I have lost 2 Tigers and I had managed to chew another unit under 50% and smash the company command team out of the street. YES I think I have him now 5 out of 8 on the board 2 under 50 and 1 at 50. Sadly that was not the case as I discovered he had some named higher command team. So back into the town I go again with the Tigers. In three rounds I lose nothing killing stand after stand of Para until that fateful 4th round where I roll 5 twos in a row on bog checks breaking my company, survivors 1 Tiger, about 7 stands of Paras, 3 mortars and 2 tetrarchs. ¾ loss
Well I was very pleased despite my loss I counted the sheer destruction I caused on a very tough and numerous enemies to be quiet a feat of arms. So it was with delight I walked to my next game and discovered I would be fighting Tankovy in the woods.?.? I must say we where both quiet perplexed as to why we where stuck in the woods but we got down to business my 6 Tigers deployed shallow on the edge of my wood line with FJ on the right objective and AA back stopping my left. He deployed 4 SU 122s on each flank with 19 t34s across the center (10 85s) and the battalion CO with the AA on my right. He had priority tip 3ms in support. Well I figure I had 2 choices, A go away from the board get rocketed and swarmed or B sit tight and ambush. Stalking Tiger it was and for 4 rounds I did absolutely nothing but dig in and go to ground. He declined his air and advanced on turn 1. On turn 2 he didn’t get air and advanced again. Turn three the air missed my CO tank due to only 1 plane (at this point it was 1 plane or nothing his tank or the board edge would eat the others). Turn 4 he moved up and engaged missing with all his shots and leaving me open to fire in my next turn. I opened fire and managed to nail one 85 and a couple of 76s but not nearly what I had been praying for. His next round saw the first Tiger explode and then I managed to bog one myself but I did kill a few 85s and bailed 2 others. He failed to remount and pushed up leaving his battalion co to trade fire one on one with a Tiger. This turn I finally got some leverage with an infantry assault on the right hand SU unit taking it out in a flurry of faust fire, and bagging his CO with an 88 round. I also managed to break the right flank T34 unit leaving his objective exposed. His return fire bailed two Tigers but I was in luck managing to fail with 3s consistently. This turn I had 3 t34 85s my left hand Tiger could see and the only one not bailed was the company CO who was promptly blown to #$%^. That took his left hand company under 50% and they broke leaving him to a company moral check he auto failed thanks to the smoldering battalion co. This really was a game of dice the short range played entirely into the Soviet hands but the burned out based in the middle meant that even though it was short range he would only be able to bring a handful of 85MM shots against some of my tanks. He could really only mass fire at my CIC and 2IC. The objectives where PERFECT in this game. He was attacking towards a group of SS infantry killing soviet POWs and across from it was a POW camp full of Germans. Across from the Soviet HQ objective was a German sniper hide complete with pole and with a Soviet body hanging from it.
He did make several errors. First, he allowed me to force him into the buildings which filtered him and drew him to close to use his air support. Second he allowed his CO to duel a Tiger 1 on 1. Three, he allowed me to assault the SU unit from the rear negating its Def Fire. Those three errors lost him this game.
So at the end I finished with 4 wins and 2 losses for my first trip to nationals. My record was 6/1, 1/6, 4/3, 4/3, ¾, and 6/1 giving me a total of 24 points and 5 great opponents.