Do Over!

Louis and I ran a Late War Flames of War battle last Friday night.

My force consisted of Company HQ platoon(plt), 2 full pltsof Fallschrimjager, 1 HMG plt, 1 light anti-aircraft plt (3 X 2.8cm Flak 38s with Horchs pulling them), 1 plt of 4 Marder Iis, 1 plt of 4 Hetzers, and limited air support.

His forces consisted of 2 Soviet Infantry plts (truck mounted), 1 anti-aircraft MG plt, 1 heavy mortar plt, 1 scout plt (very cleverly mounted in a “borrowed German half-track!), and 1 plt of 5 X IS-2 (Joseph Stalin) tanks.

The battle was purely ugly.

For starters, you have to realize that Louis and I are evenly matched when it comes to demon dice.

We both roll some terrible die.

With 5 heavy armored monsters prowling slowly across the board, my focus on the objectives of the game was lost. I focused instead on destroying the beastly IS-2s.

Louis very wisely chose to light up one of my infantry platoons, and even assault it with mixed results.

My poor Hetzers hid in woods and attempted to fight the IS-2s from the front – unbeknownst to me, I couldn’t even cause a “bail out” result from the front with the little Hetzers. Still they fought bravely, and two of them managed to get a flank shot, while bogged in a stream, and killed one of the behemoths, right before the rest of the IS-2s lit them up like a pile of old wood on Guy Faulks night! It was not a pretty sight – to me!

On one side of the table, his mortars, scouts, and infantry platoon did battle with one platoon of Fallschirmjagers with the company commander and light mortars attached. On the other flank, a Fallschirmjager platoon and the Marders slugged it out with his infantry squad and anti-aircraft MG platoon. The Marders earned their points at several junctures, by killing off a pair of his AA/HMG trucks, pinning his infantry platoon, and finally killing another IS-2.

The FJs managed to come into contact with one of the leviathans and put a few panzerfausts into it’s top armor, popping it like a cheap bottle of wine, before withdrawing to cover of the village around the objective.

End of the game came after a very nice mortar attack killed most of my FJ platoon on the right flank, to include the company commander. I then had to roll morale for the entire army, and 2 units failed and left the table. The game ended a tie, and once again, both forces retired to lick their wounds, and prepare for the next onslaught.

Saturday is our “do over” game. We will change nothing, except our deployment. I won’t waste my Hetzers in a head-to-head battle with IS-2s again!


Camera: Louis has a digital. I'm going to email him and remind him to bring it to record our slugfest. I'll also bring my camera - which appears to be working now - though time will tell.