OO-RAH!

Entirely gratuitous photo of an AC130 taken because of the background

The LAV company rolled out for it's second game and first real outing as a painted force. Playing against Scotty's West Germans, my grand plan was take out his AA, use the AC130 to wreck all his infantry and hope that his Leopard 2s didn't get me before then. We were playing an Encounter, meaning my 12 platoon army had a distinct advantage over Scotty. Of course, TY hasn't caught up with points-based reserves yet so all his good stuff was on table.

Scotty's AA goes wide

Scotty went first and shoved his Leos (with their 32" terrain dash! WTF!) up my left, as far away from my ITOWs as possible. His Gepards rolled in behind to keep the scary AC130 away. 

First attempt to remove Gepards.

Hoon hoon! I'm a goon! 

I pushed up across the board, hoping that in a target rich environment, I could sneak past the Leos and give the Gepards some 25mm Bushmastering. This is where I learned two very important lessons. Leopard 2s are ROF2 on the move (!) and Gepards are AT11. Over the next couple of turns I lost 7 LAVs to the Gepards. Ow. 

Scotty got a bit aggressive with his Leopards so I threw the Marines in. A couple of lucky hits with a SMAW and a Dragon and the Leo bailed out. His buddy, thinking better of fighting all those Marines, did a bunk. He passed his morale test though and this is where Scotty and I learned that TYs morale rules are the old V3 FoW ones and they basically make one tank platoons really kind of awesome.

I got a bit aggressive with my LAVs too...

Right before I got Geparded...

...because I forgot LAVs were ROF3 on the move.

...and promptly got shot to bits!

The Marines pushed forward and finally Dragonned (?) and LAWed the Gepards out of existence allowing the CO to call in a Spooky to rain down some hilarity on Scotty's left flank.

Scotty's left flank post AC-130 attack run

Unfortunately, despite a great effort by the AC130 and some good shooting by my reserve LAVs, Scotty finally ended the duel between a HMMWV ITOW and his remaining Leopard 2 (since I couldn't seem to bleeding well hit him!) and rolled onto the Objective.

I called in the Spooky again, hoping to ventilate the Leopard...

The shot that lost me the game

....and learned that the 30mm Aden guns are only AT 7. This meant that I had to cluster bomb the Leopard 2. I ranged in easily enough but missed the to-hit meaning that Scotty held the objective and won the game! 

A couple of hard lessons for me - those heavies are tough but I can swamp them with Marines and SMAWs and Dragons *can* take out a Leopard 2, but I really need to not be relying on that. I also need to be slightly less aggressive as LAVs, while perfectly capable, need to be going after targets that are softer than they are. I was banking on that being Gepards. I was wrong.

LAVs look pretty cool as a force though - I don't think I'm ever going to win games 8 - 1 but I kind of don't care. I haven't ever, really. It has helped me decide how to expand this list to 70+ points - I was umming and ahhing about a second infantry platoon or a second M60 platoon and while people keep telling me TY is a tank game, I think the insane Marine platoons give a really good showing.

Some other photos! 

McBeth, running some East Germans, had a nasty run-in with Tanks' Marine Corps M60s. 

This was McBeth's centre, a couple of turns in...

Some Marines about to do to BRDMs what I did to Leopards!

McBeth attacks up his right flank...

...and runs smack into these two:

Next time

First painting commitment failure. I got most of the base coating down on the M60s for Tank but honestly painting on airbrush paint is a PITA and it sapped my will to live. So they didn't get finished AND I didn't get to anything in the Inquisition pile either. So, I have some AAPV7s to do for Remember December so they're priority now.

I have been having a massive clean out in my games room and have found a few old projects that never quite got looked at so while I'm feeling uninspired by 40K or TY, I'll see what else might come up.