Batteria Fantasma è Fantasma!

 Running out the Paras

I got the tidied up Italian Paras out for a run (it turned out to be three) with Scotty. I only took photos of our second game, Escape, which we both thought was a bit odd and it wasn't until after the game that we realised Scotty had the right idea in his deployment (having his HMGs and Nimrods protecting the rear of his 100mm guns from the Paras who would come on from reserve) but we didn't take it to it's logical conclusion then. This was a good learning game but wasn't the close contest our two other games were. It was annoyingly the only one I took photos of. 

The Italian pursuit arrives

Turn one was fairly uneventful other than a janky 100mm barrage killing one of Scotty's guns, one HMG and one Nimrod and my mortar bombardment pinning Scotty's platoon in the centre. He attacked up my left and rolled his Marders right up the guts as effective MG carriers! This photo was the start of turn two when I rolled two reserves...

Cavalry prepare to charge

On his left Scotty's cavalry prepared to launch a charge into this objective. Spoilers. It did not go well. 

R35 ambush!

 Turn two was where it all went sideways as my reserves arrived, both R35s and 47mm ambushes appeared - both were completely useless but the arrival of the reserves meant Scotty's aggressive push on the objective was already in jeopardy!

Tiger prepares to back up....

This was the last photo I took but we called the game shortly after this. The Semoventes landed a clean hit on the Tiger and destroyed it and while Scotty was getting ready to send his infantry into mine, the R35s were right on his tail and 14 stands of defending Paras are more than a match for 10 stands of attacking Hungarians!  We talked afterwards about how setting up a screen to hold my reserves would have been a really solid plan and was definitely the way to win this mission!

We also played Spearpoint and Probe (love getting three games in in a day!)  and they were both very interesting games. I won the Spearpoint game by breaking Scotty's core infantry formation (and singlularly failing to deal with the Tiger). We spent a lot of time dissecting the deployment map and realised that it was a very cool mission and one we'd be keen to play again. Scotty won the Probe with a very well executed assault on my objectives when my much less well executed assault on his failed. I also learned just how bad the R35s are in assault trying to stop him. It did not go well. 

Thoughts? 

I like the list. It really wants to defend, which we've been talking a lot about recently and this is the first time I've run up a list where I don't expressly hate the idea of the defending. It feels like it wants to be a counterpunch type list where the decent quality of the troops holds on long enough to get the Semovente 90s in from Reserve, deal with the scary and then send in the remnant Paras to look to win the game. Also, having the 47mms in ambush ALWAYS makes an 11 point AT gun platoon 100% worth having.

Does it have some faults? Oh, yes. R35s are dreadful, just dreadful. Hopelessly outclassed against even the most basic of mid-war tanks and tactical 6" makes real aggression with them somewhat challenging. I realised that the points I spent on some Command Cards were unnecessary and I'll swap those out for a platoon of AB41s and an OP because two templates is awesome but having to always self spot got super annoying super fast. Semovente 90s are definitely a finesse weapon (as much as the 90mm is a blunt instrument otherwise) with a tactical of 4" and being Aggressive they're not as easy to deliver as you think they should be. 

It'll be a challenge but one I'm keen to keep trying with!

De-piling

A few more things out of the pile this week which will go into both the Silver Bayonet pile and / or the DnD DMs collection.

This is more ghosts than one would hope one would need for a game of Silver Bayonet but here we are. Best to be prepared right? They'll do good service as useful DnD models too. 

 This next one is a cleanup and repaint. In a Pathfinder (I think) campaign many moons ago, I wanted to play a Druid (the miniature for which is in the pile) with a pet and one of the options for pet included a dinosaur. It seemed like it might actually be a good party addition as they could be a bit chompy where an elderly druid was unlikely to be. As it turned out, the DM didn't want me having a dinosaur so again, here we are. It's a little model I picked up donkeys ago and I've just given it a bit of a wash / drybrush with the rough original colouring to make it a bit more poppy. 

Next Time

Many things from the pile. There's a bunch of stuff in the started but not done pile so I'm going to crack into that!