Pre-event Testing

So I'm spending next weekend at a local Flames of War event and figured the army list I'd decided to run should get a test or two because I had no idea how it would run. It's first game was against clubmate Chris and his also Clausewitz army - I had StuGs, he had Panzersturm. We played Dogfight. 

Chris blocked a bunch of good routes with minefields and deployed on both objectives with the open ground in the middle of the board dominated by 4 Luftwaffe 88s:

I decided to move my Panzersturm platoon up to the two minefields on my left where I could remove those in relative safety while I sent my Jagdtigers off to go 88 hunting and oh boy, did they ever:

They got basically one 88 a turn for 4 turns - it was kind of awesome. Anyway, Chris' StuHs (how? How is this platoon 8 points? Like seriously?) managed to clip a single infantry stand and pinned my infantry, making sure they couldn't lift the minefields:

They stayed pinned for THREE turns, despite having the CO there giving rerolls every turn. Radical redeployment became annoyingly necessary as my StuGs and Jagdpanthers had to move through the town. Not, I admit, where I want my assault guns, but the enemy infantry that was guarding the town centre was kept head down by three Ostwinds who just slowly blitzed their way through the platoon.

Chris did me heaps of favours and kept his reserves off while I tried to sneak through the town and aside from a cheeky attempt by his recce to get flank shots on my StuGs and a bit of shot trading with the dwindling 88s and the PaK40 251 ambush (that arrived on turn 4) I felt like I was starting to make headway up the middle. My infantry had removed minefields and seen off the enemy infantry and we had crossed half way in Turn 4.

 And then everything went sideways - I realised I had to get closer to the objectives to keep the game going so had to push an armoured spearhead forward in my turn 5 in order to make the run on turn 6. I reckoned I had a reasonable shove on both objectives with a little luck.  And you can just see in the photo below that Chris' reserves arrived in just the right spot: 

 

 

 Yeah, that's three Tigers. They punctured a pair of Jagdpanthers and the last couple of PaK 40s gave my StuGs some regrets. A series of failed remounts and last stands later, despite the COs presence, effectively ended the game as I didn't have anything that could get close enough to the objectives to take them. 

So what did I learn?

 

Jagdtigers are irritatingly slow but they are also immortal. I should have been shoving them straight up the middle from the getgo. I don't hate my logic of clearing the 88s so I could move unmolested across the board centre but that plan required lifing those minefields in turn 2, not turn 4 and having to waste a turn moving horizotally was not desirable at all. But it was fun! And I love how the army looks and I love how it is and I'm sure it's going to be dreadful but I'm going to enjoy playing it. 

 

I had a second game against clubmate Ric's British Airlanding in Valley of Death which is not the mission for an assault gun company. So despite powering through his platoons of 6pdr and 17pdr guns, I really struggled to finish off his infantry due to poor deployment of my Wespes and not managing to keep the Panzersturm platoon intact enough for long enough to do some heavy lifting. It was close, but I couldn't quite get there. 

 

Next Time

Highlights from the event, almost certainly late since they won't get posted till after I get home!