AVANTI SAVOIA!

 AKA once again I reveal secret pre-tournament tech. Club day this week was an outing for my Flames of War mid-war army for our club competition in April. The list is: 

Compagnia Carri

•  M14/41 HQ
• 5 M14/41
• 5M14/41
• 4 Semovente 75
  

Compagnia Motociclisti

• Motociclisti HQ
• Motociclisti platoon
• 4 47mm Elefantini
• 3 Breda HMG
• 5 L6 Carri
  

Support

• Captured 25pdrs
• 2 Lancia da 90 autocannoni

They attacked Pelarel's British Rifle Company and Crusader Company in Toehold! Pelarel deployed a Rifle Platoon, his HQ, some 17/25pdr Pheasants, 81mm mortars and 25pdr artillery with some 6pdrs in ambush. Off table were his Crusader HQ, two platoons of Crusaders, a Rifle Platoon and some carriers.

Pel mostly focussed his deployment in the centre with the guns and rufles deployed around the central hill:

I decided to push both sides of the Toehold deployment because while I pondered a dedicated shove on the objective on my right (behind the village) the closeness of the two lead me to decide to make a cheeky shove on the left as well to try and split the defences. I pinged one of the Pheasants in the first turn and thought to myself "well, that should solve that problem" and mean my right hand push should be bothered. Oh boy was I ever wrong.

By the third turn, I had pushed hard forward, wore the 6pdr ambush and threw A LOT of MG dice in reply. I got three of the 6pdrs and again, thought "well, that should solve that problem." Still wrong. Pel carried on his just infinite ability to roll successful Last Stand test and his well located CO kept the 25pdrs unpinned and his remaining AT guns in the game!

His reserves all arrived on his right flank and had a pretty torrid time of it. The first platoon of Crusaders met a bad end at the hands of the Lancias from downtown and  the Rifle Platoon was reduced to below combat effective in a disastrous assault when the Elefantini and the Motociclisti scored MANY hits. At this point I tried to put as many tanks ready to assault the hill as I could and the L6s tried distracting the 25pdrs:

I missed a couple of pics from turns 4 and 5 where all of Pel's reserves were on. His Carrriers were in the village (aand the centre hill also had 5 Crusaders on it! In those two turns I lost all of my M14s, my L6s and the Lancias. In return, I got all the Crusaders. In turn 6, Pel tried to assault the infantry platoon with his mostly intact one and my defensive fire was stupid while his saves were appalling!

This is the point where the Pheasant finally gave up and ran away after I shot the Rifle Company CO off the table with my Motociclisti, Pel's infantry platoon routed and the 6pdr quit the field. The game was still very much afoot!

And yet, the following turn it was over:

Pelarel's last round of shooting with 2 81mm mortars and his carriers removed enough of the 47mm guns that the last one failed his 3+ Last Stand (AARRRGGHH) and fled and meant there wasn't much I could do to reasonably assault the objective so we called the game there. 

 Had the one gun stuck around and removed a carrier, I think I would have tried to carry the infantry assault but it would have been a tough ask to both take the objective with that infantry platoon and then hold it as Pel would have broken off any carriers who survived the assault and would have MGed my tiny platoon to death as it stood around in the open! 

It was a much closer game than either of us expected - when I'd removed most of his AT guns before his Crusaders arrived, Pel reckoned the game was mine. By turn 6 when all my armour was toast, we talked about calling it there but one round of good shooting by me hauled the game back to a contest. 

Thoughts? 

I mostly like the list but I'm umming and ahhing about the 9-point platoon of L6s. It's pricey and while I deliberately used them to distract Pel's 25pdrs so mine did the work I needed them to (noting that they absolutely did not do that....grumble grumble) I could have achieved the same with a 6-point platoon of AB41s. It's not *another* assaulting platoon but I'm also middling on whether I need that.  So a bit more thinking to do there. 

Test Wheels

I haven't had a huge amount of hobby time this week but have invested what I did have in prepping my chariots and, since the horses, bases, and actual chariots (if not crew) were ready, I thought I'd take one through from end to end to see how it came out and I'm pretty happy: 

 I realised I needed to put a very gentle wash over the metals to give them a bit of depth and given all my Heavy Spear for this list will be in Dendritic armour, like this charioteer, that's going to look much better. 

Next Time

More chariots and if hobby time allows, I'm going to get stuck into the Myrmidons and formed bowmen. Then it's just 12 bases of spear to go and this army will be done!