Its not the winning that matters, it's the absolute dispairing futility that counts!

Or, Chris and Simon's 2015 Panzerschreck experience.

For the upteemth year in a row the Regiment tramped up to Palmerston North for Panzershreck. 5 games of 2000 point Late War doubles. This year I resolved to take some photos to prove that we were there and record some of the games. Then I realised I am a shit photographer with a shitter camera so I then quickly resolved that this would be a 'one take' weekend. No redo's on the photos.

What you see is what you get. To be fair, I gave up pretty quickly.

Chris and my lists are recorded here.

Friday Night

All six of us piled into the Mormon Assault Vehicle and travelled up to Palmy at about 4pm. With much laughing and jocularity we mercilessly mocked the abortion that is the Age of Sigmar. Scott brought some coconut halves with him to use when he needed some rerolls :)

We checked into the motel (the Avenue Motel on Fitzherbert - always our local) and headed off to Korean BBQ at De Koree. Its just across the road from the motel. Spicy food and a couple of beers later, we headed back to the motel is the freezing cold.

We watched Kingsman (great movie) and then Edge of Tomorrow (not so great movie) and signed off at after midnight with a 6am start to look forward too. The several scotches we had aided in getting to sleep (but not waking up)!

The Regiment Travels:

Scotty (left) and McZermof (right)

Lintman (left) and Prinny (right)

Beardy no.1 (Pelarel)

Beardy no.2 (Moi)

Saturday

Saturday morning dawned cold and dark. After scraping the ice off the Mormon Assault Vehicle we headed over to our regular breakfast spot; The Cuba Café. Six Eggs Benedict later and the sun starting to rise, we then drove to the school venue. Table set up was pretty quick as the hall was fecking cold and the controls to the heating were locked in behind a temporary wall that the builders working on the school's renovations had made to hold their tools.

The Games

Game 1

Breakthrough versus Russell and Tony.

Russell Briant is another Regimenteer from our playtesting group. He and Tony were running auto defending Jagdtigers with Carius and a Volksgrenadier company. They auto defended - we Night Attacked!

Tony and Russell

The game went strangely well for us against a wily and skilled opponent. My Kiwis assaulted the RC VolksSturm platoon, destroying them and forcing the artillery back. The M10s swept slowly around the Jagdtigers flanks while our shermans, six pounders and a platoon of infantry were in reserve. The crunch came when the jagdtigers lost one tank and were pulled too far away to support the closest objective. Two British rifle platoons and the reserve Kiwi rifle platoon surrounded the VGs and lone Jagdtiger on the objective and threw in successive assaults under the fire of the 105mm artillery and the six pounders firing direct. The VG platoon was destroyed and the JT fell back. In trying to conest the objective the JT bogged on a hedge. We saw of the two single team assaults on the three platoons on the objective to take the game 6-1.

Game 2

Dust Up versus Brett and Rhys

Rhys (left) and Brett (right)
In the background you can see fellow blogger Paul (reddogofwar) and his partner Ste - in the black and white tees.

I don't like Dust Up. For me its more luck than anything and I don't often do well - especially with infantry armies. We opted to take one corner and deployed out 17lbrs, 6lbrs, a platoon of infantry each and the artillery. Rhys and Brett had two panzer companies, one with Veteran StuHs and a KT and the other with RT Panthers and MkIVs. The game did not go well for us. The StuHs gutted our 6lbrs covering the middle objective after a failed go at trying to kill the StuHs in our first turn. Our artillery was poor for the first 6 turns - getting nothing and sometimes not ranging in! The Panthers held the furthest object and in the end the most amazing thing happened. Two platoons of infantry and the shermans managed to get onto the objective which was in a wood. The shermans the artillery tried to knock out the panthers but failed and we lost the shermans. To contest the objective, Brett pushed the panthers nearer to the objective but was now within 4" of our concealed infantry. The one strike from the artillery we needed came in and killed a panther and bailed another. The infantry assaulted and destroyed the platoon and the CO of the Panthers. All that was left was the two remaining StuHs and a pair of Wirbelwinds to assault our two full platoons of infantry. the assaults did not go well for the Germans. We had lost the M10s and the Shermans for a 4-3 win.

Game 3

Fighting Withdrawal versus Nick and Tim

And then we played these cnuts.

Cnuts. These are them.

Four veteran Crocodiles with two minimum strength platoons of veteran infantry, a platoon of two Challengers and a 4 strong platoon of Cromwells with Tiffies. The Roundheads were aiming to destroy Christmas and make everything else fun outlawed.

We chose to night attack as I was not keen on watching the Crocs roll reasonably untouchably across the table to flame our troops (and Christmas) out of existence. This game went horribly wrong for us. Artillery could not range in, platoons could not unpin or pass morale tests to assault, the 17lbrs could not hit or penetrate. We managed to get a platoon onto one objective as it was withdrawn and we also managed to kill a Croc, but that was about it. My poor AOP turned up after dawn broke and was promptly mishandled by a flight of typhoons. We were done 1-6.

Saturday Night    

BBQ at the venue with those that remained behind. We also managed to get a game of 15mm Napoleonics in with Evan, Derek and Phil (from Battlefront). Back to the motel, exhausted for some more scotch, some Eddie Izzard and Bill Bailey.

Saturday, a photo montage by Simon McBeth

Scott's and my crotches. Well in hand. Fnarrr.

Alex's face

How Saturday was looking for me after a couple of scotches

Sunday

Sunday was not as cold as Saturday but that was all relative in Palmerston North. Breakfast again was at Cuba Café, but this time not Eggs Bene (we all wanted to have a crap at least once in the next couple of days!). Back to the venue for game four after the painting round.

Game 4

Free for All versus Scott and Bryan

Bryan and Scott confer with the mastermind of their team, Scott's son.
Did I just say that? Of course I did. It's me.

Our practice game, but not really. Scott and Bryan's lists had gone through a series of changes since we played way back then. We both set up reasonably defensively. This proved a problem for Chris and I, if we were more like our usual selves and were recklessly aggressive with our infantry, I think we may have taken this as a victory. As it worked out, we both lost (as there are no draws in Flames) but we managed to kill two of their platoons (some more StuHs and some Luchs) all for the loss of our 17lbr guns. The long range duelling with our Shermans and M10s and their MkIVs and Panthers was pretty static as we all needed 6's to hit and no one was pressing forward with other stuff. 3-2 loss.

Game 5

Surrounded versus Andrew and Mark

A twin. I'm never sure of which one so I just took one photo and you can imagine the other one looking exactly the same.
Beard no.1 looking relaxed. Probably just unloaded some Korean BBQ, Steak Sammies, Eggs Bene and some delicate French Crepes.

Andrew and Mark are also Regiment playtesters and have a well know penchant for taking armies with a massive pile of platoons and rubbish ratings. While most of the troops were Reluctant Trained there were some CT SturmTigers (broken) and a CV Train (really broken). We decided that we needed to defend to forced the roll off and 'won' the defender role. Surrounded splits the attacker at either short end of the table with two objectives for the defended to hold. There was already a train track placed on the table and helpfully (for the twins) it ran right through the board. We held off as long as we could and managed to kill 6 or 7 (including the train) of the 16 platoons the twins had but not enough of each company to force a break. The SturmTigers in particular were a bane as their rule for shooting is "roll a die and if you get a 4+, punch Simon in the balls'. The ST took out our 17lbrs in one volley and whittled down the artillery to force a morale check. My company was below half strength after some sterling bayonet work and passed one 5+ Company Morale check. The turn that gave us saw Chris going balls out to try and break one of the companies but some completely above average Defensive Fire saw off his assaults. My next Company Morale check was not a 5 or a 6. The game ended 3-4 to the twins.

Roundup

Chris and I ended up 9th overall, which was not too bad considering the Sunday games. Tim and Nick finished third and Scott and Alex brought up the rear (in a world where they did NOT save the world*) in last place. Alex and Scott did get voted Best Sports though. Not an unexpected award for two genuinely 'do not give a rats arse about the competition' guys!

Of the other Regimenteers, Russell came second with his partner Tony, The Twins were fourth, Bob and his partner Greg were eighteenth and Damo and Shep finished seventh.

Winners: Mike and Andrew Haught

Second: Russell and Tony

Third: These guys.

Best Generals: Scott and Bryan - well done!

Best Sports: Booooooo.

Panzershreck is always fun, and not just for the games. Next year the competition will be Early War and as Nick said recently, if you are making lists for next year the night you get back from the competition, it must have been fun. Germans and Vichy French next year maybe......

*weekend jokes are the best jokes. I guess you just had to be there