This is Must Contain Minis’ first Battle Report (of three) from the February (2017) Flames of War Tournament at Phoenix Games. In this match, Jacob from Must Contain Minis takes on the Tournament Champion – Kevin Wardrop. Both forces in this match are German so the competition would be Blue-on-Blue.
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| A quick preview of the action to come. That lone StuG is Jacob’s Company Commander. Those four Hertzers belong to Kevin. Not a good place for a Company Commander to be! |
The scenario was Dust Up. In this mission, both sides set up diagonally from each other with delayed reserves. Each side also has two objectives and the first side to capture and hold the enemy’s objective wins. Below is a picture of the table before deployment. Jacob took the bottom-right as his starting position while Kevin set up on the upper-left side.
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| The table where Kevin and Jacob would compete. |
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| Above is a picture of Jacob’s Army. Given that half of the army starts in delayed reserves, Jacob opted to start the game with the Grenadier Platoon and StuG Platoon on the table. For those interested, there are more details about the army in the original Tournament post. |
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| Jacob’s side had the StuG Platoon set up close to the village with two StuGs having direct fire-lanes on the enemy’s infantry. His Grenadier Platoon surrounded the forward objective with the Commanding StuG set up along side of them. |
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| Kevin surrounded his objectives with a Grenadier Platoon and backed them up with Hummels and 88s. |
Jacob would start the game with the first turn.
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| Jacob digs in his infantry and splits his StuG platoon. Two of the tanks would provide a solid firing base while the other two would get into a better position to take on other targets. |
Until the third turn, both sides would remain fairly static. The Hummels would try to range in on Jacob’s Grenadiers, but continuously missed. The StuGs would whittle down Kevin’s infantry very slowly while Kevin’s 88s would fire at one of the StuGs (on the left hand side) to no effect.
On turn three, Jacob expected Kevin to bring on Infantry platoons as his reserves so he double-timed his commander forward. His idea was to press the attack forward into Kevin’s side of the table while his infantry would hold down the objectives.
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| What’s that by the Commander on the far side of the table?! |
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| Bringing the Commander out on his own to take the offensive to Kevin was a BAD move!!! Kevin managed to get three Hertzers out from his reserves and made very short work of Jacob’s over zealous Commander. Jacob has no 2iC so this is a bad hit to his Company’s future Moral Checks. |
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| A look at the Hertzers from Jacob’s Grenadiers’ perspective. Expecting a heavy infantry assault, they opted to leave the PaK40 at home in exchange for an Infantry Gun and MMG team. The result is that they can do nothing but watch their poor Commander get destroyed. |
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| At this point, the 88s start landing hits on the StuGs. |
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| Jacob brought in four Wirbelwinds from reserves. Bringing in the Jagdpanthers would have been smarter, but he wanted to use the high volume of shots that the Wirbelwinds bring on the low armoured Hummels. Sadly, the firepower of the Wirbelwinds’ is too low so the end result was just a few bailed out tanks. |
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| Now comes the Infantry Horde that Jacob was anticipating from Kevin. Did those troops ever get to the objective quick!!! |
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| To keep the game going, Jacob moves in the StuGs to contest his objective. |
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| On the other side of the table – the Wirbelwinds take a pounding from the 88s and Hummels. They fail their moral and take off. |
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| Likewise, the StuGs do not survive an infantry assault from a Pioneer Platoon. |
Unfortunately for Jacob, this is the end of the game. With no Commander and two of the three platoons on the table eliminated, his forces flee the battle. Even if they could stay, his Grenadiers force would never have been able to push back onto their objective. Kevin won this match 6-1.
The most disappointing thing about this game was not getting my Jagdpanthers onto the table. What a lot of points to leave parked at home!!!
Keven completely outplayed me. That said, Kevin was a very friendly and polite opponent. I couldn’t have asked for a better experience of getting back into Flames of War.
Until next time, Happy Gaming Everyone!!!
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