My friend Chris and I loaded up and took a road trip down to
Avon Park to the Battlezone to play in their 750pt tournament. Chris brought
the British Desert Rats and I pulled together my German Heer army to lend a
hand to the axis side. After a 2 hour drive we arrived at the Battlezone! Not
your typical gaming club location! Ed the owner is a great guy and John the
local SARGE for Warlord ran a fantastic tournament!
My list was:
2nd Lt with 1 extra man with Assault Rifles
1 Pioneer Squad of 5 men with a flamethrower
2 Squads of Veteran Grenadiers with 4 Assualt rifles and a
rifle in the squad. One squad had a Panzerfaust.
1 251/16 Flamethrower Halftrack
1 Puma
1 Veteran Sniper Team
1 Regular Truck
The store had amazing scenery offering a variety of tables
including several city/town based ones! Check them out!
Game 1: Top Secret- Josh (British)
Josh had:
Lt with 2 extra men with rifles
2 full sized Veteran squads with LMGs and rifles
Cromwell Tank
Greyhound
Artillery Observer
Meet Josh!
I lost the dice off for sides, not which was a huge factor
in this game as both table edges was filled with rough terrain and buildings.
My opponent picked his side of the table and I setup my sniper after he picked
a spot for his Artillery Spotter.
The first two turns was mostly us moving our units onto the
table with my Puma taking a shot at his Greyhound and missing. He did not recce
with his, his tank tried to nail the Puma but it fell back into the ruins and
popped out again on turn 2 to fire and miss yet again! Josh dropped his
Artillery strike on the first turn placing it in the most direct route to the
objective. He had deployed his two squads and officer close to one another
ready to move over the bridge and grab the objective. Most of my other squads
closed into the ruins except the truck that had the Pioneers and one of the
Grenadier squads, in retrospect I should have had the officer in there as well,
but it didn’t make a huge impact. The truck after making it out of rough
terrain first turn was able to roll up behind a pile of rubble to avoid being
shot by most things, and then I waited.
Turn 3-4 is when the poo hit the fat for my opponent. My
sniper took out his forward observer. My 251/16 showed on turn 3 and fired a
flame shot at both the Greyhound and tank on my right side. Both took a pin
marker but both also passed their tests to avoid panic. The 251/16 had the luck
of the angels as both the Greyhound and tank missed it, at this point I doused
both shots on the tank as the Puma took out the Greyhound. The tank held firm. At the end of turn 3, I
slid the truck over the bridge, had the Grenadier squad grab the objective (The
German Secret Agent Helga with important war plans of the British) and the
Pioneer squad jumped out and hosed one of the Veteran squads with a
flamethrower and rifle shots point blank. They failed their test and fled the
table. The top of 4 was critical to if the pioneers would die or not. The first
dice pulled was mine! Yes! I hit the other squad; again my opponent lost
another squad as the pin markers was a decent roll 3 or 4. Poof! Another squad
dead leaving the officer and his two men and a tank with a few pin markers on
it. My truck was already racing back to my table edge at this point and Josh
conceded victory to me, I still wanted to see if I could move the truck off the
table legally to see if it was a win or tie for us and the truck just made it
to the edge at the end.
Game table for Game 1
Sniper takes up a good spot.
Lt and his adjunt advance!
The British prowl the field.
Attack of the 251/16!
Pioneers take the bridge! BURN!
Grenadiers grab Helga and make a break for the truck!
Random cool shot of one of the other players planes!
Game 2: Point Defense- Joseph (Japanese)
2 Lt’s 2nd (one man with rifle) Regular
2 Squads of 12 Japanese Grenadiers with rifles (Vet)
2 smaller 5 man squads of Grenadiers with Rifles (vet)
2 Medics (single man) (vet)
6 Suicide bombers (Inexp)
Joseph the Japanese!
We rolled for Attacker/Defender, I won and went Defender. I
figured the Japanese as the Attacker would be tougher for him than for me. We
setup our snipers and he placed his suicide bombers out, wow….this was going to
be an ugly game.
We made a few mistakes as he placed some units out that
should have started off the table and we missed preparatory bombardment as
well. He slid his units back a run move so that was fine and I let him resolve
the bombardment since we has just only pulled about 1/3 of the dice when we
caught the issue.
This was a game of cat and mouse for most of the early
turns. The 251/16 drove out from behind a building and fired on two squads.
Alas, I rolled only 1d6 instead of 2d6 as I was thinking infantry instead of
vehicle! It has been a few months since I have had an active game and really
had a chance to use the 251/16. To me, this would have wiped the squads out
faster and perhaps swung the game in my favor from a draw to a win.
His sniper kept missing and the only claim to fame for my
sniper was killing an officer towards the end of the game. One of his smaller
squads was down to 2 men ran into the church and was promptly ambushed by the
Grenadiers in the building killing one. The lone Japanese trooper ran into the
building and we went into a second round of hand to hand rolls before the
sniper team killed the Japanese soldier and continued their sniper love.
I was able to shoot 5 out of 6 of the suicide bombs, setting
Ambush works wonders to protect your vehicle from these instances. The
disappointment was classic when I would down one, two and well the third
finally made it around the corner and caught the 251/16 in the end and blew it
to hell. Still it drew a great deal of attention and fear. One of the other
classic moments was the suicide bomber charged out of a building at the Puma,
which promptly backed up and around the corner. I had to show the player the
rules that this is legal and to his shock failed to make contact! Next turn he
tried to charge it again (cue up the Benny Hill music) and the Puma backed up
again and shot him with the machine gun!
When the Japanese could assault it was ugly, very ugly. A
heavy terrain board and a good player could really hand someone their ass in a
game from my after game analysis.
The game ended on turn 6 with a squad that had gone down and
had a bunch of pin markers on it, a medic and officer (I think) holding the one
objective on my right. The middle one was contested by my officer with a truck
parked near to prevent an easy charge on my officer. I had the Puma sitting on
the other objective but sadly vehicles do not contest. I should look up if I
could have tank shocked as it is a “light tank” classed scout car.
Japanese Snipers in the clock tower!
251/16 races forward to drive off the Japanese.
Germans and Japanese rumblein the streets.
Puma tries to drive off the Japanese from the objective!
Game 3: Hold Until Relieved- Angel (Germans SS)
His list:
Lt (Vet) 2nd with 1 man with Assault Rifles
2 units of 6 man SS Waffen Squad 2 ARs, 2 Panzerfausts, 4
Rifles (Vet)
1 Fallschirmager Squad of 5 men with 2 Panzerfausts, 5
rifles (Vet)
Heavy Mortar Team with Spotter (Vet)
Med. Machine Gun Team (Vet)
Panzerschreck Team (Vet)
Sniper Team (Vet)
Angel
He won the roll and opted to defend the church that was in
the center of the board. He placed his sniper out, his observe and I had my
sniper out (as per the rules for advance placement of these units). His two
unit choices were a squad and a medium machine gun.
I setup my infantry, my vehicles in reserve; the truck was
loaded with the pioneer squad, officer and a Grenadier squad.
This was a slap down and back and forth game. I quickly
pushed to the church; the flamethrower fear from the Pioneer squad made his MMG
team leave the church and was promptly shot apart between the Grenadiers on that
side and the sniper team to finish off the last man. The other squad skirted
around and found the truck racing to them dumping out everyone and plastering
the squad to a single man.
Slowly his other units arrived and it was hit and misses at
this point. I was holding the church but just barely and he had units advancing
on it. My 251/16 was in flames due to his Panzerschreck team! Oh if the dice
had been mine that team would have been toast as well as the squad near the
church in the graveyard.
In retrospect, I should have pulled the truck out in front
of the 251/16 keeping my vehicle closer to avoid it being destroyed and let it
act as mobile cover for the half track. Lesson learned. Still it was classic to
set the bell tower on fire and burn his sniper to nothing.
The game ended with a flat draw, he could have pushed those
last 3 Pioneers out of the building he would have won but there was not enough
time. Turn 6 and the game did not continue!
2 Draws and 1 Win. Not bad, still I feel if I had done the
flamethrower rules right in the first game that it would have been a game
changer. I think I made all fuel check rolls but I could not recall, I figure a
marker may be in order to be a good reminder for an army of this theme. The
last game could have been a winner for me if I had just done the truck gag and
defended the 251/16 just in case I didn’t get the first die.
Still, it was a good time visiting the Battlezone, it was
great to meet Ed and see John again as well as meeting new players and was very
refreshing from player the old 40k burnout games with players obsessed with
power gaming.
I look forward to September and heading back down for the 1k
event!
Germans Advance!
Hey! I thought we killed all those SS!
SS Adance to retake the church!
The bell tower was set on fire killing the sniper team.
The 251/16 advances in triumph!
*yes, it is not painted yet, still have lots of work to do*
Oh hell! That was a Panzerschreck!
