Another Thursday night Flames of War Game

We played another game of Flames of War, yesterday, using Craig's and Dave's miniatures. Brent had taken Alex to the coast for a meeting, so he showed up quite late and Dave had a friend who'd gone to the hospital so he showed late and left early, to return at the end to collect his miniatures.

As I am a lazy git, the side I took between the Germans and Americans was whichever side was assigned to the table edge I was sitting next to, so I played Germans. Two blokes I'd not met before, Kyle and Cole, also played as Germans. Ron, Michael, Craig (and later Brent) played the Americans.

The battle was a meeting engagement, somewhere in France. To make things easier, we had no aircraft on either side, just three units for each player.

In the battle report below, my forces are in the lower left of the map, with Ron's across from him, adjacent to Michael, who faced Kyle. Cole and Brent faced each other as well. I did bring my digital camera, but when I tried to take a picture, the fecking thing didn't work (it turned out to be an issue with the battery. I got it working today, but it is a touchy-feely sort of working relationship, where I have to manually push the battery further into the camera to get it to turn on...no double meanings there you dirty minded readers).

 Our initial deployment. I am using Battle Chronicler, again, to give you readers a visual of the battlefield. The table actually looked fairly close to how it is represented here...no jokes about it being a stick figure or what it may be doing.

 Both sides had recon moves, so my platoon of Pumas move out to their best advantage.

 Meanwhile, the tricksy Americans moved a tank-hunter unit forward into the village, taking cover behind the buildings as best as each vehicle could. The recon unit in the far right were a bunch of jeeps.

 We got first turn, so I moved my Pumas up to just within 16" and unloaded 9 dice of machineguns into the mortar team and OIC. Six hits, and five failed saves later (Ron did not have a good night with the dice...5 of those six saves were 1s). The mortar team failed its morale and the survivors ran off the table. The OIC failed his save, but he got a second save at 5+ and made it. I double moved my infantry into the trees and roadway, not knowing that I could not then "Stormtrooper" up to the stone walls on the other side of the road...a rule I was not made aware of last game.

Kyle was able to move his PzIVs forward enough to take some shots on the tank-hunter team, before it deployed, killing a jeep and Greyhound. Our artillery couldn't fire because we were considered as moving for everything during the first turn...and the rest of our forces couldn't see the enemy.

The Americans got a little payback on their first turn. Ron called in some mortars right onto my Puma, knocking out one due to a failed 3+ save. The tank-hunters deployed up to 8" away (special fecking rule) and 3 M10s popped up in the woods along the roadway, with an HMG platoon, which had been riding along as passengers. The M10s fired and missed a Hornet, but knocked out a PzIV. The HMG platoon could not see the German infantry in the wheatfield to their front.

 
 I wanted very much to relieve that US OIC of the fatigue of living, so I moved my Pumas to just outside his assault range and fired 6 dice of MGs at him; for six hits! He made failed three saves at 3+, making 2 more at 5+, but the third at 5+ was failed and he was killed in a hail of bullets. Kyle was able to kill two of the M10s and the third had bogged down on the far side of the woods, so it was essentially out of combat and ultimately bottled out. Our artillery was able to kill a command stand next to their artillery battery.

The American's fired all sorts of things at my infantry, but I lost only a single stand. They moved their infantry forward, almost in a wave, but Brent decided to enter the woods for some reason...I would blame driving fatigue has he had been on the road most of the day.

 Due to starting very late, we did not really have a chance to get in a full game, but we barreled through until the shop was closing. I had never done an assault before, I figured I'd give it a shot. I moved my infantry forward, and between them and the mobile AA, I killed two stands in shooting. Kyle and Cole were able to kill one or two of the HMGs, I don't know for sure as my attention was on my end of the table. Michael rolled very well on his defensive fire, getting six hits, but using his dice, I rolled five saves...he wouldn't let me use his dice for the rest of the turn... :) My assaulting units did five hits and Michael's infantry were wiped out. He did have a artillery spotter, not shown on the map, who retreated to the wheatfield behind him. My other mobile AA was able to take a long shot and kill an HMG stand.

This was pretty much the game. We had eliminated three platoons of the enemy, for three infantry stands, a Puma, and a PzIV...we may have lost a Hornet as well, but I was so focused on my side of the table...and feeling very badly for Ron's just terrible rolls. We kept telling him to switch his dice, but he just kept giving them the finger after each roll...typically a 1.

We discovered a few errors in rules interpretations, but that was a good thing for all of us...and ended up keeping my infantry from getting plastered by artillery. The American artillery, including the mortars, were really ineffective, aside from killing my Puma. It was due to the terrain and placement of the spotters, really. Our own artillery only killed with one stand, too, again due to little line of sight options.

We called the game as a German victory, which was fair as my Pumas were only faced my some mortars and HMGs, but all of whom were inside the wheatfield and no line of sight to me. One of our objectives was in that same field. With my infantry in good condition along the wall in front of the HMGs and with the Pumas on their flank, I doubt the American forces could have held that objective.

I am not a huge fan of Flames of War, but I will play when that is what we've got available. There are just too many things that don't "feel" right about the way combat and special rules interact and I really do not like the rules for aircraft, but again, it's a game and we all get to roll dice and "kill" toy soldiers!