On Sunday we had the final day of the the Firestorm Lorraine campaign. For this game I decided to go with what I had been waiting for all campaign, lots of Panthers (or at least, things with Panther guns).
My force was an FFH Panzer company consisting of 2 Panthers in the HQ, 2 platoons of 3 Panthers each, 1 platoon (Firestorm) of 3 Pz IV/70(V)'s and 1 platoon of infantry with assualt rifles and panzerfausts in halftracks. Like all the lists in the Blood Guts and Glory list they were rated fearless trained.
I was facing Raphael who had a British Rifle company with US firestorms (Tank and Infantry)
The table consisted of a village in the centre with a long hill on the right and several smaller hills on the left. Raphael but his objectives near the village and I put both mine on the long hill since it seemed to be the best place for the Panthers.
We played the mission that is like Free-for-All with reserves (either Encounter or Meeting Engagement, I can't remember the name). I put the PZ IV/70's and the infantry in reserve and placed the 2 Panther platoons on the hill with the 2 command Panthers holding the objective near the village. The British put a rifle company on each objective and had a 25 pder battery and a medium battery near the hill objective.
My first goal was to get rid of the medium battery as that was the only direct fire threat to the Panthers starting on the board. I managed to chase them with not too much bother but I managed to get bunched up and lost a Panther to a 25pder bombardment
The Panthers then moved on the 25 pder battery. Meanwhile the British infantry were sneaking up through the village (and I missed a few turns where I could have fired my panthers at them but forgot)
My PZIV/70s came on and I tried to use them to threaten the village objective but the Achilles arrived on the other side and managed to take one out.
After taking out the 25pders the Panthers turned to face the Achilles but sadly the Sherman firestorm arrived on the next turn.
By then the pressure on the town was increasing and the command Panther got involved in a sniping duel with a Firefly that resulted in the death of my company commander (the 2IC was still alive though)
The two Panther platoons got wiped out and things were not looking good for the Germans.
The Britsih double timed the Shermans up to the objective. I couldn't really drive them off and hold the village objective so I decided to go all out to try and kill platoons. I managed to get the PZ IV/70s in position but the Panther bogged crossing the woodline. The game ended in a 4-3 victory for the allies.
The campaign ended in a draw (and I think I won 2 and lost 3). The reluctant trained germans were interesting to play.
Seems like thing were going pretty well until that firestorm showed up in the flank! I am looking forward to the total war game, I am assuming it will be another Panther party hah.
ReplyDeleteI think that was my big mistake. I probably could have made better use of my infantry as well.
ReplyDeleteI would (maybe) like to do a Panther list again but it has a minimum cost of 1030. I will have to see if I can convince Serge to bump up the allowance since it sort the iconic German list for the campaign
The list only has one platoon of panthers as required, you can do 5 panthers 3 panzer 4s and AA. But maybe not as much fun.
ReplyDeleteThat is true. I didn't think of the other Panzer list. I was just looking at the FFH Panzerkompanie which does need the 2 Panther platoon.
ReplyDeleteThe other option is to see if we can ignore the 2 combat platoon requirement at 1000 points and take FFH with 1 Panther platoon and 1 Pz IV/70 platoon