T’was a full day with double the gaming over in La Crosse at Deaf Ear records today. Chuck and I met up at 9am for a ~1800pts vs ~1800pts Russian Kursk action using Flames of War. As it was Kursk the thought was play a German armor company against a Russian armor company.
This week I had anticipated I was probably going to be playing Germans so I finished up some Panzer IVs Fs with a 1943 camo pattern. These poor Panzer IVs had been sitting on the shelf for awhile in simple primer black unplayed (sad violin) with so they were long long over due to get finished and see some time on table.
As experienced Flames of War players know 1800 points goes quick if you aspire to be playing a heavy metal game. I picked to build a Tiger company with 2 platoons each having but 1 Tiger from the East Front book. To round things out I picked up a JU-87G as priority air support (errrrmmmm taka-taka-taka), 3 Pz IVs F2s, a light AA platoon of 2 Sd Kfx 10/5 with a single 2cm FlaK38 gun and then last a platoon of infantry in Sd Kfz 250s.
Ian had decided to come along at the last minute so he and I were handling the Germans. I figured we were going to be on the defensive and largely outnumbered throughout the game. The scenario we rolled up was a Dust up. With delayed reserves we picked to have on table the CiC Tiger, a single Tiger platoon of one Tiger and then the 3 Pz IV F2s. Not much but if luck would be with us the luftwaffe might appear occasionally and help keep the Red Horde from completely mauling us.
The table with the initial placement. Germans on the bottom left with the Russian objective by the road there next by the Tigers. A platoon of Russian T34s can be seen on the far right, and then a formation of BA-10s Russian Recon to the left of the T34s and a little further back of that Katyies for Russian artillery.
Chuck started the game off with his Recon move and sprung forward with his BA10s. Ian and I were a little taken aback by this but why not, that juicy Russian objective all out there ripe for the taking with just a few panzers not quite in range to hold the objective.
As luck would have it Ian and I would go first for the first turn. Do we move and make sure the objective is contested, or do we sit tight and preserve the rate of firepower. We elected to hold right were we started and let them have it. We also tried out our first call for air support and given the 7 dice with priority air support were quite happy that Hans was listening in on the radio.
The Luftwaffe when it came time swooped down after the T34s but the two Russian AA trucks guns found their mark and sent the two stukas off to find easier targets. Killjoys! This being the first time I’d bought air wasn’t too sure if it was a wise investment or not. Not a great start but hope springs eternal.
After the opening shots from turn one, a number of the BA10s (3 IIRC) where less then lucky going, pop, pop, pop! 3 went up, but at the bottom of turn 1 the BM-10s continued to push down the road on the Russian first turn. The Katyies aimed for the Pz IVs but for all the rockets coming down, none could leave a dent. Later Chuck realized he should have been rerolling misses. :-/ Given I’m still a sort of newbie to FoW, I’m blissfully ignorant of these details sometimes, but I sure am trying to get better at these kinds of details either pro or con and make sure even if it works against me, to remind people. It’s fair play after all!
The T34s pushed up the table as well, looking to approach the Tigers at range. This is one criticism I have of FoW. There seems like an area to add flavor to adjust the anti-tank ratings based on range. Range bands work well for other game systems and it does help portray the differences in optics and so on.
Turn two, the Germans again called for Stukas and again was successful. Ian and I decided to stay where we were. With my Pz IVs I aimed for the BA-10s but my shooting was less than great, while I hit they passed morale and stuck around. A couple had PTRs on board so they were trying to angle for a side shot. Ian shooting at range managed to bail out a T34. We again sent the Stukas after the T34s and this time the AA was partially out of range. The Stukas came down, scored some hits and took out a T34. Later we found out that cannon or MG shots from air should test against side armor and bombs or rockets should test against side armor. Sigh. Learning! It wouldn’t have had much of an effect given the Anti-tank of the Ju-87G is an 11.
At the bottom of turn 2, the BA10s fired their ATRs at the PzIVs but none found their mark. The T34s continued to maneuver and the Katyies again rained down but didn’t leave so much as a smudge, the new paint jobs of the PzIVs remained mint.
About at this point it started to dawn on me, we might actually have a somewhat reasonable chance to go after our objective. I asked Ian to move ahead down the hill and I would try and face the last of the BA10s and then join him.
A few dice rolls later and the BA10s were gone. At the bottom of the 3rd turn the Russians backed up their T34s to get back under the safety of the AA umbrella as another T34 was hit by the air.
Turn 4 and the Germans with some confidence continuing to move towards the objective, but at the bottom of the turn, the Russians score their first set of reserves and another T34 platoon enters. No reserves for us Germans tho.
Russians pressing, we’re pressing, and we’ve got a good ol’fashion tank duel brewing. Ian’s Tigers while taking hit after hit but nothing is penetrating and even in the case of the Pz IVs they are leading a very charmed life, saving against the odds.
The new Russian T34 platoon that just arrived had copulas so their vision problems were corrected and thus not having to suffer from a +1 to hit due to the turret design. We decided to hold off one turn for air, as the dice to roll for making requests were starting to dwindle.
The new T34 platoon would over the course of the last turns rush up to engage the Tigers from all around but it wouldn’t have any effect. Ian was able to ker-chunk… boom, ker-chunk… boom with ease and brew up the T34s that were getting too close. Between that 9 frontal and 8 side, those Tigers sure did really well. I guess someday soonish I should actually buckle down and get some Panthers too.
Turn 6, luck would have it, we get all of our reserves finally. The extra Tiger, the infantry in half tracks and light AA, late but quite welcome. Somebody from the merry newly arrived band was going to be going to map reading class after this action. Never a good thing to keep Herr Hauptmann waiting.
In the picture above I decided to move 1 Pz IV on to the objective, and then the 2 remaining Pz IVs in the platoon would take care of the lone T34. With the newly arrived Tiger and more air, the T34s on our right flank were quickly being taken care of. You can see the results of Ian starting to take out the newly arrived T34 platoon.
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And with that we were able to get onto the objective. Ian swatting the T34s with a little too much ease, we decided the question was pretty much decided and best break for lunch, clean up and get ready for game #2 of the day.
Chuck fought valiantly and had some pretty cold dice in spots. Still those Tigers in future games I think will be going against some new Russian armor as Chuck has a very impressive list of armor in his painting queue that in future games will have better chances to make a dent. Definitely look forward to those future match-ups!
All in all a pretty unexpected outcome, least for me. I really didn’t think the Germans were going to be able to stand up this well. The Russian Katyies seem like better hardware to aim at infantry than tanks. The air was in my mind very effective. That was a good lesson to learn both to have air as well has have AA assets in the area to protect. While you can’t depend on how many planes will show, the ability to auto target things in the open and have reasonably good chances of scoring hits, was pretty cool. The PzIVs should of had some losses. Given the anti-tank of the Russian T34s, if it hadn’t of been for my rolling I could easily have seen where that platoon should have been brewed up.
Did you roll for “Tiger Ace” skills? All the rockets in FoW have low AT ratings and fairly low Firepower test scores. Best used for pinning infantry and killing soft vehicles and gun teams in my experience. Also very good for making smoke. Perhaps if the Tiger and MkIVs had been smoked…? Looks like a fun time and good learning experience.
Yeah we did. Two Schnell results and a one Clever Hans.
If you’re going to do Kursk, why not do historical scenarios? With a little research, you should be able to find them online. Prokhorovka is a popular battle, within the battle, and there are many scenarios available for that. If you do historical, you’ll have more realistic numbers of tanks, especially for the Germans, who, after all, were on the attack.
Here’s one for FoW: http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=111&art_id=308
“When your Aircraft hits an Armoured vehicle with Bombs or Rockets, the opposing player rolls a die and adds the vehicle’s Top armour rating to get their Armour Save score.” Most tanks have a top armor of 1. All T34s were top armor of 1, at Kursk.
As for shooting at their side armor, a T34’s side armor, at that time. was 5. If your Stuka’s AT was 11, as with the Stuka 87G’s cannon, they would need to roll a 6, to save.
I’m still new at FoW, too, and find learning the rules, a real challenge, but, I’m not giving up. I already have too much invested.
Scenarios are good, but require some extra work rather than “bring xxxx points of Germans.” I’ve played part of Prokhorovka with Command Decision (Tom was there I believe) and it is a great game, but OTOH you got in two games that day. So the goofy victory system in FoW delivers the intended result.
I find the basics of FoW very easy to learn. It’s when you get the gimmick rules going that it is hard to keep track of, especially since I’ve seen what I would call Codex Creep in recent publications. Keep at it. Once you accept it for what it is, the game is a lot of fun. It’s just that coming from a detailed game like CD I had a lot of “what the…?” moments early on. 🙂
Thanks for the link to the Kursk BF campaign. What we were doing was a one off, least for the first game with a setting of Kursk for guidance for forces.
As Mike mentioned the Rochester group has taken on Kurst (several parts!) using CDIII over the years. The epic battle in Kevin’s basement was one in particular I remember quite fondly. I think that was Prokhorovka but I might be misremembering.
I am also looking at the Skirmish Campaign books with an eye to play a few with FoW. Those have some great series of actions in them.
You’re welcome. I hope you enjoy, whatever you try.
Funny, I was thinking about that epic CD III battle just a few days ago. I don’t remember which section it was at the moment.
We did the attack of 1st SS Panzer where the battlefield was divided by the raised rail track. Fought length-ways on your 18′ table. 1st SS blundered into 29th(?) Tank Corps, which was destroyed, but took long enough for 5th(?) Mech Corps to arrive and achieve a stalemate. Much like the real battle. 🙂