Time to catch up on some past games…
As someone who sort of lives out in the sticks it’s about 90 minutes either up to the Twin Cities or to LaCrosse to play Flames of War. In LaCrosse we have a really active group that plays ever weekend on Saturdays. It’s kind of a bummer that something like that isn’t also up in the Twin Cities. With The Source a really great game store up there, you’d think it’d be a given, that would be going on. Well .. no.
So, what’s a fella to do. Well I’m sure I’m not the only one who has to deal with this kind of situation. So here’s what happened. First, between the forums on wwpd.net and flamesofwar.com, there’s plenty of opportunities to post and try and find someone local to you.
Thankfully with wwpd.net they even have a Twin Cities special sub board. So few posts later and turns out meet a fellow up there. As a double bonus he likes to play early war which is a period I really like since I have an early war French force.
So we finally set the date and actually met at The Source, I grabbed a table and started to gather terrain from the shelf. Alas it wasn’t until I had grabbed terrain to set a table that I noticed there were perfectly great painted 4×6 boards stacked against the wall. N00b mistake and sadly a less than pretty table as a result. There isn’t a huge amount of terrain tho at The Source so be warned if you game there, you might want to haul some in.
Keith played his early war German light panzer list and I had put together a French infantry list. We both spec’d out to 1390 points. For the French that’s 3 platoons of infantry, a mortar platoon, 2 MMG platoons, 3 Char 1s, and 3 H35s (long). Alas no AA because I haven’t painted it yet and not knowing what Keith was going to bring I figured I probably could handle a reasonable amount of armor even with the 1 man turret problems and awkward layouts that French tanks suffer from.
Objective left, objective right, Keith is on the attack. I have delayed reserves, I center the Chars, have one infantry platoon augmented with 25mm AT guns covering one objective and my H35s covering the other.
Keith rolls forward with a platoon of Pz IIIs, 2 8-rads and then a light platoon of Pz IIs, and a command vehicle. I’m thinking ok .. I can deal with this.
The air … now that I couldn’t deal with, more because I hadn’t gotten to painting my AA guns…. that’s fixed now. 🙂
Turn 1 .. burning Char … thanks Stuka dive bomber glad you could hit the roundel right square like that… we’re really impressed down here I can tell you…. but otherwise little action as the armor dance began. I pressed with both my Chars against the Pz IIIs and the H35s against the 8-rads thinking I need to push both of these back and quick before Keith’s reinforcements arrive and try and hold out for mine.
I manage to brew a Pz III so bottom of turn 1, thinks aren’t looking that bad ….
Turn 2, I get my first set or reinforcements and pull on my mortar platoon. Keith’s air bails out another Char. I bail an 8 rad but otherwise the battle isn’t too bad for either side. The PzIIs on the opposite side of the table are frustratingly out of the range of my 25mm guns so not much to do but sit there and take fire.
With turn 5, the armor is still dancing. My H35s have been pretty ineffective. My char is still bailed out but otherwise the air hadn’t taken more of my tanks out but seems to show up and show up and show up. I drop smoke on top of the PzIIs perhaps to inspire them to come in a little closer. Keith at this point has two platoons of reinforcements he’s brought in, panzers to the right of me, panzers to the left, Keith is well set up to go after either objective. 
On my right flank he presses in attack with both panzer platoons. Infantry with Tank Assault 2 just isn’t any match and my 25mm while not a bad gun just isn’t able to push back the attack, given I’m pinned.
A last view at turn 6, with Keith in firm grasp of the hill and the objective on my right flank. On the left I’m still in contesting the objective. I have plenty of reinforcements coming in but both our out of position to help with the defense, so it’s game.
Pretty fun!