Unfortunately I cannot say the same of my Night fight battle this week. With the new burning empires book I have the option to put my early war French on the table as Free French and since we had two Axis and one Allied player I field a company of Foreign Legion Free French. I was contending with James and his African Schurten Platoon.
I was too aggress sending my pioneer sappers forward to take the center objective… James used his half track to good effect mowing them down with 24 VMG shots and the next turn assaulting my still pinned men. The next few turns my mortars and French 75s (and even a lucky ‘sniper’ shot from my 2iC) killed many Germans but with one of my two platoons of infantry gone I could not effectively counter attack.
Had I hunkered down I might have won or at least had a more even game. The fact that dawn did not break until turn 5 didn’t help my cause much either. James used his army with skill as I have come to expect.
At the other Table Gordon and Chris had a nasty close quarter’s battle using the Witches Cauldron scenario that looked like great fun.
Next I played Gordon and his Italian Positional force. I was up to 950 points of Legionnaires for this one and I had actually designed this list with Gordon’s Italians in mind. Gordon was a little sick of the night combat rules (and I really cannot blame him) so I agree to play a free for all mission. While I had planned to use this list against Gordon’s Italians I had also planned on having the cover of darkness.
My plan was to have my HMG equipped platoons (using the French integrated defense rules to hold Gordon’s attention to the front (and hopefully keep his head down) and then send my sapper flanking using the cover of a rocky hill to take the objective on the right hand side of Gordon’s position.
Turn one my Mortars and Artillery counted as moving… so I tried to dig them in… My Legion Mortars dug in like good Kepi Blancs… but the Colonial Artillery men did not (lazy no good…)
Gordon hit my HMG Platoon with 12 HMG and 3 AT gun shots scoring 6 hits… I failed two infantry and two gun team saves… and that platoon was down to two men! One of my other infantry platoons suffered similarly losign about a 3rd of its men.
Thanks to the “Legion is our Homeland rule” my shredded HMG platoon passed it’s moral and stayed…
Turn two I smoked part of Gordon’s Artillery, (and got an AT Bunker and HMG Bunker too) and tried to get my men moved into firing position. Gordon’s two batteries ballasted and smoked my own Artillery an my mortars (smoking the smokers is a good tactic, well done Gordon).
Gordon’s Gun pits kept taking their toll and though less bad than the previously turn I still lost a platoon. Still I felt I was still in a postion to carry out my plan if I could get my Mortars unpinned (which I did) and if Gordon didn’t smoke me again (naturally he would.)
The real damage came in Gordon’s turn three when he got air support and turned his guns on the Sappers working around the flank… A three Squad platoon of 12 stands was reduced to two in the blink of an eye and with it French hopes. The sappers failed both Platoon moral check and re-roll. Although I was still in the game there was no way I could cross the open ground with one full strength and one badly shot up infantry platoon… I choose to concede the game a this point.
Gordon had a lot of advantages here and I think my plan was as good as it could be given the army I had.
Next time I plan to bring my H-35 Tanks and maybe get some Australian Cavalry Scouts to help close it. I think the Positional forces are going to prove very hard to shift with out the cover of darkens (especially for infantry)
Chris and James mean while had a very close night action that Chris just managed to pull out (join the Club James I have had a lot of games like that with Chris)
Thanks Gordon, James and Chris for a great night of gaming. Pictures will be up some time this weekend or Monday.
Much nicer with pictures, cool stuff and uber fun games that night,-Gordon
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