Team tournament - Winning is all
So, after the bad show on the ESC, felt like I should stay off the beer and have a better gaming day.
1st round we got to face off against Canada, I played the very nice Pole and his Canadien Infantry list.
The Scenario was Breakthrough and he had, those armored APCs, Land Mattresses, 6 pounders, UCs, Wasps, M10s and Infantry, he elected to do Night attack, which allowed me to move to defend the objectives under cover of darkness, his first Infantry platoon was destroyed pretty early, when he assaulted my short scouts, the next round I assaulted the remains and killed his CiC as well.
The M10s arrived from the reserves, and promptly killed my StuHs but got finished themselves also in the process, by trap teams, StuH and finally my CiC. The last rounds were mostly bloody assaults from both sides, leaving the Canucks no other option but break my co morale, which failed, his only effectives in the end were 3 6 pounders, so after his Mattress failed to range-in, we called it 4-3 for me.
The second game was against Spain and I faced Canadien Recon tanks in dust-up. I had the joy of downing an AOP in the game, the game itself was pretty uneventful, although my trap teams caused him all sorts of trouble, including a free kill with his left behind, bogged down 2iC in the woods. I almost stole the game with my StuHs and recon arriving from the reserves, but he realized the danger just in time to have his CiC tank with the huge artillery to delay me enough to not make it. 2-3 draw.
Third game was Fighting Withdrawal versus Hungarians and a US tank list with Shermans,Jumbos, Stuarts, Priests, Recon Jeeps, Infantry and stuff. I deployed my objectives to the left and center and he put his next to my center objective. I never had any real danger in this one and his arty kept trying to kill my 88s, once he managed to kill one gun, only to have VDH resurrect it...
I actually had my StuHs in ambush and never had to deploy them, the 88s fired a salvo at 5 Stuarts, hit 6 times and destroyed the platoon, needing 6s... There was a bit of assaulting in the end, but FJs are pretty good at that business, so no real worries there either, 6-1 for me.
This concluded the day, and spent the night grabbing just a couple beers and fine dining.
The Sunday started with lot less hangover... And we merrily headed to the Master Center again. First game was Surrounded against Serbian gameshop owner, and his US tanks, with Shermans, TDs, Sherman 105s, 2 Infantry platoons, Mortars and Recon, he had Abrams with the lot. I had been facing all sorts of artillery in the tourney, so promptly spread my troops, which wasn't such a great idea as he had only the mortars for indirect. In the end it didn't matter that much, he lost his 105s early by failed assault on my Fjs, 2iC Faust and 1 Schreck, both pinned, hit and maimed, rest of the Sherms were bogged so his best anti-infantry weapon down. After that, I cleared the infantry platoons in leisure by StuHs and FJs. He got the game to 4-3 by killing the 88s and one FJ platoon.
The Last game was Counterattack versus Slovakia and I got to defend against Aufklarungs, with Cannons, a KT, StuHs, Recon, Nebs and HT infantry. The HT infantry started by doubling to end of a street where only my 88s could see them ;) I foolishly did not target the 2iC but maimed the platoon and it left the map. The 2iC almost took the Objective when I slept... StuHs were unkillable, I hit them with everything, 3 trap teams and so on. My StuHs cleaned the Cannon platoon and I started moving my FJs a bit late to defend the far objective, with my remaining 2 StuHs, lucky for me, he forgot to move his 2iC once, which was enough for me to get a StuH to contest, only had to survive a round of shooting from his StuHs to win...
And I save everything, 4-3 and a nice 4 wins 1 draw for me, Team Finland raised from last years position 1 place and us newbies for the team gained invaluable experience.
Thanks to the Organizers for the very well organized tournament! And thanks to all my opponents for tough games.
