So, in the sleeping wintery village somewhere in Russia, the weary remnants of SS-panzerbrigade Westfalen with support from rather Fearless and quick pair of King Tigers are enjoying a break.
They get suddenly thrown into battle by 1 US ID arriving on a spur of the moment attack. (Hasty attack.)
I had real doubts on how to deploy the halfs on this one. In the end I decided on having the Ostwinds and the 2 Westfalen infantry platoons, another one in Immediate Ambush. My opponent deployed 1 Rifle platoon, 105mms, the 6 priests and 1 Cav recce. He rolled reserves and got his first right away, he took the 4.2" mortars.
In the first round I shot down the AOP which was foolishly put into range from all of my Ostwinds. TBH there wasn't too many hiding places there so he just took the gamble, even though I did warn about it. Still, the AOP is more useful in scenarios bit different from HA.
I generally stayed put, and he maneuvered aggressively towards an objective, the Priests formed a Gunline, and were shot to pieces by couple of faust traps and the Ostwinds. US got all of it's reserves in 4 turns :D. I got 2 platoons on the second reserve roll. Mortars and KT's, middle and wrong side.
KT's killed a Sherman a turn, while moving towards the objective.
US rifles that were at half 6 teams total, assaulted my pinned platoon, that had 2iC and Cic in tow, total 9 teams I think. After 5 rounds of combat, I had 2 HMGs left and the burly 1ID guys had 3 teams still. Grrr, well that's the breaks.
There was one bailed Ostwind in the proximity, which the US boys destroy in the process, triggering a reluctant platoon check, which I fail. Next turn I get Nebs on the corner been attacked, and the Neb Command team buys time, again the US guys assault, this time with 3 teams, after DF there's 2 teams assaulting a neb, I fail the reluctant counter attack roll, which leads the guns dead, further platoon check and the Neb platoon is gone.
The 12" a turn moving KT's arrive JIT to contest the objective.
Time out and 4-3 for Westfalen.
My new friend gave a helluva fight to me, while in the end the 2 KT's schnelling from the far side, made it just in time to contest the objective, we'd agreed a time limit for this, and played 7 turns so not that bad. If it had gone a while longer I'd probably lost, CiC and 2iC gone in the assault, and 3 platoons left, the mortars were not dug in, so possible morale loss. He still had 1 full Infantry platoon and 105mm, chem mortars, 60mm mortars, couple of cav recon patrols and stuff left, so unlikely for me to have won that battle.
And he did make mistakes, I easily shot down the AOP, and trapped/Ostwinded the Priests. But assault from half a platoon of US rifles beat easily my 7 or so FT Westfalen boys. I managed to whiff 2 rounds of assault, which helped :). 2 HMG's left, 2 2+ rolls, If I'd made them, the 2 HMG's would have ripped the rifles to shreds = roll of 1, ETW and automatic failure on last man standing.
My thoughts:
Hasty attack is a beast to defend with 6 platoons versus Tube heavy US CV rifles list, Ostwinds were golden though, but I kinda had to have infantry on board, although the KT's might have been a better choice, the FJ player in me couldn't resist. Trained is hard, RV is best there is, I really love the RV given best of both worlds aspect on tanks. Better than FV King tigers for 300 points :D. Since I'm into attacking and all things tracked nowish, I don't think I'll continue practicing too much with this, though I do think it has potential. My list lacks THE AMBUSH platoon as well.
Few pics, lot of proxies, some unpainted stuff as well, been busy with terrain lately, so getting there. I ordered some 4Ground buildings to better go with the NW Europe we plan on fighting over, Brit Paras, US Infantry/tanks and my myriad of German Panzer/Mech/Infantry. I'm leaning towards running panzers though, I find that a lot more enjoyable than sitting in defense...
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