Panzerschrek Day One - AARs

The weekend of 20-21st July saw Paul and myself, as a team, and Brett and his son Rhys as another,   make the trek northwards, to Palmerston North for the Annual, Panzerschrek doubles tournament; the longest running in Flames of War history, I believe.

Paul and I were running a themed match up from Market Garden, with Paul running the British Paras, with

HQ; CiC & 2iC - plus Urquart and PIATS
Full Para platoon
Full Para platoon
Howitzer battery with medium artillery support
Howitzer battery with medium artillery support

...and for myself, the armoured support;

HQ; 2 Shermans
2 Shermans & 2 Fireflies
2 Shermans & 2 Fireflies
3 Stuarts (Recce)
3 Carriers (Recce)

Brett and Rhys had taken a joint Reluctant Trained Infantry co., with Infantry, 105 Howitzers, 15cm Nebs, Static 37mm AAA, 2cm AAA, Flak 88s, Pak38s, 3 Panzer IVs and 4 Panthers.

For Paul and myself, our overall plan was fairly straight forward; in the attack the Paras and recce would lead the way, with the tanks supporting the action, either taking on enemy tanks and, or Guns. Howitzers once ranged in on the objective would rain down mayhem weakening defenders. If defending, again Paras would hold ground with tanks supporting and being the ambush, and Howitzers raining down the hurt. What could go wrong...?


Game One

After travelling all this way to face 23 other teams, out first game is drawn against... Brett and Rhys, who we've played several times in our practice games, and its Free for All. We are the attackers...

So we both get everything on the table, and we are facing Bretts essentially defensive list. We have a plan but as our troops go down in alternating fashion, it seems Brett is able to deploy to counter whatever we put down. The terrain is also heavy with a huge town in centre of board, bocage hedges to flanks, fields trees and woods.

We had hoped to exploit and attack up our right flank, but Brett stymied that with his Panthers. And on the other weaker flank, we hoped to make some mischief with the Stuarts against Bretts weaker side, but they were headed off by Panzer IVs.

Our right side deployment

Brett, never being one to sit back and defend, came at us with his Panthers and Panzer IVs. This lead to a defensive withdrawal of the Stuarts who exchanged places with the central Tank platoon, who would be better able to deal to the approaching Panzers. Against the Panthers, we positioned so Brett would have to move to hit us in cover , thus hoping the weather this fire and kill him off with our full return fire from the Fireflies, backing this up with an assault by the paras, against the hopefully weakened panther platoon, and then move on the attack.

These early exchanges took time to resolve, with little happening quickly. Brett got some arty on our left tanks, bailing a couple who then failed to get back in, slowing our response. On the right we survivedd the panther fire, but only managed one dead and one bailed in return, despite rolling misses with semi-indirect fire.

Stuarts retreat from Panzer IV threat...

This stand off continued for a couple of turns and the Paras edged to get in to assault range only to fail tank terror twice. 'Snake Eyes' springs to mind... this seemed to set tone for our dice luck for the tournamant...

Brett eventually did the deed for us, rashly(?) assaulting with 2 Panthers in the wood with the paras. Little damage was done but Brett in breaking off lost a Panther that bogged in the wood.

Central Tanks will move to left to deal to Panzers

On the other flank the Panzer IVs kept advancing, putting the pressure on us. They were eventually destroyed, but this had kept all the action on our side of the board.

Brett had also pushed up with infantry supported by Pak38s to aid the Panthers and made it over the Bocage with the infantry, perhaps again a little rashly...  The Panthers were finally dealt another loss when the bailed one was finally knocked out, but the last stubbornly refused to fail a reluctant morale test. The Panzers IVs were knocked out, and the supporting infantry who had crossed the hedge were machine gunned down.

Withdrawal in face on Panther advance, leading him on to come get us...

But all that saw the game end with us not even out of our starting block, we had suffered minimal losses, with no platoons lost, and as Brett had started with 9+ platoons, and we had destroyed 2, we managed 2 points for the game. (At least thats how we scored ourselves... it was not until after the event that we learned that the "9+ platoons rule" only kicks in if your opponent wins. In this game , we both count as losing so we would actually have scored another point!)

The tank position swap continues

So the game rates as a loss for us both, though a 2-1 in our favour.

We were left feeling somewhat frustrated, though fair play to Brett for being aggressive with a defensive list.

Panther move up to shoot and miss, Fireflies return fire...

Had we dealt with the Panthers quicker we could have pushed on, on that flank, but the Fireflies needed some target practice and the Paras hadnt finished their tea in the woods. Though one plucky PIAT man had manged to scramble forth and nail a panther in the flank, but then tank terror was failed - fearless troops with a reroll - getting snake eyes...

One dead (by PIAT) one bailed, now we can assault... nope!

Oh forgot our vaunted artillery... we killed a transport for the 88's...

So that was that...

and on it goes, with Bretts infantry and paks moving up to support...

Game 2

Whilst milling around, finishing my packed lunch, I was ambushed by Phil Yates, the games designer & author, who was clutching an empty ice-cream tub with paper chits folded up in it, held aloft (he's a tall chap!) - Yep I got to draw the next mission from the 'hat'. Not that I got to see it at that time - but it soon transpired to be Counter-Attack.

The match-ups and tables were assigned and we found ourselves playing Damien Tyson and Andrew 'Shep'  Shepherd. These guys had brought similar lists to each other, being German PanzerSpah, comprising Pumas, backed up by StuH42s, infantry , Flak 88s, and mobile AAA.

Brit deployment

The set up went down as below, with us defending one quarter, with all Infantry & Gun elements on the board and one tank platoon in ambush. Interestingly for myself I learned from this game what the Mobile Reserves rule really means - I had always played that being reserves, half your forces were off AND you could only have one mobile platoon on tables so the rest of these were off as well. It could be that since I mostly play mechanised forces, whenever this mission has come up its hurt me badly in deployment when defending against armour...

So to continue the dialogue, we had one tank platoon and the Recce coming on in reserve.

We had hoped to get a decent ambush with the tank platoon and put the hurt on some StuHs, get artillery ranged in on and deal with the 88s before our reserves arrived... and move the infantry through the corn to link up with our reserve on the 2nd objective and hold out... Sounds good, what could go wrong?

German deployment

The Germans moved out aggressively...

The 2nd objective - I love their objective markers!

The pumas zoom up, then do some indecisive 'driving' back and forth until happy with their positions though one decides to go for an assault against the forward platoon commander of the howitzers...

Unfortunately for the puma commander he had failed to spot a PIAT team just tucked round the side of the hill...boom! The loss of this lead recce element, allowed our Tank ambush to go down with good line of sight to the StuHs coming straight at us heading for the artillery park. With a wonderful round of shooting I blew away all four StuHs! (My highlight of the whole weekend!)

At this point in the game things were looking rather good...

Sadly for us though the burning wrecks of the StuHs then obscured our observers view to the 88s on the hill...but some infantry cop a whack form our pack howitzers instead, spoiling their day somewhat...

Boom go the StuHs

Some what miffed at the loss of one StuH platoon the 88s seek revenge, and in a prompt swirl of rapidly flung dice we are informed of our losses... the lead Sherman goes up in flames...

The other StuH platoon and pumas reach the 2nd objective, but it does not go live till turn 6, so we have time to react.... patience patience...

By this time we have our tank platoon reserve on the board, but are faced with a dilemma... the 88s have not be dealt with by our artillery and have a commanding viewing of our approach to the second objective. We could duck and dive through the town, but would no doubt fall prey to roving pumas getting flank shots on us. We could drive up onto the hill and get some shots on the StuHs; 4 shots on 5s, but if we miss we are getting 8 shots back at us... we didnt like these odds, so decided to stay out of sight till at least the 88s were seen too...

[and this cost us the game, I think - here was a blunder of epic proportions - I had forgotten the StuHs range is 24" compared to our tanks range of 32" - (The StuH & StuG are very similar models and I was looking at them thinking StuG and 32" range...) we could have engaged the StuHs, at range and they would have to move to fire back at us, dropping their possible 8 shots to 4, assuming we had failed to kill any... much better odds and ones we would have gone with...]

{further update - the StuH range does actually appear to be 32" - not sure why the guys were saying 24"??}

The game goes on on, we still fail to hurt the 88s, and in their rapid firing, matched only in the speed of dice rolling, we are informed of more losses to our Shermans...

Firefly blazes in the corn from the 88s

With nothing to shoot at our remaining deployed tank platoon starts heading over to try and approach the 2nd objective, whilst infantry start moving across the corn...

Our Stuarts come on from reserve and go for a somewhat suicidal attempt to deal with the 88s, or at least, divert their fire from our main tanks... who have parked up for tea, still under the misapprehension of the StuHs range and resulting stalemate this has caused in our mind...

Things start to get interesting in the centre and the rival infantry start duking it out in the corn... after some shenaningans about LOS in the corn, and the status of cover therein for defensive fire, kindly cleared up by an ever approachable Phil Yates (top bloke!), and a forgotten morale check, the German infantry departs, leaving the Paras still holding the cornfield, but this distraction has delayed them getting over to the 2nd objective.

Whilst this was going on Urquart (Higher command Warrior team)  was trying to get near the objective himself to at least contest it, though this was debated in a fashion, but he finally asserted he was correct in his belief...

Sadly for us, time ticking by, and the turns marching on, our chances to contest the 2nd objective slipped away, through our fingers... the Stuarts were nailed by the 88s and pumas in a hail of rapidly spinning dice, the carriers failed to do anything exciting and our much belated attempt by our tanks to shoot up some StuHs on the objective was all too late and ineffective.

This handed the game to Damo and Shep, with a 3-4 against us...

We were left again thinking, what might have been... the dilemma of the StuHs range really irked me as I normally run Germans and should have known, and the inability to deal with the 88s, our artillery failing to achieve much here ... guns rolling 5's for saves does not help your cause no matter how big your FirePower rating is...

Never mind, we still got 3 points from the game, so not a complete disaster, onwards and upwards I say!


Game 3

Our final game of the day saw us teamed up against Dallas and Andrew(?), and the mission out of the hat this time was, Fighting Withdrawal. I have to be frank, this has never been my favorite mission, as I invariably get lost off with what happens and when, with platoon withdrawal and mission objective withdrawals... tactically I usually stuff up it from a timing perspective... but being partnered with Paul, who has shown from past experience he has the mission sussed, I was confident to follow his lead.

On meeting our opponents, we got the chance to glance through their Army lists, and they ours. We noticed we were facing one company comprising 2 platoons of 3 StuGs, plus some support, the other being Volks Grens with support and 5 Panthers! They had air-support too... I cant recall exactly which way round their forces were organised, but some of their support was some Nebs.

Immediately, we spotted a potential fragility in their list, the StuGs... If we could bust those StuGs with our greater number of Tanks, that portion of the force would be a Company morale check, and thus potentially break the whole force.

We diced off, and won the roll, making us the attackers...

In terms of the mission we knew we would be facing the ambush of 5 panthers but with two fast recce elements of our own, were fairly confident of pushing this back as far as possible...

The main problem would be the central span of the board that was very open, crossing which , was going to hurt...

So, our plan would finalize once we saw where the defenders would deploy.

As it turned out the StuGs were well spaced and concealed behind buildings and woods, making it hard to concentrate our force, on this weak point.

So we decided to play for the mission objectives and go hard out for one, on our right flank, massing all our force there. Knowing the Panther ambush would come, we raced the recce up negating the chance to ambush from the far right woods, our desired approach side, and swung the carriers in to push the ambush back in to the more central woods.

We then advanced up the right flank with one tank platoon taking cover from the rail station, with infantry beginning the foot march across the board.

The second tank platoon looking to get hull down positions on the large hill in front of us to start shooting fireflies at the panthers. Our early moves were slowed somewhat knowing there was active enemy airpower, though only sporadic. This kept us close to woods/buildings before daring to pushing into the open once the air availability dice pool was reduced to one die...

Panthers ambush revealed and air tries ranging in...

The Stuarts got a rude shock... what looked like two basic infantry teams in the factory building, one of which turned out to be a proxy for a PanzerSchrek team, which bailed the poor Stuart. So shocked by this, the poor fellow subsequently failed to remount and was later knocked out... the other Stuarts scooted away to get some shots at the building, out of sight of one of the Panthers.

Those Panthers had seemed determined they were going to be able to deploy, just on the edge of the woods with line of sight, despite the presence of our carriers and despite hovering our tape rule over the area, our opponents were non-plussed by the evidence to our eyes, and placed their tanks as they desired, so much for recce...

Thankfully their early attempts at air strikes, missed.

The far side of board, out of the fight...

The firing from the Panthers knocked out our firefly that was on overwatch from behind the station.

OK with the Panthers revealed we can now start ranging in our howitzers, who once ranged in, can cause some hurt to these top armour 1 tanks... but again, we failed to range in, veterans in cover, thus 5s', nope...

It soon became evident this was, once again not going to be one of our finest hours... our other firefly, failed to get any success, despite semi indirect fire re-rolls, on the panther visible to the right of the factory.

Realizing we had to push on or we were not going to get anywhere, we decided we would drop a huge smoke barrage from both howitzer platoons, along the front of the tree line, this would blind the panthers and infantry, allowing our tanks to assume firing positions on the ridge line and infantry to make progress across the open ground.

And of course, this demonstrated my only real bugbear with this game,  you have to commit to the MOVE before you fire a SMOKE barrage... so the tanks trundle up to the top of the ridge getting hull down, and the infantry start the long march. Hoping also to turn some of the Panthers attention, I double time the remaining tank platoon down the right flank woods, hoping to work my way round for flank shots....

...and here the whole thing fell apart... our smoke barrage missed; two lots of 4 dice, with only a single die (per 4 rolled) needed to come up a 5 (vets in cover), but no... nothing higher than a 4... no smoke cover...

So, in their turn the StuG command tank zips out suicidally to take flank shots at the rear of the doubled Shermans, he's just presented his arse to our firefly and CiC tank but seems uncaring...

The Panthers take aim on our tanks on the ridge line, and in a blaze of 5s and 6's blow the snot out of our tanks on the ridge. the StuG commander nails the two doubled shermans, and our infantry in the blessed open, now start taking fire from the infantry and nebs...

At this point, realistically we are stuffed, but play on just to make a game of it..., you can probably tell by the lack of photos that the game had ceased to be much fun by this point...

In return we nailed the crazy StuG commander and knocked out another StuG at range with the 2iC tank on our far left. But it was all too little too late...

It wasn't much longer, thankfully that it became apparent that we were on a company morale check, the carriers having died long ago, the tank platoons all battered or knocked out... the paras had also taken a pasting trying to cross the open ground to get to grips with their foe.

It was fitting then, that despite being Guards who can re-roll failed company morale, we once again rolled Snake Eyes... thank the gods...it put us out of our misery...

A disastrous loss, 1-6 against...

A game in which it felt our opponents were having as much fun throwing their dice, as they were playing the game. Is it possible they were in practice for the "synchronized dice throwing" event at the next Olympics? Maybe even they were looking at creating a new sport of 'tennis-dice' as the amount of top-spin put onto their dice throws was a sight to behold. Its possible also the sport of 'dice-skittles' may also be coming in the future, as they practiced their aim, repeatedly throwing their dice into the same terrain feature, seeing it cock repeatedly, yet apparently not wondering why???

My patience wearing thin, I couldn't restrain myself from saying, 'Just drop the dice on a flat bit'...

But maybe these bizarre dice throwing techniques work, as they seemed unable to get less than a 5, once the dice finally found a place to come to a stop with one side clearly indicated, whilst we seemed unable to hit the proverbial barn door...

So we end the day, and mercifully get to pack up, lick our wounds and head home for the night, an hours driving being plenty of time to mull over how the day has gone...

It wasn't until much later, as I thought back to the last game, and thought, 'hang on a sec...'  I suspected that our opponents had actually been, for the most part, Trained. Their lists being drawn from the more recent Late-late war Germans, using Trained forces, from books such as Blood, Guts and Glory and Nuts. Yet we had been shooting at them as if they they were Veterans. Our usual cries of , 'so, you're vets, at range, in cover, we need 6's', before rolling the dice, not being questioned or corrected...

Our suspicions were confirmed the following day, when a glance at their army list showed their ratings as Trained...

On the whole a terrible day, with 6 points out of 3 games, but its all to play for, for day two, and can only get better....right?