Note: Scroll to the right if you can't see everything in the pictures...
Well this is a batrep using my new British army. My apologies it isn't painted, it's been reworked so many times it's not sure what it is anymore....that is, until today.
I'm using a Churchills-in-Normandy list.
My opponent is using a German Panzer Lehr list.
I have 3 max strength infantry platoons, 2 Churchill VII command tanks, 3 churchill platoons (2xVI w/Applique armor and 1xChurchill III), a heavy mortar platoon (4 guns), a .50 cal universal carrier platoon, a wasp flame carrier platoon, and a
SP AT platoon (4).
My opponent has 2 panzergrenadier platoons, a hummel battery (3 guns), a nebelwerfer battery (3 guns), 4 Stugs, and a armored SPAA platoon (2).
He's quite new, and when fighting withdrawal came up I told him it'd go badly for him but he insisted.
So, he attacks me.
A few quick notes:
My
FLGS almost never has Churchills, so I'm using two panthers as my command tanks--I just purchased all 3 he had in stock to try and get a minimum number of churchills (I had 6 from my mid-war army) but couldn't. Someday, this army will get painted. Sorry it isn't.
So here we are with my right flank:
This is my center and left.
Here is his left flank.
Here is his center and right.
His first turn of shooting is a whole lot of nothing. He does not quite understand that when facing tanks, you send your transports to the rear.
Oh allright, I should mention I saved 2 hummel hits and 2 88 hits on my churchill platoon on the right with a bunch of dakkadakkas.
lol
So, my first turn I reveal my ambush:
Yes, those are 3 inch M10's borrowed from my being-reworked-to-not-suck Americans, also mid-war remnanets (the
FLGS has been on a late-war kick and it's time to upgrade/switch things around so my armies are still competitive). They're really 17 pdrs.
Between the Churchills semi-indirect fire and my ambush, his 88's die and he loses the lead halftrack and suffers 1 bailed halftrack in his platoon on the right.
On the other panzergrenadier platoon, another halftrack gets wasted and another bailed.
No, that Hummel isn't dead.
His turn 2:
Hey time to get out of the deathtraps!
And time for some vengeance:
The tank destroyers ended up failing their motivation check and running away because..
The congo line of stugs owned my tank destroyers.
Here I am moving forward:
Or not. That tank with the sideways turret bogged.
I spent the next turn moving, he spent the next turn wondering what to do. He fired alot of artillery and some stug shots, didn't accomplish much. More dakkadakka rolls.
Here I move forward and setup a rescue with my wasp platoon on the churchill that was bogged, he was having trouble getting back in.
I finally took it in the azz, suffering a bailed out
VI and a destroyed IV.
Stupid Stugs with AT12!
Here I had a ball, getting ready to take out one of his panzergrenadier platoons.
He bailed a .50 cal universal with his nebelwerfers.
As you can see, my ploy to get him to destroy all of my wasp carriers worked!
I decided to be brave, ignore his stugs completely (can't really knock them out anyway with my pop-guns) and chew up his centerline panzergrenadier platoon.
I also had my other
HMG recce patrol and the far left churchill platoon with my 2IC coming in on the left hand side.
I figured I'd need some help from my congo line to take that panzer lehr platoon out, but I machine gunned all his tank-hunter teams dead. While you can't see them, there are 2 panzerschreck teams just to the right of the tank closest to that platoon of stugs. I did manage to kill one, after all. Short range ain't so bad! Well anyway, turns out I was able to just grind his whole platoon away. He kept hitting me, but I kept motivating.
I managed to launch a breakthrough assault with my 2IC's platoon into his other panzer grenadiers, rolling a 1 for the one tank that could get into contact but rolling my 4+ for my wide tracks with a dakkadakka. I killed a team and he (finally!) didn't pass a tank terror test and ran away. During this time I'd been taking pot shots at his nebelwerfers, hummels, and SPAA. Killing/bailing a few.
Then the counterattack! Well, almost.
His tank hunters lined up, and hit once...which I bounced with a dakkadakka.
He then failed to smoke me with both his artillery units, and stormtrooper'd back into the woods.
My .50 cal recce platoon ate alot of death from his SPAA platoon.
Then they ran off. My churchills who'd so bravely wandered in front of the 2 panzershrecks and the stug platoon...
Well, they didn't do so hot.
After assaulting his centerline platoon, my 2IC tank platoon assaulted into the panzergrenaders on the left and well...they ran away and broke.
While I'd been pulling british infantry units off while my churchills ground forward, it was now turn 6 and it was impossible for him to contest any objectives before the game ended on turn 8.
As I said, he's fairly new. I crumped him last week in
40k, and I hope he'll take the lessons home this week and make a better army up for
FOW like he did
40k.
Comments welcome.