Just over a week to go to Fracas

I'm making my second trip to Wanganui for Fracas on the 10th of Aug for the Battle of the Bulge themed 700pts Flames of war Tournament. In finishing 1st equal last year using a Fuhrer Brigade list i decided to go with a force from Blood guts and glory for something different this time.

This is what I'm using.

Tank Company HQ
*CinC M4 or M4A1 Sherman (65 pts)

Compulsory Tank Platoon
*Command M4 or M4A1 Sherman, 2x M4 or M4A1 Sherman (190 pts)
- Tank upgrade 1 - Replace M4 or M4A1 Sherman with M4A3 Sherman (5 pts)
- Tank upgrade 2 - Replace M4 or M4A1 Sherman with M4A3 Sherman (5 pts)
- Tank upgrade 3 - Replace M4 or M4A1 Sherman with M4A3 Sherman (5 pts)

Armored Mortar Platoon
*Command Carbine, M2 half-track equipped with .50cal AA MG, 2x M4 81mm MMC (60 pts)

Sherman Assault Gun Platoon
*Command M4A3 (105mm) Sherman, 5x M4A3 (105mm) Sherman (320 pts)

Recon Platoon
*Command Rifle, M2 half-track equipped with .50cal AA MG, Rifle, Jeep (50 pts)

700 Points, 4 Platoons

with the missions being 
Game 1- Dust-Up, Game 2- Pincer, Game 3- Dust-Up, Game 4- Pincer, Game 5- Dust-Up.
I wanted 2 platoons as small as possible (only costing 110pts) so i would have max points on the table with the other 2. And being tank army hoping to be attacker in the other games meaning ill have all on. Hoping to over whelm the enemy quickly.

CTA Army ready willing and able.

Well maybe not able that's down to the dice. Well this is my CTA 2014 army ready for battle.

I don't think ill get any practice games before had only had 1 about 2 months ago and 80% of the army was proxy. And for the record it was a loss.

My 6 platoon Giant ive been told not to expect much time between games as ill be spending alot of time packing and unpacking.

My 2 platoons of 45mm AT guns.

My 76mm Arty although most of the time it will be in an antitank role as its AT9 ROF2 good for dealing with Matilda's and Char B's

T-35s so absurd I had to use them

The smaller of the 2 infantry platoons you can tell them apart from the other by the tree stumps on them.

Games 3, 4 and 5 Panzershreck.

Game 3 was a Free for all vs Simon McBeth (Parachute Rifle Company) and Chris Otton (Armoured Squadron 7th Armoured). This game was all over in 3 turns i was on the left flank warren on the right while he held his objective on his flank i was going to try and smash through the left flank with my 13 panzer's and his cannon half tracks. Turn one i moved out to engage the 2 armoured platoons with all my tanks not killing a single one Warren's NGFS didn't do anything ether in their return fire they killed 8 of my panzer's in the first turn. Of course the 1 platoon that could storm trooper with the company commander failed to do so and was wiped out. Turn 2 in the haste to get out of LOS as it had gone pear shaped so quickly I hod to do some bogging rolls for hedges to get out of LOS or into cover 2 more panzer's got bogged which got them killed. On Warren's flank not much had happened he managed to kill a recon squad but nothing else It did seem for the 3rd game in a roll my tanks where trying to do all the heavy lifting them selves. At the start of our turn 3 i had to check company morale and failed even with my re-roll so the blood bath ended in a 5-2 loss.

Game 4 was Fighting withdrawal vs Andre Jacobs and Craig Ramsey both sporting Identical (Legkiy Samokhodniy Artileriskiy Polk) Assault gun company's. We were defending in this on which suited us just fine not having to move using full rate of fire while soviets move and shoot with the hen and chicks rule sounded good to us (oh boy where we wrong). Turn one for them they had bailed 2 tanks of mine not to bad i thought as i had protected ammo which worked when it came to our turn one. Their tanks where still nicely bunched as they bottle necked between two forests with our NGFS O.P. having a clear line of sight to them needing 3+ to range in we actually did on the first attempt for the first time that weekend and hitting 6 tanks under the template things looked good then he rolled his 6 saves. Andre rolled a 5 and five 6's meaning only 1 tank was bailed out from a AT6 FP1+ Arty unit that sort of set the tone for what was to come. I open fired turn after turn on hist horde of T-34's killing maybe 2 a turn i was losing the same each turn but i had 13 tanks they had 24 tanks on the one flank the rate of attrition was to great. So warren launched an attack on Craig's Assault guns by assaulting them to drive them back he killed 1 and a half platoons of then in assault with panzerfausts as they had no defencive fire. Hopping this would take the pressure off me for a bit to slow the loss of tanks it was to little to late again Being another 5-2 loss.

Craig and Andre had identical armies it was 2 of these.

Game 5 was Breakthrough vs Nick Garden (Divisional Cavalry) and Tim Ward (Armoured Squadron)
as all 4 of us looked over the table each others lists and the mission rules we all realised that who ever would be defending would only have 2 platoons on table because both side where fully armoured (although we could dismount out infantry to get 4 platoons on) there for making it an uphill battle for the defender. Both sides rolled for attacked and defender and we were defending could you tell i rolled that one lol. So with that settled we had out 2 dismounted infantry platoons a panzer platoon and out 3.7cm flak guns. The infantry deployed right on the boarder of the table quarter with the objectives in it my tanks held back behind them to keep there tanks from racing up and slaughtering the infantry and the 3.7cm AA was put in the other table quarter on there own just to hinder any advance up the other side of the table. Turn 1 Nick and Tim advanced up getting off a shot at 1 panzer but not doing anything in out first turn our NGFS O.P was about to earn himself a Knights Cross as he cal in artillery on bunched Stag hounds killing 4 bailing 2 and bailing 2 M10's It took 2 turns of thier entire army and finally a Sherman driving into a building to kill our O.P in assault and in all this confusion my panzer's moved out to take opportune shots while bagging the odd Sherman not doing enough to kill a platoon. Turn 3 they retaliated to my panzer's killing all but 1 that one ran instead buy this time my 3.7cm AA guns had tired up half their army managing to bail M10's and stag hounds but because of their rubbish fire power not landing a killing blow. By this time 2 full strength platoons of Sherman's  and 7.5cm cannon half tracks had come on the table behind their flank opening up at short range in the open with 8 shots not a single hit warren's Half tracks bailing an entire platoon of armoured cars. In their next turn every tank of their turned their turrets and right before Nick rolled the dice i said this is going to hurt and hurt it did 7 tanks dead and my army broken and another 5-2 loss this was a game and a few points could of gone ether way.

Well the weekend was fun finishing 17th out of 18 teams the only way is up as they say there was just too much bad dice rolling on my behalf to tell if the army was any good in some games. I must say that not having 1 Blue on Blue games was nice although aside from the 1 Russian army the rest was British tanks and infantry the whole time would of been nice to face something else as well oh well. Onto Fracas in Wanganui and then Call to Arms in wellington next. At CTA going to use a Russian infantry horde so hopefully enough men and dice to counter bad dice i throw Cya there.

P.S sorry for the lack of photos in this one Camera Died.

Game 2 Panzershreck 2014

2nd mission was no retreat vs Josh Forrester (Lorried Rifle Battalion - 7th Armoured) and
Mike Clement (Desert Rats Armoured Squadron). We were attacking and placed our objective on a hill in the open which was defended by an infantry platoon there was a platoon of tanks on the other side of the table and some 6pdr's in ambush. This was to be the 2nd of four British armies we faced.
in the first turn we charged forward as quick as we could towards the closest objective with our recon screening for ambushes ahead of us. Our 3.7cm AA once again driving off every aircraft to grace the table for 65pts they were great at cancelling out 150pts worth of planes. At the speed we had moved forward our opponents had to revel their ambush early before we over ran their position. They open fired and killed a couple of panzer's from one platoon and bailing one other luckily my panzer's where enjoying the war and passed their morale checks. We counted the ambush with massed stationary firepower from the main guns of the panzer's killing 3 of of the 6pdrs and the last one running. By this point our opponents had manoeuvred their tank platoon on the other side of the table to put pressure on my left flank. While the 75mm Sherman's missed the 17pdr firefly open up on me and hit twice luckily this was an early one so AT13 and at long range i could save on 6's and managed to do so. With him failing firepower on both he failed to bail me out. By this time we where assaulting onto the objective with the tanks and flame throwers pushing them off the objective another platoon of tanks had come on taking a panzer or two out at this stage but was to little to late. It was A lucky 6-1 win to us in the end that was to be the height of our achievements for the weekend.

Our charge forward

Panzerschreck XIV 2014 All over for another year

Well after a hard fought weekend (with my dice more then anything) Myself and Warren found ourselves finishing in 17th place out of 18 teams oh well was sill fun to get in a full weekends gaming a well as some board games in the evening.

Game 1
The mission was hasty attack vs Joseph Kelly (Kom. Piechoty) and Russell Briant (Can Rifle co)
most if not all of this game was contained in just 2ft of one end of the table although we all had reserves with the defenders deploying first they were spread out to cover all 3 objectives. so we went for the opposite flank that the 4 x 6pdr guns were on knowing that we only have to deal with his immediate ambush 17pdr's and making the rest of his army move. Two turns in we had killed 2 17pdrs with massed MG fire from the panzer 4's a turn later one with Naval Gunfire then over running the last one. By this time our AA 3.7cm guns had shot down about 5 spitfire's and we had cleared the way for Warren's Half track borne infantry and flame throwers. As we got onto the objective some of their reserves arrived right where we didn't need them a platoon of 3 Sherman's and a Firefly with a but of luck they killed only 2 panzer 4's my return fire killed the firefly and 2 Sherman's. By this time most of our reserves had arrived and we were on top of the objective but in the end time run out and the victory going to the defenders 5-2

The Right flank battle

Panzerschrek 2014

Well this years Panzerschrek XIV is just a week away I will be Teaming up with my good friend Warren again for our 3rd tilt at this unique event which is a doubles tournament we will be Team SourKrauts. In our first Panzerschrek we finished dead last we improved last year finishing 17th out of 24 teams. At 2000pts a team each person gets 1000pts to Play with the ability to give your team mate 100 of your pts so one could have 900pts and the other 1100pts if you wanted. You could take 2 armies out of any 2 books or Pdf's although the 2 forces had to be historical Allies so you couldn't have one with Americans and one with German's. Warren and myself went with Germans again this year He went with a Mechanised force from the Eastern front Panzer Brigade's Pdf and i went with an Armoured force for the Desperate measures Book.

My Tank Swarm

Warren's Force with NGFS all be it German.

The Russians are comming

Well i finally found enough Early war 45mm Antitank guns from about 3 different places for my soviets still waiting on the zis-3 guns to arrive and man is the T-35 tank a massive Beast now just have to paint it all for Call to arms hope to get in a few Practice games in before then. Ive had 1 game so far vs Mark which was a loss but a bloody game for both sides. The wave attack rule worked well working out what guns to fire from the T-35 was Tricky at time as half my army was Proxy stuff at the time.

My modelling table

From top - T-35, T-34, Panzer 4

Still to be finished troops