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Flames Of War Second Edition

Goodbye Old Friend: Part Two
A Farewell To Second Edition Battle Report
with Tony Vodanovich and Mike Haycock.

With the official release of the third edition of the Flames Of War rules set imminent, we thought we’d pay tribute to second edition by giving it one last hurrah with a final battle report. So we gathered up some models, set up a table and roped in a couple of New Zealand’s top ranked Flames Of War players to duke it out in the desert Early-war style and prove the Early-war isn't a Tankfest the rumours claim it to be.

Read part one here...
Read part three here...

The battle begins...

Turn One
Turn One
Australian
Mike’s random deployment rolls had been kind to him, with his force being tightly clustered behind the escarpments in front of the town and behind the hill on my right.  In response to this I placed my four 2 pdrs and one 25 pdr in a covering position to make it very hard for Mike to push his tanks into the infantry defending the right objective.  My army had six independent teams so I was able to use these to make sure that if the tanks did try and assault me I would be able to draw in the gun platoons for maximum defensive fire effect.
Turn One
In this scenario the defending player has to wait for a long time to get his Delayed Reserves, and when they do arrive they come from the other side of the table, so it’s really important to deploy a very solid defensive position around the objectives because the chances are those platoons that you put down before the game starts are going to be having to do most of the hard work when it comes to keeping those objectives.  Having defended my lines as well as they could, all the brave Diggers could do was sit and wait for the impending tank attack and hope that their reserves would come in soon.
Turn One
German
Spotting a hole in the Australian defences Mike advanced the Pioneers over the escarpment to make ready for an assault into the houses on the edge of the village.  The Panzer II platoon wasn’t keen to advance onto the objective on the right, given that it was defended by four 2pdrs and Fearless infantry with Sticky Bombs so they doubled around to reinforce the attack in the centre. 

Turn One
In a flurry of poor dice rolls the Pioneers, Panzer IIIs and Company Command Panzer III failed to kill any infantry dug in around the town so Mike decided not to risk an assault from the Pioneers, to top things off they failed to Stormtrooper as well so were left somewhat exposed.
Turn One
Turn Two
Turn Two
Australian
The Australian Reserves wouldn’t be eligible to turn up until next turn, but I sent Jock Campbell off to the rear to go look for them and make sure that they would turn up.  Safe in the comfort of their houses the Australian infantry took full toll on the Pioneers in the open destroying three teams (two of them flamethrower teams) and pinning down the platoon.

Turn Two
German
Being a finely tuned war machine of course all of the German Reserves turned up with the 8-rad patrols and a pair of 3.7cm PaK36 Anti-tank guns rolling on to the other flank thus preventing the Australians from moving resources across to reinforce the other objective.  The Panzer IIs positioned themselves centrally to be ready to shoot at the Australian Reserves when they drive onto the table next turn.

Turn Two
Combined fire from the 8-rads and PaK36s killed a Rifle team and pinned down the platoon making the lone light mortar team nearest to the armoured cars very nervous… In the centre the Panzer IIIs started sniping away at the artillery, killing the only 18/25 gun that they could see.
Turn Two
Both 8-rad patrols were in position to assault the far right of the Rifle platoon (that poor light mortar team), with the odds of getting pinned in defensive fire extremely low – six shots in total needing a mix of 4s and 5s – the first patrol went in.  And very rapidly went rolling right back out again minus one armoured car killed by the Boys Anti-tank rifle and helped out by four of his mates also getting hits!  Unfortunately they couldn’t repeat the feat and the second patrol took out the light mortar and consolidated behind the hill.
Turn Two
Turn Three
Turn Three
Australian
Right on cue Jock Campbell arrived with a platoon of captured Italian tanks set to take care of those pesky armoured cars threatening the infantry. All of the Australian guns stayed quiet, daring the German tanks to drive into the open and take shots at them. The infantry on the left snuck around behind the escarpments and prepared to launch an assault on the 8-rads once they had been damaged by the Allied tank fire. In a stunning display of shooting the Australian tanks scored two hits on the armoured cars, unfortunately Mike then rolled another pair of 6s to keep them intact. Nevertheless the Australian infantry went over the top and managed to bail an 8-rad in the assault, but the Germans held on for longer than the Infantry could and the Rifles fell back for the loss of a few men and no real damage done to the mobile threat on that flank.

Turn Three
German
The arrival of the Australian tanks had presented a distraction to the Germans plan of blowing holes in the infantry in the town, so the Company Command Panzer III and two of the other three Panzer IIIs rumbled to the flank to deal with that threat, leaving one on the ridge line to continue sniping at infantry teams. The three remaining 8-rads drove to the top of the ridge line on the flank in order to machine-gun the infantry who had just assaulted them and also get good hull down positions for removing gone to ground from the guns in the town next turn.

Turn Three
Shooting from the Germans was a bit of a mixed bag, the 8-rads managed to kill enough infantry to break the platoon and on the other flank the 2iC Panzer III took out a 2 pdr at long range – however the Company Command and his Panzer IIIs only managed to destroy one of the M11/39 Divisional Cavalry tanks. Crucially both 8-rad platoons failed to Stormtrooper back from the ridge line.
Turn Four
Turn Four
Australian
With one infantry platoon destroyed the remaining platoons had to spread themselves thin to cover both objectives so the infantry with Sticky Bombs started moving through the buildings to reinforce the objective on their left.  The other Divisional Cavalry platoon turned up from Reserves and, with no safe places to go, deployed behind the Pioneers and in between the Panzer IIs on one side and Panzer IIIs on the other.  These guys would truly have to fight like demons to get through to the rest of their company intact!  They would however prove an annoyance that Mike would have to take a few turns to deal with.

Turn Four
Australian shooting this turn was spectacularly effective; between the captured Italian tanks and the artillery in the town all of the remaining 8-rads were destroyed.  The machine-gun fire from the other Divisional Cavalry into the Pioneers only inflected one kill but it was on the sole remaining flame-thrower team, which they were pretty happy about.  They proceeded to launch an assault on the Pioneers in the hope of getting one more kill and forcing a platoon morale check, but they failed to get any hits and the Pioneers failed to motivate so literally nothing happened in the assault.
Turn Four
German
With the two 8-rad patrols destroyed and the Pioneers severely mauled it was looking like the Germans would struggle to capture either objective with his remaining forces, so he switched his plan to destroying as many platoons as possible and forcing the Australians to break.  Mike’s plan started well with the two Divisional Cavalry platoons taking an absolute beating from the superior German armour; when the dust cleared there was one bailed out M11/39 and two bailed out Mark VI B tanks left on the table.  However, the Australians lived up to their Fearless reputation and neither platoon broke.  To rub salt into the wound the German Pioneers rolled a “1” on their Tank Terror test and so were not able to capture the bailed out tanks right in front of them!

Turn Four
Turn Five
Australian
Sensing that the German assault was faltering; the Carrier platoon came on from Reserve and headed straight for the only platoon they could damage, the Pioneers. The plucky Australian tank commanders all got back inside their tanks (got to love Fearless!) and did their best to minimize return fire by moving the M11/39 behind the hill on the left and the Light Tank VI Bs moved into the flanks of the Panzer IIs to try and get through their weaker side armour.
Turn Five
Having no other obvious targets to shoot at, a pair of the Royal Horse Artillery guns dropped a bombardment on the 3.7cm PaK36 platoon forcing a pin and destroying a gun in the process. The Carriers managed to do what the Divisional Cavalry could not and destroyed the remnants Pioneer platoon, but the two remaining Divisional Cavalry tanks couldn’t penetrate the side armour of the Panzer IIs.
Turn Five
German
With a target rich environment for his tanks, Mike stayed stationary to maximize his ROF. Once again his 2iC Panzer III sniped out a 2 pdr gun at long range – leaving that platoon with just two 2 pdrs and the 25 pdr gun.  In a hail of bullets, the Australian armoured units were cut down to size with the combined firepower of the four Panzer IIIs and four Panzer IIs destroying two carriers, a Light Tank VI B and bailing out the M11/39, the last remaining Carrier and Light Tank VI B. Miraculously, all three platoons passed their motivation checks (oh, how I love Fearless tanks!).
Turn Five
At this point we broke for lunch and a bit of a chat. At this point in the game the Australians had managed to keep the Germans pretty much at bay, but they had done it at (effectively) the expense of their mobile platoons and one third of their Anti-tank guns and one full infantry platoon. The Germans had lost three of their six platoons but still had all of their tanks still active and should be able to start picking off gun teams to make it safe to go in for the objective.

Join us again next week as the battle report concludes.

~ Tony & Mike.
Turn Five


Last Updated On Thursday, March 15, 2012 by Blake at Battlefront