First Game with my US Paratroopers With Chris Potter This week myself and Gareth from the Battlefront UK office, managed to get a small game in one lunchtime with our starter armies for the Late War book. The rationale was that we were going to ease our way into the Late War period with a few models and take it from there. However as normally happens in our gaming world both myself and Gareth started a game of one-upmanship that resulted in some really solid lists making their way onto the table.

As I had done some recce on Gareth’s army over the last week as it sat on his desk, I realised that he was taking an all tank list. Not wanting swathes of infantry to be cut down on their mad scramble through Carentan, I started to look at taking a US Armored List with my beloved Paratroops in support instead of taking main stage. However the morning of the planned game, I suddenly overheard a hushed conversation where Gareth was planning to take a full Grenadier List. My heart leapt at the news that finally I could take swathes of Airborne and hold Carentan building by building, taking potshots with my infantry and Light Machine Guns at the mass of Feldgrau heading my way.

As we set up, I rather smugly put down my full Airborne company with supporting LMGs and just x4 Sherman 76mm, which rounded out our 1 hour 50pt game. With horror I spied not only a Panzer company, but also a StuG batterie across the river, lined up to mow down my troops with MG fire and direct HE shots. Whoops. Not one to be cowed by the danger ahead of me, especially since my long thought out battle plans never survive first contact with the enemy, ever, I quickly devised a scheme to turn his lack of infantry to my advantage.

It was simple really (I’m sure I say this every single time!) but I planned to hold the crossroads in front of the bridge, form a defensive circle around my Commander and use the Shermans to drive into the flanks of the enemy. In theory and with fingers crossed, this would allow me to break out and use my paratroopers in the assault against the Panzers, whose front armour would be negated by the fact that infantry assault using the tank’s top armour and with an increased firepower too.

Fiendishly simple you might say. However… at long range and on the move, the Sherman 76mm didn’t really come out as the saviour of the game. They annoyed the Panzer IV by the hill but it became a shot for shot couple of turns, until finally the Stabiliser rule allowed me more shots on target than they could throw back at me.  The real star of the game was manoeuvring my command squad and one of my platoons into the enviable position that allowed me to destroy a whole platoon of Panzer IV tanks. The most absurd moment was when the Commander who had heroically led the charge, got himself shot by raking fire from the Panzer Company HQ, thus denying me my rightful victory. Not that I am glossing over the fact that I rolled a 2, on a 3+ required roll to stay in the game. However, on reflection even my lucky roll against the top army of the StuG with my 60mm mortar paled in comparison to what was a fast, furious and thrilling game. So much so, that in our post game analysis, myself and Gareth agreed to run an inter-office campaign that uses the Hobby League kit to draw everyone in the office into a slow grow campaign, and an end result of a big battle to showcase everyone’s hard work. ~Chris