Last night was the ‘end of term’ for the Warlords as we have our summer break until September and it was planned that we would be taking part in a 6mm WW2 game. Unfortunately something came up which meant that the game had to get called off and as Dan and I were keen to get a game in we decided to just have a nice and simple straight up FFT3 scrap so I cobbled a couple of forces together. Dan took command of my alt-history Poles and I took the Austrians and we had the following forces:
Poles:
2 x Armoured Btlns of:
- 3 x Vickers mk.3 Coys (3 each)
- 1 x Inf Coy (3 Inf – 1 with Bantam atgm & 3 4k 4FA/20mm)
- 1 sp 81mm mortar
- 1 Striker
1 recce Btln
- 2 x Scorpion-90 Coys (3 each)
- 1 x Inf coy (as above but mg armed APC)
Bgde support
- 1 x 155mm SP Btln (3 units)
- 1 AD unit of 1 x Spartan apc with 2 x Blowpipe teams
- 1 Mangusta Heli with 4 x ZT-3 atgm
Austrians:
2 x Panzer KampfGruppe
- 2 x Coys M60a3 (4 each)
- 1 x PzrGren coy (4 inf – 1 with Bill atgm & 3 mg 4k 4fa, 1 20mm armed)
- 1 x M42 Duster sp adg
- 1 x sp 81mmMortar
- 1 x ‘command’ M60a3 (no special function just there to boost numbers!)
1 Recce Gruppe
- 1 x Jeep Coy (2 jeep/hmg)
- 1 x PzrJager Coy (3 SK105)
- 1 x PzGren Coy (as above)
Bgde Support
- 1 x sp 155mm Btln (3 units)
- 1 Drakken with Bombs
So the forces were nice and balanced with me having a slight advantage in infantry with better ATGM and Dan having slightly more stands but more lightly armoured. I set the terrain up and we got to it with both entering the table from opposite ends with a nominal objective of securing the road junction. We did the usual and diced to see which sides we would come on from and we ended up going along the long axis, which completely negated the ridges and hills on the table as they were all orientated the other way so there was a lack of hull down positions which increased the lethality of the battle somewhat. We were keeping it simple hence the lack of Divisional and higher artillery and played without my activation rules but were trying out the suppression check rules to see how they panned out. Also we agreed that any time we scored 3 or more higher in the initiative roll we could bring on the chopper or jets to add a bit of fun!
Dan won the initiative for the first move, and also could’ve called in his chopper which he decided against, barrelling his units along the table using strat moves for everything which I did also when it was my turn – this was not going to be anything fancy this engagement!
Dan won the initiative again and carried on pushing one Armoured Btln to the wood by the crossroads with his Recce unit and a couple of tank companies secured the centre and his other Armoured Btln moving towards the village on the right. I was slightly mirroring his moves pushing my Recce unit along the road to take the crossroads village whilst my Tank Btlns moved up the flanks, I did stop my Dusters on the small hills to my rear and put them on overwatch.
This ended up being a good decision as Dan again won initiative once more and again was able to call up his helicopter support, which he duly did moving it behind the large wood on the left. This wood was now seemingly full with troops and a Scorpion, Vickers and Infantry Company all snuck to the edge and made ready to fire. Over on the other flank his other Btln seemed to be all trying to hide behind the village with some tanks giving long range cover whilst the central units were held back in reserve. As I was now in long range Dan opened up starting the ball rolling by declaring a pop-up attack by his Mangusta, luckily for me my Duster crews on this side of the battlefield were both alert and lucky managing to down the chopper before it could unleash its missiles! My happiness was short lived however as Dan opened up from the wood and a combination of 105mm and 90mm guns and venerable Bantam missiles saw my lead tank company disappear from the table after failing QC tests.
I decided to halt, debus the infantry and try to win the firefight with my remaining tanks whilst calling for artillery n the wood, which caused some suppression. My return fire also did some damage. I also managed to garrison the crossroads village and the Bantam team started to fire across to targets near the other village causing damage. On the right I advanced slightly to acquire targets near the right hand village and unleashed a particularly deadly fire which virtually wiped out Dan’s tanks on this flank.
Things then got very bloody as we had at each other for the next couple of moves, Dan wiped out my SK-105’s without them managing to fire a shot and as the action developed we both stared to take hits all over the place with companies failing QC’s and platoons going up. We decided to allow the chopper back on (and I was likewise allowed to ‘Unleash the Drakken!’ when I next won the initiative) and the Mangusta got to work straight away taking out 2 platoons of my victorious M60’s on the right which also fell victim to ATGM fire from the village and some deadly tank gunnery from the reserve Vickers Mk.3’s that Dan had moved across from the centre. The result of which was that my seemingly winning action on the right was crushed with me only having one surviving tank platoon and the infantry that I had placed in the wood also taking a beating from the attention of the Scorpion-90’s.
Luckily I won the initiative and got my jet on which managed to make a bomb run which sadly only caused the suppression of one platoon due to dodging the incoming Blowpipes. Sadly though I had taken appalling losses in tanks, I had none left having lost 2 companies worth to QC tests alone! i was now completely relying on my Infantry and these had had it as well when Dan’s last go saw his Artillery and Direct fire from every vehicle that could get a shot away started to whittle down the lads in the crossroads village too. I then had no other option but to concede defeat.
Not the most brilliantly tactically nuanced battle ever fought but we had a laugh and Dan enjoyed the rules, it was only the second time he has played them so I’m glad of that and at least we got our gaming fix in before the break!
Tracks and Threads 