As Dan and I found ourselves sans game last week, we decided to have another of our 6mm FFT3 ‘get some tanks on the table and have fun’ games. So My trusty Alt-history Poles and Austrians once more were about to engage in another round of battle. As usual we just whacked some terrain down, diced for what table edge we’d start on and got to it, simple meeting engagement with nominal objective of finding enemy and securing road network.
We each had a roughly same sized force with roughly equal number of tank bases, Dan had a slight advantage in infantry but I had the advantage of having a AT Heli which he didn’t, we both had aircraft support too.
We were using my house rules for activation, initiative and suppression with a slight twist, this time as an experiment we would be saving any unused pips from the initiative rolls and we only used a single d6 for testing for activation.
Dan won the first initiative with a whopping 5 pips and wisely allowed me to move first and straight away the saving of the pips came into the game with Dan banking those pips for his next go. This has been an idea for a while as it seems a shame that you lose pips sometime, you might not have a chance to use them (first move being a good example) so why not save them up for later. I duly barrelled my Armoured car company down the road towards the far town and splitting my force into two halves advanced towards the stream on the left and to the ridge on the right. Dan’s first move was similar and things looked good for a nice even fight on both halves of the board.
First blood went to Dan as his Jeep/RCL recce chaps took out one of my AML’s then a couple of more were lost to deadly fire from M-60’s on the hill to the left. There wasn’t much other action during the first part of the game as the rolling hills made LOS hard to get shots off so we both jockeyed for position. Over on the right we had both halted on ridgelines overlooking the farmland and we tried to take the other under fire with me having the best of it as Dan’s Kurassier’s were just out of range and couldn’t reach my ridge, so my Vickers mk3’s and Striker attempted to pick them off – although my gunner’s sights were off a bit (Dan kept making the saving throws). Keeping one tank company on the ridge along with my Striker platoon to take on the SK’s I moved the other Vickers company and the infantry company behind the ridge towards the wood on the extreme right flank with an idea of using it to launch an attack from later, although I did suffer the loss of an infantry platoon by stupidly driving along the edge of the wood and straying into long range of the covering tank destroyers.
Dan was initially having the best of it rolling for initiative and was using his pips to activate his artillery battalion each turn, which was doing a good job of supressing the tanks on the right hand ridge and the infantry by the stream on the left. My artillery support was woeful all night, with me only managing to call some in once or twice, the Austrian Electronic warfare chaps must have been playing a blinder, jamming my comms. My rolling was not any better when I finally secured the initiative and blew all my pips in attempting to call in an airstrike on the SK105’s, failing miserably and having the mission aborted.
Over on the left I managed to hit the stream without losing any vehicles from Dan’s good position on the ridge across the valley and de-bussed the infantry whilst one tank company started to probe along the streamline towards the village hoping to utilise the cover from the stream. Dan countered this threat by advancing an infantry and tank force towards the village which was very successful, my tank company was reduced to one surviving platoon hiding behind the village. Along the stream the action developed into a bit of a stand off as Dan didn’t want to move off of his ridge and I didn’t want to leave the cover of the stream so we both started trading shots but our respective terrain advantages prevented any knock outs taking place.
I did keep the initiative from then on but usually only with a draw on the dice, using the odd point I did get for another activation which helped my advance off the right hand ridge, after I had finally seen off the covering SK105 company. This company moved forwards along with the company from the wood and engaged Dan’s units that had advanced against my probe along the stream, destroying or seeing off the tank company. My infantry positioned along the stream had used their APC’s 20mm to take revenge on the recce Jeeps, although they and their tank support had started to be whittled down by accurate Austrian artillery and direct tank fire and pretty soon there was nowt left after the surviving platoons bugged out due to formation tests although they did manage to take out one of the Austrian tank companies. This is where we had to stop due to time getting on, and the battle had begun to pivot around the central village, I had the upper hand on the right slightly whilst Dan had easily won the battle on the left so I conceded to a losing draw as I think I’d have pulled back if possible, Dan’s stronger infantry and their deadly BILL atgm might have tipped the balance.
All in all it was a nice little fight, just about right for a quickly organised Monday night game. Dan was a cracking opponent as usual, not only sporting but a good laugh too. He liked the house rules, which was nice, as he said it added enough to the standard game without slowing it down and we both agreed that being able to save the pips was a positive change – Dan didn’t hold the initiative that much but his first two rolls were so good he managed to eke out his pips over many moves which helped in keeping his artillery going. I do really need to start painting some of my other 6mm kit to get another force together, will go Soviet next I think…
Tracks and Threads 