Saturday, October 23, 2010

Paratroop Action

Andy, a recent new arrival at the club, is primarily into historical gaming (always good news) and has been turned on to Battlefield Evolution by regular players. I arranged a game against him the other week...
He has some very nicely painted US Para's, done with Armypainter I think, though I can't be sure. His basing is comprehensive and very attractive. He'd also set up a pleasing table of extensive but plausible terrain for our game. Only the Para's were being air-dropped into this battlefield, which looked like humans had created it rather than some randomised element of chaos (like 9 out of 10 Warhammer 40k boards, say).

Lacking points and armour, Andy borrowed a couple of my tanks to bump up his army. I'd gone for a blatant firepower element in my army and so fielded a Panther tank, as well as a Hetzer tank destroyer and a Pak 40 anti tank gun.

As ever with BE the literal losses were heavy on both sides, if you interpret any casualty as potentially a wound or retreat of models as well as KIA's it seems less severe.

Nevertheless my Germans, regular Grenadiers rather than the hideous SS, Advanced most effectively under fire, giving more than they got in almost every turn.

Immediately the Panther destroyed the US M10 tank destroyer, and the German armour then went about the business of stalking the American's Sherman. However my Hetzer was fully equipped with a rack of Polish made ammunition (three 1's to hit in a row) and so never did more than contain the enemy. The Pak 40 was reduced to a role of direct fire anti-infantry work.

In fact at the very end, the Hetzer was destroyed, but whilst so preoccupied in that task the Sherman was itself stalked and assaulted by the Grenadiers. At the last gasp the Teller mines did their work and destroyed the American tank.

My orders were to overrun the enemy and make it into Andy's defense perimeter; this we did quite effectively. Andy for his part was somewhat outgunned, but this was his first experience using armour in the game.

I look forward to a rematch.


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