Micro Armor Game in August

Battlefield set up.

Apologies again (!) for the gap in entries. It's been a busy summer. To get things rolling again, here are some pics of a Micro-armor game on our August Saturday Night (2nd Saturday of the month). Rules used were Blitzkrieg Commander. Minis are mostly GHQ 1/285, some H & R German infantry. In the photo above, there are three towns being held by a couple of British Para battalions. German rear-area troops are attempting to cut communications between the British units, and are hoping for armor reinforcements. While I ran the game, Terry played Germans against my brother Dave (British Paras).

Early British Reinforcements arrive.

A unit of Achilles SPAT arrived on the first turn reinforcing the first Para-held town (only one company). Unfortunately for the Germans, these would be tremendously successful for the British.

A Luftwaffe field battalion attacks the British flank.

Terry's random deployment rolls brought in A battalion of Luftwaffe Fortress troops on the opposite side of the table from the advancing Achilles, Dave quickly deployed Paras and heavy weapons to face the attack. Terry took part of the German battalion to move around the town.

Para artillery makes a mess of a German attack.

In the center, Terry rolled for an attacking battalion of Wehrmacht training troops. He used the cover of woods near the center town to move closer for an assault. Unfortunately, Dave had located his artillery Forward Observer in the village at that location, and two batteries of pack howtzers rained accurate fire on the Germans for several turns. Adding to that was additional Vickers MG units to make a mess of the German assault.

The Panzers arrive!

Terry made a lucky deployment roll and a company of Panzer IV tanks arrived to reinforce the dwindling Luftwaffe troops. Mortars and Para rifle fire had blunted the attacks in this area, but now Dave was sweating an armored assault. He moved his troops closer to try some PIAT shots and cleared a path for his 6 pdr AT guns to have a clear line of fire.

PanzerGrenadiers supported by assault guns head for the center town.

Terry then rolled lucky again, and received a company of panzergrenadiers in halftracks supported by a company of Sturmgeschutz assault guns. He aimed this attack straight down the road toward the center village, trying to support the Wehrmacht training troops. Unfortunately, the Achilles had by this time reached the center town and Dave deployed them to face this new threat. In a couple of turns the assault guns were finished and the attack went nowhere.

Panzers fall prey to infantry AT weapons.

On the British flank, PIATS scored well and destroyed one platoon of German tanks. Terry suffered unfortunate command rolls and was unable to redeploy to crush the vulnerable Paras. Then it was too late as the British 6 pdr. AT guns took out the rest of the company. With half of his troops destroyed or retreating and the armor kaput, Terry called off the attacks.

The only German reinforcement that failed to reach the table was the lone unit of King Tigers, which could have tremendously helped the Germans. However, Terry was also hindered by poor command rolls and blunders, while Dave enjoyed a rather good streak of command rolls. I do like this scenario, and I plan on tweaking it a bit to make things harder for the Paras, then we'll try it again.