Battle Report - Flames of War - Desperate Measures

Well, time for another Wednesday Wargaming battle report. This week we are trying some Flames of War, using the Desperate Measures Book, well I wanted to use my IS 2s who aren't in that book so I used Red Bear. I guess the main reason for this was that Serge wanted to try out Rudel, so fair enough.

Game 1: Pincer

I got stuck as the defender, I deployed 1 company of 3 IS2 with another in Ambush. Then so T-34s and Recon in Delayed Reserve. Picture shows the end of turn 1, things are going well as you can see. The Germans moved up and Rudel flew by to kill 2 tanks. I just sat there as I didn't want to be in a fight with Panthers really. Not that I have another choice!

The Panthers and Panzer 4s moved up, but couldn't accomplish much due to range and being gone to ground. With the Germans now being very close to the objective, I thought I better put down my ambush. I was forced to go in the woods by the Objective as I had to contest it to not lose.

That went pretty well actually, I got half of the Panthers. But the counter attack was bad as expected. Rudel killed another tank, and the Panzer 4s got another 2 I think. Was not rolling well at all for saves. All these shots are only AT11 vs side armor of 8!

So that was the end of that game, reserves didn't even have time to arrive.

Game 2: Surrounded

On to the second game. This time we decided to try Surronded with the Germans in the middle. Seemed appropriately desperate! My plan is simple this time, just kill everything that is not a Panther, and just stay away from them!

Round one I just doubled everything up on the top left. Hiding from the Panthers. My other tanks fired on the Panzer 4s without moving and got some decent kills. Rudel was just not interested in this game. But the German AA made a mess of the doubling recon guys all crammed into one truck, and the last Panzer 4 killed the car. Annoyingly the Enjoy the War rule which is supposed to make it harder for the Germans to stick around I thought seems to be making it easier for them.

I was now forced to fight the Panthers. I thought I would to hull down on the hill and bang away. This got me no kills! But my T-34s murdered the AA. I brought my other platoons to fight the AA. The Panthers of course masacred my 3 IS2s on the hill, Hrmm.

Feelings in trouble wanted to accelerate my plan to fight the 88s. Being Russian I can't move and shoot them so my choices were shot 2 shots or assault. I decided to try a lucky assault, 3 shots shouldn't get to kills right? Nope 2 kills so failed assault.

The Panthers are now on to killing T34s. They get 2 bails and a kill which is not bad. But Rudel is still having none of it.

I decided that shooting was they way to fight 88s, so use my breakthrough guns to send one back to it's maker. But just one kill so not getting rid of the platoon. My heroic T34s now laugh at the Panthers and kill the last Panzer 4. So now I just need to get rid of the 88s and I am golden.

The Panthers close the net on the T34s and miss all their shots! hah, well they kill one guy who was in the open. Sadly Rudel arrived and killed another tank, just rude really.

I try to get my last IS2 moving to kill the last 88, but he bogs down. That is how it is going to be.

The Panthers give me another round of missing to be sporting, but then the murder the T-34s, and then kill my commander, or maybe a company morale was failed I forget but either way. Was at least close this time, just needed to kill a 88 to start forcing the Germans to make Company test but was not to be.

Thanks;
Mike