Saturday 20 September 2014

AAR: Estonian 20.SS - Fusilierkompanie vs. 2./512.sPzJgAbt !!PIC HEAVY!!

The other day we had a training game with a friend to prepare and to familiarize him to his forces for the coming EGT.

Last time we played we had Breakthrough as a scenario and for this time we randomly selected a new one. Last match was a victory for the Estonians 6-1 and I was sure to give my friend a steep uphill struggle this time.

Mission: We rolled with a random generator (aka die) and got Hold the Line.

Forces:



Board & Deployment

Board from the side of 512.

2./512.sPzJgAbt

Estonians
1. Turn
Estonians make an all out attack throughout the sector.

Carius and 2iC open up. 2iC missing the pioneers and Carius claiming a victim from full SS-Grenadier platoon (First blood!)




2. Turn
Estonian advance continues and Tigers try to hit Carius and force him to join the Tiger platoon, only one hit and it bounces. Estonian air support targets the panzergrenadiers and pin them.

Carius and 2iC continua to fire, this time 2iC claims a victim from pioneers.
Carius fires at the Tigers but miss.







3. Turn
Estonians rush to the forest with tanks. One Tiger opens up on dug in panzergrenadiers and kills one team with a HE round

512 gets its first reserves, a Jagdtiger rumbles forward and shoots high and wide on the move.
Carius claims another victim from full SS-Grenadiers and 2iC shortens the life of another pioneer.
Tigers fight with Tigers but cause no damage!


4. Turn

Estonians rush through the forest with tanks and open up on Tigers destroying one. Hs129B pins the panzergrenadiers
Tigers assault the panzergrenadiers but cause no deaths but force them to fall back after failed motivation test (that 5+ save is a killer in assaults!).
Full SS-Grenadier (now redused) assaults the panzergrenadiers but is forcet to fall back with a bloody nose.

512 gets its second and last reserves. Carius retaliates and destroys a Tiger, 2iC shortens yet another pioneers life. Panzergrenadiers make their motivation test and are no longer pinned. Lonely Jagdtiger takes yet another high and wide shot... have they calibrated their sights?!




Pioneers and short SS-Grenadier platoon advance

A lot of fire coming

4 hits

And the Tiger burns

SS-Grenadiers lined up for assault

SS-Grenadiers pushed back



SS-Grenadiers have left the battlefield

Wirbelwinds arrive to aid Carius and 2iC

5. Turn
Tigers shoot a lot at Tigers and bails two, with one destroyed and no operational tanks the Tigers take a motivation test which they fail sending them packing. Yet again Tigers assault my panzergrenadiers but this time they are met with fire, one destroyed Tiger and one bailed stops the assault dead. Full SS-Grenadiers try to assault too but are beaten back by hail of MG fire. Short SS-Grenadier platoon makes its move and tries to assault with 1 team which is being killed by defensive fire.

Wirbelwinds come to aid 2iC and Carius. 2iC yet again shoots at pioneers. Carius takes out another Tiger and panzergrenadiers open up on full SS-Grenadiers. redusing them and forcing a motivation test which they fail. Short SS-Grenadier platoon is being shot down to 2 teams, they pass their motivation test. The last Estonian Tiger is being captured in the assault.

Tigers fire at Tigers
Tigers run away
Tigers take some panzerfausts

"Incoming!"
Pinned SS-Grenadiers and all that is left of the Tigers
At this point I ran out of power in my phone so no more pictures :(

6. Turn
At this point there is half strength pioneer platoon, few stands from short SS-Grenadier platoon and leIGs left from the enemy. Pioneers flame the wirbelwinds that have moved to protect Carius. 2 last members of the short SS-Grenadier platoon assault and are being killed in counterassault after panzergrenadiers receiving no hits.

Panzergrenadiers move up to take the pioneers head on and blaze them with MG fire, killing 1. 2iC and Carius kill 1 more forcing a motivation test which the pioneer pass.
7. Turn
In a last desperate action the pioneers try to assault the panzergrenadiers, they make it through the defensive fire but cause no hits in close combat so panzergrenadiers can jump up and mow down the pioneers in a few rounds of close combat Also the CiC of hte Estonians is lost in this melee. The last brave pioneer decides it's best to quit and leaves the battle.

In their own turn panzergrenadiers pour a lot of shots to the leIGs to no effect.

8. Turn
As the Estonians are below half strenght the last possible thing for them to do to stay in the game, company morale, 3+, but oh no it's too much for the Estonians and they flee the field of battle.





End


4-3 victory for 512.sPzJgAbt!

This was a close one. If my panzergrenadiers had stayed pinned when those Tigers assaulted I would have been slaughtered.

Saturday 6 September 2014

2./506. Schwere Panzerabteilung reinforced!! UPD. Now also 2./512. Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung reinforced!

"Sir, we have replacements. Two PzKpfw VI Ausf. B "Tiger"s has just arrived from maintenance. Company is now at full strength."

Old KT in the middle, new KTs on the sides

This means my troops for Oosterbeek are now ready. Let those British and American dogs walk straight to our trap!

My oldest KT was made long ago and you can tell. But somehow now that all the KTs are ready and I put them side by side, I like the camouflage on the oldest KT is the best... strange! I thought I'd have learned to paint better by now. Perhaps I need to redo some of the camouflage on the new KTs. Perhaps some fading is in order.

Anyhow I wanted these to look that they have had some repairs in the rear areas and hastly sended to aid in the defense of Oosterbeek. That's why there are replaced guns and turrets etc. without camouflage paint (though should have bought the non-zimmerit ones, these look awful with zimmerit!).








Now to finish some Jagdtigers(done!) and 3,7cm FlaK43s!

UPDATE: 2./512 Schwere Panzerjäger Abteilung

Carius with his company

Now we have more Jagdtigers to deploy to the fields of battle. Their leader is the most famous Otto Carius, better known for his actions leading a Tiger I E tank.

My Carius' model is not the BFs Carius but rather a normal Jagdtiger that I use as Carius. No need to buy one more Jagdtiger when I have 3 already!

Here again, as with KTs, I went with a worn look. Also some fuelcans and other stowage was added to personalization.

Enjoy!





Friday 5 September 2014

EasyArmy version 2.0

So after a long silence Battlefront has come to tell us the big and waited news concerning EasyArmy.

"Forces Of War!
For many years one of our play testers and proof readers Gregg Siter has in his spare time been running Easy Army. He created it out of a personal desire to have a tool to manage his armies but it has grown so that many other people can now do the same. For those of you who don’t know this is a force building software package that helps you create and use army lists. When we gave Gregg the okay right at the start to do this we always assumed this would evolve into something more and now that time has come.

Easy Army is going to evolve into Forces of War. This will be an official FOW army builder that at its core uses Easy Army but now will have more features and graphics than ever before. We still have a little more work to do until we can show you the final version but our goal is to have it up and running before our next book, Barbarossa, is out in October. Stay tuned for more news as we will be showing you what it looks like and how it will work in the coming weeks.

~John Paul"

Few questions arise.

1. What will happend to those books already bought from EasyArmy, can we keep them or do we have to buy them again and for what price? 

2. What will happend to all our armylists in EasyArmy? This relates directly to the question 1 as I think if the books will be gone so will the lists.

3. What will the new pricing be? Once for a book, monthly or annually for whole content or some other. What level will the price be for one book?

4. Updates, this is perhaps the easiest. As it's going to be a software (mentioned in John Pauls post) it can check updates via internet every time it's started.

Well we'll need to wait for now. All I hope for is that we can keep our bought books and armylists.