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Firestorm: Stripes

The Team Yankee Global Campaign

Blackadder goes Forth

75 POINTS
Warsaw Pact
PanzerGrau
VS British
Blackadder

Round Three of the TY tournament at D6 Games in Rochester, MN

For the third round of the tournament I drew Blackadder and his British force. The scenario would be the Niederbayern Contact Mission. As I had timed out in the round two mission, I was in a rush to pick up my army, fill out my card, and move to the new table. Everything was now a rush. Unfortunately my efforts to get the game underway so that we had maximum time to play, I completely forgot to take pictures. I believe that he was the attacker. The haste of the setup period also caused an oversight that would have a huge and negative impact on the game.

The setting A lovely village in the foothills of Bavaria.

The field of battle. British on the left, and the VA on the right.

Predictably both of us placed our objectives at the other edges of the rectangles marking the allowable area for objective setup.
The British started with both Fv432 platoons, his Chieftan SQDN 1IC, one Chieftan troop, and a Troop of Scorpions. This last unit would make a quick, suicidal, and extremely devastating impact on the game.

Team PanzerGrau

Here are my two formations. In all of my Red Thunder battles to date they have yet to all be fielded in a game.

I chose to start with both Motor-Schutzen Companies, the 2S1s, the SA-13s, a platoon of Spandrels, and the T-64s.

Initial Deployment

We alternated setting up units as quickly as we could. One of his first units deployed was the Scorpion Troop which hid behind the smaller blue building at the middle of the table after a Spearhead move. When he deployed them I knew where they would go, and planed to foil his cunning plan by placing my infantry commander and his AFV in and next to the red factory building on the road to prevent hem from driving straight in to my rear. As they were out of sight now and we were in a hurry, I quickly forgot this important nugget.
He placed his short infantry unit deployed around the objective at the foot of the hill in the left foreground. Likewise he deployed the full strength one on the left objective between some rubbled buildings. His tank troop was deployed just south of this infantry platoon, and the 1IC deployed in the woods next to them.
I mirrored his short mech unit with my own as I did not like the lines of sight if I tried to attack the southern objective. I instead chose to attach the northern on where I could support the attach with ranged assets from a variety of angles, and the approach had decent cover as well. I deployed the SA-13 battery to either side of the road that split my deployment area, two vehicles behind the factory, and two behind the house across the street. They would be safe there as I would block that street with my infantry commander. The Spandrel platoon, and the 2S1s deployed behind the church. The T-64s deployed along the hedgeline that ran along the edge of the road south of the church. Finally the large infantry unit deployed north of the church with the BMPs in cover behind hedges, and the infantry deployed behind them. After several distraction,and during the final rush to finish setting up I decided that it would be great if I could use my infantry formation commander to help lead the eventual infantry attack on the right,and to spot for the artillery from a position on the far right edge of the board. It seemed like I was forgetting something about him, but i can't remember what it is so let's go.

The night phase

I won the roll to be the first player. My night visibility roles were horrible, so I lost the chance for first fire on the Chieftans. I moved the Spandrels out next to the BMPs north of the church. I moved the commander's BPM straight South, and began to move the south BMP-1s to the North.
At the start of his turn he received his Harriers as reinforcements, and they were successfully called in. He then sprung his dash for glory with the Scorpions that I had stupidly failed to counter like I had planned. They were only able to make it between the factory, and the blue building. I my turn i tried to counter them with BMP-1s, the commanders BMP,and half of the T-64s which could move to cover from the Chieftans to the East of the big blue building and engage the Scorpions while the other two pulled back behind the church. I was only able to kill one Scorpion, and in his turn he killed all of the SA-13s. Oh Sh@#! In rolled the Harriers on the massed BMP-2s. As there were only a pair of them they should easily have been driven off by the ADA umbrella, but that had just collapsed. The Gremlins missed, and I believe three of the BMPs brewed up. The Chieftans eliminated a couple more as well. I killed the Scorpions on my turn but the damage was done.

The fight heats up as dawn breaks

Turns three and four saw the T-64s, Spandrels, and surviving BMP-2s eliminated all five of the Chieftans. The Harriers show up two more times, and eliminate Spandrels ,and more BMP-2s. They make a mistake on their third run as they attacked the middle of the board where both Gremlin teams, and a pair of late arriving Shilkas took them down. As wave after wave of T-55 platoons poor through the right center and push toward the British infantry they leave burning comrades in their wake. Milans dispatch the last of the T-64s as well. The last few BMP-2s have moved forward and are win the direct fire fight with the Abbot battery whose survivors flee the battlefield. The large Motor-schutzen dismount unit is one turn from assaulting the British defenders on the objective when for a final time that day the game times out.

My reward for blunting the attacks of three NATO attacks

Well I learned a ton again in these three games. I will be purchasing a platoon of Gaskins for sure. I will tinker with a 64 point list, but don't want to do to many changes until I get the chance to play a scenario were I get to attack with all of my force.

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