Firestorm: Stripes

Another game played at Bag Of Bones Wargaming, Plymouth, UK between myself and Mr Phew a budding new (well ish) player to Battlefront games format. Relatively experience in V4 Flames Of War myself, the recent change over to Team Yankee isn't too bad for me with just a few little changes here and there to get my head around. Mr Phew on the other hand is an experienced gamer but has only been dabbling with Team Yankee now since November time and has amassed a rather large collection of Soviet Forces but this evening we opted for a 100 point game.

We rolled off for who would pick the Theatre and in a return to standard form I lost. However! As luck would have it, Mr Phew selected the theatre I would have chosen anyway - HANOVER!

I won't lie. This game turned into the biggest 'slog' I have experienced yet (called at Turn 9!) with Team Yankee but it still maintained pace and never once lost my enthusiasm. The Battle Report here give the overview and highlights of what happened. For those that just want to scan the pictures though, the final result was a 4-3 victory to myself (British Forces) due to the simple fact of death, destruction and not a lot of things left alive on that side of the table.

Enjoy!

This is not my normal method of battle report but simply put, the battle went on for NINE TURNS. No one wants to read about how many times the BTRs and Shilkas fired at my Dug-In, Gone To Ground Infantry and missed or how many times I managed to blitz in order to try and kill yet another one of the endless Soviet Tanks and Vehicles that kept pouring onto the table from reserve (STRONG DRIVING FORCE is the most obscene reserves rule i have ever encountered!). I will inject text where I can here but predominately the battle was very simple:

This gives you some idea of the way this game went. Unfortunately due to phone issues, many of the photos have come out as unusable but to summarise:

The objective the Soviets were driving towards was defended by my Mechanised Infantry which did nothing for the entire game offensively but hide in their foxholes. Despite repeated pounding from BMPs, BTRs, Infantry, Shilkas and T64s they wouldn't budge. Even when assaulted a couple of times they just stood up and pushed the Soviets back with no real concerns much to their credit. At turn six the Soviet player decided to stop trying and push across through my deployment zone towards the other objective but the combined firepower of the Chieftain HQ, Strikers and Abbot SPGs managed to hold the line and effectively stop this from happening.

The objective I drove for became a near impossible reach due to the number of wrecks. Fortunately, I brought plenty of tiny Scorpion Tanks which squeezed (only just) through the gaps and managed to force the defending Infantry down (with help from the TOW Lynx Helicopters) to a point where they were checking for whether or not they should stay in the fight. Finally on Turn 8 they ran leaving no opposing troops within contesting range or anyway of getting there in time, meaning in Turn 9 I successfully started and ended within 4" winning the game.

In summary, my infantry was very good at sitting and holding against the Soviets with their lack of strength in assaults. The T64's nearly destroyed my world and had me very very concerned. A long and hard bloody battle. Same time next week?

Losses:

The easiest way to put it. Both sides suffered severe casualties. I managed to only have two platoons that did not suffer losses of any form. The Soviets had the same.