Mark and Dave came over the Leighton Buzzard for a game of Blitzkrieg Commander IV. Dave had not used his Germans for a while, and I had never used my Poles. My list: 
We went for 1400 points and an encounter game. A few bits of terrain were placed and we then deployed. My armour was in the centre, to try and deal with the three armoured platoons Dave had brought. On the right, Dave had three Panzer IIs, escorting three Hannomags. In the centre he had three Stug IIIs on the left, Mark had an infantry company, a PAK36 and two Panzer IIIe. He had bought two leel 8 commanders, so same as me, but the absolute killer was the German C-in-C was a level 10. That extra two points on a dice taked you from a 72% success rate to a 91.67%. This gives the Stug IIs that he commands at least three shots a turn, and they are absolute killers. As if to show their capability, immediately the Germans took out one of my tanks as they tried to head into the cover of the crops. (I forgot my smoke markers, oops, hence the flipped armour).
To the right, my armoured car lurked. My Bofurs AA was in Anti-Tank mode joined by anti-tank guns. On the left, my infantry tried to climb the mount. The trucked support weapons decided to blunder and head off back towards the baseline! More Polish tanks died...
On the left, as more tanks died in the centre (6 so far), my infantry crested the hill, and infantry support weapons began targetting Mark's infantry in the wood. The tankettes would survive because they are 'low profile' and harder to hit. The Polish armour, while valiant (and beautifully painted by me) was not up to holding off the Germans this day.
I fact, all Mark's infantry got taken out by small arms and company support fire, supported by a tankette. It made up for the loss of armour.
On the right, despite losing the Bofors to mortar fire, the small armoured car managed to kill a Panzer II! 
My infantry assualted through the woods, clipping and causing his HQ to split off table. This left the Pak exposed too.
The commander was to be replaced by a level 7 commander, but the PAK and Panzer IIIe was taken out, leaving Mark with only one tank and a truck to command. I did lose a stand or two of infantry to a failed assult and supporting tank fire..
Dave turned his Stugs to face the infantry, which was painful! Honestly, they were the German's best asset for the night. He also brought the Panzer IIs back after finished off the Polish Anti-tank and armoured car that had been holding the right. You can see all the upturned bases that were my Polish armour. 
My infantry had launched another assualt, taking out Mark's second Panzer IIIe, completely destroying that command. Small recompence for losing all my armour and heavy support weapons though!
One of the few saving graces of the game had been the Germans throwing at least three blunders during the game (dropping their C-in-C to an 8 for two turns was a particular highlight)!
Despite fighting hard, and an absolutely blinding set of assults by my infantry, it was a major victory for the Germans. A minor victory could be claimed by teh Poles for taking out three tanks, three infantry, an anti-tank gun, a truck and command stand, but their losses wete all the Polish armour, two guns and three infantry stands. A great game, and lots of laughs, especially as the Germans kept blundering.
What can I say? The Poles are great, but hard to use. They cannot use mixed formations without a -1 command factor, so not a good plan to mix infantry supporting tanks, or vice versa, or even a mix of mechinised and infantry. Having much lower command stats means you cannot gaurentee lots of actions like a German C-in-C can. This limits your options to one certain action, such as assult or move or stand and shoot, anything else is a bonus, and an unlikely one at that, so you lose teh mobility or sustained firepower other forces get. One on one, most Polish tanks are a match for Panzer, but you will never have enough of them and Stugs are monsters in this theatre. Infantry were worth their weight in gold though. Artillery might have levelled the field, but the Germans would have brought Stukas! Be interesting to see what a different game it would do in a different scenario inolving defences. Or cavalry...
Comments
Post a Comment