The first playtest of our army lists for Early War last night and we played 400 points using the 'Next Village' scenario with a French armoured force defending an attack by German motorised infantry.
The French force was tank heavy, but with them all in the reinforcements, the table initially defended by all the infantry. The German force was mainly infantry with armour support.
The game began with the French quickly getting the upper hand. Accurate French artillery fire suppressed and pinned down the recce units and my Panzer IVs that arrived, with one of the Panzer IVs going up in flames as a plunging 155mm shell hit it spot on! Not a great start.
The German attack was then painfully slow as more forces arrived and were fed into the line, all the time holding back until the entire army was on the table, and most importantly the FAO and
HQ were in the right positions. All the time French artillery caused merry havoc but the Germans managed to survive, though with several key units suppressed.
However once the command units were in position, the German artillery batteries began to eliminate enemy command units and aupress the anti-tank defence. With some gloriusly lucky shelling, first one FAO then the second French FAO were killed by 105mm shells, follwowed by a well directed salvo of 170mm artillery fire that killed the entire French
HQ outright.
Things were going well for the Germans... Then the Char-
Bs turned up. Six of them are a nasty sight to be met with. By chance one of the German infantry platoons had scrambled into the edge of the village, and they took the brunt of the Char-B fire. Although they were virtually wiped out over a long period, they succeeded stopping the Char-
Bs from concentrating on the German armour and allowed the 88mm to pop a couple at long range (though on Char-B had two rounds in the same turn from the 88 bounce clean off... A double six got me two hits and each round glanced off the
SIDE armour!). A few times the Char-
Bs did engage the German tanks they proved reasonably successful, especially as when the German tanks had fired they were far easier to spot than the infantry hiding in the village.
French close range mortar fire only succeeded in scoring two direct hits on one of their own tanks (scatter plus Cyrils only decent dice roll!) and eventually the French morale cracked and the army withdrew. It was a win for the Germans - 20 to 35 in morale points.
But that only gives half the story. Of the 35 points suffered by the French, 20 came from five counters. The Germans took more counters but scored far less. An entire platoon of German infantry became casualties (over 50% of the troops involved) and though the French lost two Char-B tanks, all but one of the German tanks were destroyed. It was a very costly victory and had lady luck been a little kinda to the French they would have probably minced the Germans...
