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Made in dk
Unhatched Seed-Embryo




Copenhagen

I played with my Latewar British Parachute Company last night. (Forgot all about pics )
Though it was only 1.000 points vs. 1.250 (the +25%), I thought it turned out to be pretty balanced.

We had to end after turn 4, due to time (and lots of distractions during the game), but at that points we agreed it would be a tie.

The first few turns, the Paratroopers looked bad, really bad. I started with 2x combat platoons, HMG, Mortars and Assault platoon from the drop, plus 4x Tetrarchs, 4x 6pdr with transports.
The Light tanks and guns started in reserves. The assault platoon landed of table and went into reserves (The flamer died on the landing).
5 out of 6 teams died on landed on the first combat platoon, with 1 out of 6 died in the second combat platoon. All the HMG-platoon survived, but only 2 out of 4 in the Mortar platoon survived, the commander landed next to a German MG platoon, and died in the first round, leaving the last 3" mortar team stuck and unable to fire, since it couldn't move and the container was out of reach.
Landing losses:
I lost about 225-275 points on the landing, making two platoons effectively useless.

German started with light anti-tank, 2 MG-platoons and one HMG platoon on table, while Flak88, Nebelwerfer and one MG-platoon were in reserves.
(Can't remember the German company name!)

The Game:
I chose one of the long edges as my side, for convinience. But I hadn't thought of, tha tthe german scattered reserved followed the bombardment template's wind direction for arriving, so now germans could only arrive from the sides and corners, which was a huge benefit for my parachuters, since the reserves were mainly guns and infantry with a long way to move before entering combat.

The drop itself was random I tried to place the landing-markers relatively strategically, including chance of drifting, and some platoons landed exactly where I wanted, while the Assault-platoon drifted of table, drifting the full 36"/90cm!
German started pinned and bailed, but managed to unpinned everything in the first attempt. The Mortar platoon got effectively neutralized in the first turn, but the rest of the platoons were pretty much in cover (we placed a lot of terrain on the table).
The consecutive turns, I tried to maneuver into position and at the end of turn two, I managed to gain one objective and killing most of the german HMG's with my remaining combat platoon. However, his infantry-reserves now were arriving and in turn three, I fell back from the newly gained position, without him being able to consolidate around the objective, because of my HMG- & 6-pdr-support from afar.
In turn 4, I finally got my brand new Tetrarchs into play (which was the main reason, I wanted to play this scenario last night). The Tetrarchs managed to get in and kill 1 of 3 anti-tank guns. My assualt platoon managed to kill of most of the germans MG teams in a defending assault. So now my way was almost open to the second objective!

Ending the game:
However, since time ran out, we chose to stop and call it a draw. I was low on numbers, but had relatively good positions now, having the 6pdr, guarding one objective from afar, while the Tetrachs were threatening the other objective.
However the germans were still strong in numbers and the Flak88's were still in reserve but the Nebelwerfers were useless, because of they had no observer alive and line-of-sight was very limited.


What I learned:
The Death from Above mission is a very intensive mission, but requires a lot more time to set up than other missions.
The 25% extra isn't a huge benefit, actually, I feel it's quite balanced (experience from only one mission!)
You get into action in turn 1, and you lose a lot of teams, but you also kill a lot of teams. This is where the Fearless Veteran status really proves why it is so expensive.
Plan ahead, and expect the drops to go bad. My Mortar-platoon never got into play and landed only a bit a awkward. Calculate on plane-direction and especially wind-direction!
As we had started, we discovered that we didn't follow the DfA-rules exactly, but we continued and I'll probably changed to try out the Airlanding Company next time. If we had followed the rules for the Parachute Company, appearently I wouldn't have been able to get in and tanks, guns or anything, not named "Parachute."

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/01/11 09:07:46


 
   
 
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