Here is a section of a "after action report" for our saturday FOW event
Game 3 pitted me against R-Raids nicely painted Germans -- an armored Recon force I believe -- in FFA. He had a Tiger and four Stugs, two AA trucks and sappers on either objective, some PAKs, the now-christened "Newbiewerfers" and some artillery. A LOT of stuff. I spread two Sherman platoons to either side, with my 4 tank HQ and UC scouts heading up the left flank in a big push. He immediately rolled his StuG out to meet me, and wheeled the Tiger towards my left, setting up on of the greatest games I've ever played. I decided to play to the usual advice, and ignore the Tiger, which actually worked well. I managed to shoo off the StuG with minimal losses through sheer fire volume (semi-indirect fire is schweet!). Things got a little crazy when I decided to deal with the Tiger with my unit best suited to the task -- the PIAT wielding UC. I shoved my scouts directly behind the Tiger, and spent three rounds chasing it with that glorious PIAT. Of course, at that time, I couldn't let them slug it out alone, so wheeled every Sherman to the task of trying for a double-bail. Sadly, though I bailed it twice, the fascists finally killed off the UC in a hail of fire deserving of consideration for the warcrime trials. My poor driver even popped loose when the UC was tipped, leaving him doing an impersonation of Erich the Half A Bee under the burning hulk. At this point, game turns were taking on the order of 30 seconds, and we lost count of how many went past. I realized at one point that I was ahead on ponts (3 vs 1) at that point, and that hiding for the 45 remaining minutes was the best option, but we went after each other with everything we had left, and eventually the Tiger crushed the last 3 Shermans that I'd rushed over to aid my now-open left flank. I recall this went down as a 5-2 score against me.
A great first outing for me as Brit armor, and the Scout Patrol now has a place in my heart alongside Binky the Carthorse for my Strelkovy. I'm going to outfit it with a bloody-large union jack for my next outing. The first two games were almost tailor made for my unbalanced and fast force (imagine how Cromwells would do!) so I definitely got the luck of the draw. My last game was simply all-out, silly fun. I hope I didn't drool too much on your pretty tanks, R!
Great scenery, and a great group as always. The only ugly incident was a highly-suspect ruling by the judge (yeah, YOU Troll-man!) on my unit history (See Game 1, above). Apparently, candor and honesty are not appreciated these days, and admitting in writing that you slapped it together off of wikipedia to get at least partial scoring isn't a good thing. I still feel the fact that I'd stated before the event that the PIAT-equipped scouts were going to be my main armor hunters should have earned me extra points. What a rough crowd! OK, it was a pretty lame history. Sheesh!
All kidding aside, Empire has done a great job motivating players to get their forces ready for the events. In our first several events, merely having my Soviets painted up to a good base level and a short unit history was enough to get me in the top 3 for overall, and let me take home best painted. No more. Most of the forces present were fully painted, based and backed with extremely detailed histories, including Ian's with a US Sherman modeled after one he personally used in destroying public property. A lot of good looking stuff. I've come to appreciate just how much those factors differentiate a "great day of gaming" from "a game or two of FoW". - Bob George
Read the whole thing here
