One on One

Today it was time for me and Lasse to try out and hopefully learn some Flames of War, our first battle!
We decided to keep it small, so we just involved an HQ and a platoon each. This would let us try out moving and shooting.

Lasse's Fallschirmjägers, a six squad strong force.

From Miniature gaming

My US Rifle Platoon, had to fill it out with some guys in Terminator-camouflage since they are only CV.

From Miniature gaming

The table, a 4x2 to keep it small and simple. We put some woods, some fields and a church with stonewalls to hide behind. Since it was our first game, we skipped objectives, no turn limit, just slugging it out to try to figure out moving, shooting and assaulting. Since we didn't use any turns, I have not really kept track of the turns in the battle, just the general outlines of what happened.

From Miniature gaming

The Fallschirmjäger platoon was split in to two smaller groups, which was a good move to distract my attention, one starting in the corner with the wheat field and the other in the small forest.

From Miniature gaming

The US Rifles hid in a wheat field, I guess this was a lazy deployment from my side, they were unpacked in that spot.

From Miniature gaming

My US forces and Germans in the forest exchanged some fire, while the half-platoon lead by the CiC moved up. They wanted to get in to position behind the stone wall for maximum cover. Two of my squads got shot down and I decided to dig in, let him come to me!

From Miniature gaming

The Germans moved out of the forest to assault me in my fox holes, just let him come.

From Miniature gaming

The Captain yelled (while standing back): Get 'em boys!
GIs rushed up, and assaulted the germans.

From Miniature gaming

The Germans failed to kill any Americans in their defensive fire, lost a squad in the fight and then failed their morale making them run away! What a victory!

From Miniature gaming

The Americans, confident after beating up some elite Fallschirmjägers, decided to move up behind the hedges instead of chasing after them. Don't ask me why, their Captain must be fresh from West Point.

From Miniature gaming

So the Germans by the church, lined up their sights and mowed down the poor US soldiers, only leaving the Captain and Lieutenant who quickly surrendered.

From Miniature gaming

So, from this small skirmish, what did we learn?

• Infantry in cover, are very hard to kill. Veteran infantry in cover is almost impossible to kill: 6+ to hit, 3+ save, then a 6+ firepower test.
• Assault is where things happen when it comes to infantry fighting infantry.
• We move our platoons as if they were squads in 40K, very close and tight. This will probably not be a good habit when we bring templates to the table.
• Use cover.
• Morale is important.
• I need to get some more units for my army. For the next battle I need at least two rifle platoons.
  

Next step in our learning process will probably be to bring in some more foot soldiers and some mortars.