Turn One, Week Three- Ten's a crowd!

Week 3

 Firstly, apologies to all for the late write up of the week's action from 17/09/2013, this was due to a few factors: I am in the middle of moving house, so time is at a premium, and of course I had to get organised for the opening of Knightly Gaming, which you can read about below.

 Secondly; Facebook is a wonderful tool. Once you get past the drama, the passive-aggressive posts and pictures of people's children. The most useful thing is the event planning; make an event, invite people and then you know who exactly is coming, so you can plan ahead. So, I went ahead and made an event for that week's Infantry Aces night. And my word, was it successful. A promise of ten players out of twelve turning up, this was not to be sniffed at.

All five games in full swing. Note, I'm absent from my chair fourth on the left being behind the camera and all...

 The match ups

 The guest list did not lie, we did in fact get ten players on the night, and with an even Axis-Allied split, this meant a good night of Blue on Red gaming. Being able to get down to the club earlier, and having an idea of how many people were likely to show up meant that tables could be grabbed for use, with an additional small table at the end to use as my 'Office'.

 With almost all the players present, this gives me an opportunity to give the full list of participants and the forces they're using;

Allies

• Murray Anderson- American Paratroopers (V3 Forces Book)
• Norman MacLean- American Rifle Company (-)
• Brian Walker- American Rifle Company (-)
• Colonel T.- Pulyemyetno-Artillyeriyskiy (Red Bear)
• Ian Morton- American Rifle Company (Dogs & Devils)
• Myself- Welsh Guards Lorried Rifle Company (Market Garden)

Axis

• Gordon Hamilton- German Grenadier Company (Grey Wolf)
• Iain Cameron- German Grenadier Company (Grey Wolf)
• Grace Bommer- German Grenadier Company (V3 Forces Book)
• Leon Berge- Fallschirmjagerkompanie (Cassino Book)
• Robert McLennan- German Grenadier Company (-)

 I'll have to ask specifically which books some players are taking their lists from, but when I know for sure, I'll edit the above to reflect the facts.

 The games were thus:

• Murray and Gordon
• Norman and Leon
• Robert and Brian
• Colonel T and Iain
• Grace and myself

Silly hats and silly games

 The mission for this evening was 'Pincer', with the usual reworking to have 'Delayed Reserves' become 'Reserves', so that the defender is not swamped too early on, and to give the attacker something to think about.

 With ten players, I found myself needing to play for once (admittedly, I really should play at least once a month). I opted to play against Grace, to allow me to mentor her a little. With the roll off in Grace's favour, she set her army to attack my dug in Brits.

 But what of the silly hats mentioned above? Well, during the planning for the evening, Grace got all excited about the Halloween decorations already being out in the shops, so I offered that if you wear a silly hat during the game, you would get a Tactical Edge Token (Something I completely forgot to do).

Grace forgot her hat, but luckily, I had a spare

 The table was set up in such a way that both players could benefit from the hill in the middle to shield their mortar teams, should they have any. Grace made use of this, setting up her mortars behind, backed up by her Ace "Oofty Oosh Bommer' (I don't know... don't ask me). With the support of two HMGs in the forest on her right flank and two advancing Grenadier Platoons to try to seize the objective.

The table, with one platoon of British Rifles in reserve, the other in ambush... somewhere

Grace, as attacker, got first turn, and advanced her Grenadiers up and around the hill. First lesson to learn: 'Don't bunch up your troops when your opponent has artillery'

Hard to see, but there's a Grenadier platoon under there

Luckily for her, though, the mortars ranged in, but did little damage to the Grenadiers. Her rolls for saves being far above par. The ambush appears within the vineyard (Because really, where else would you put it?), and poses a problem for the Grenadiers. Dug-in Veteran infantry contesting an objective are hard enough to shift, but when they are British Guards, they're almost impossible to get rid of.

 To make matters worse for Grace, my reinforcements arrived on turn two, just in time to flank the Grenadiers as they advanced down the hill to attempt to take out the dug in riflemen. The HMGs in the forest did little to nothing, unfortunately, as they were picked off by passing shots from the newly arrived guards.

The very blurry guards advance towards the HMGs, who are supported by a tasty soft drink

Grace's mortars were less than effective, especially when her spotters were wiped out. This almost took them out of the game completely, leaving her Grenadiers at the mercy of the Guards. To try to spur her on a little, I launched an assault with one of the platoons, hoping that maybe her shooting, and subsequent turn would make the game a slightly more close-run thing. Alas, it was not to be, with the shooting from the Grenadiers awful and the resulting combat wiping them from the board.

The game, sadly, was over. I am hopeful that Grace has learned a few things from it; not bunching up platoons against mortars, being wary of ambushes and reinforcement surprises.

The scores on the boards

The other games led to mixed fortunes for both sides;

Iain contemplates the meaning of pain as he tries to advance on the machine-guns

Brian and his US Rifles successfully taking Castle Hill against Robert's Grenadiers
Leon's Fallschirmjager proving tough to defend against in the Barracks with Norm's US Rifles
Iain's Grenadiers unable to dislodge Colonel T's Machine-gun artillery from Castle Hill
Gordon's Grenadiers successfully scaling Castle Hill against Murray's US Rifles

Castle Hill didn't have a town at the top, surely?

So, with the games over, the Allies looked to be taking all three locations in a clean sweep. It would take a minor miracle from the Axis next week to steal some of them away.

The hat is what won Gordon this game, it inspired his dice

 That's it for week three, with the campaign roaring back into life from what seemed to be a lull last week. As I'm writing this the day after the final week of Turn One, I already know the outcomes. But I won't ruin it for you. I'll do a write-up of the final games in a few days and then it'll be on to Turn Two and 700pts. So for now, over and out.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

But, where's your silly hat? You need to wear a silly hat! Fine... fine...

I wear the silliest of hats!