Bat-rep FOW LW – awesome terrain

By Benny Christiansen

In the middle of a steaming hot summer, with a pregnant wife and a job, where a lot of colleges are on holiday, I found the time for a game with one of my friends. We are going to play in a Total War battle in October, where we will be fighting for Kiev. We decided to test some of my 4000 points list in a friendly game. The game would be on his new table, which is meant for a Stalingrad battle, that is also in the making.

My list. My opponent’s list

My friend enjoys making terrain. He has made a lot of it, over the years, and it keeps getting better and better. We have fought on the 25cm tall sides of a mountain and landing on D-day and all kind of places. Always he makes the terrain amazing to behold and a pleasure to play on.

The table before deployment

 

The Mission

We decided to play Dust Up, with Fog of War cards. Neither of us had given reserves any thoughts, so we started out considering if we had forgotten all about FOW since our last game. The mission provides us with a chance to use spearhead units. The fun part is to remember to take turns deploying a unit.

Deployment

In Fog Of War I find that a focus on the center and, in fact, the entire mid part of the table, is the best way to go. I decided to keep my HQ and the small infantry platoon on the table, along with the artillery, 45mm AT-guns and scout unit, with the HMGs. He deployed Pak40, Pioneers, inf platoon and Nebelwerfers.

Mid deployment picture
Yeah, I know… It’s Americans trying pretending to be Russians. My Russians are packed away awaiting our move to a new house next month.. 🙂

I try to deploy the least interesting first, such as artillery. It is limited how many places it can be anyway, and I enjoy the pressure the Russian artillery can provide by simply “being there”. In V4, heavy artillery is not that good an investment, but this is Udarny, so they work like veterans and it’s a good price for the entire squad.

A Train Station filled with German Pioneers

Turn 1 to 3

At first, the Germans put pressure on the Russians by advancing through, and on the side of, the big empty production building.

The Russians moved the HQ towards the long table edge where their reserves would come from, but soon realized it would take too long and not put enough pressure on the center of the table. The German artillery managed to get the upper hand on the Russian Zis-guns, forcing them to move away at top speed.

Russian artillery. I use the Dug In marker along with the Range In marker in order to keep the different artillery units from being mixed up by me and the opponent.

The Russian HMGs tried to put pressure on the Pak40 squad but ended up doing very little, except to give away their position. The scouts and the 2 45mm AT guns from the HQ moved towards the red Train Station, that was filled up with Pioneers.

Exellent and fun bullet holes

The Russian heavy artillery managed to make the German halftracks into wrecks, only allowing the last one to escape, with the 3 others burning in the middle of the road.

HQ advancing towards the German unit inside the huge building.
The small AT guns stopped the advance of the German troops. Volley Fire can be quite scary.
Russian infantry moving towards the factory hall, making sure the reinforcements to the Germans would not come as a surprise.

Turn 3 to end

As the reserves started to come on the table, it became evident that the Germans had lost the initiative on their side, as their tanks were not allowed to get closer to the flank, as it was protected by 3 Zis-2 guns, as well as a half-strength Udarny squad hiding in a building at the edge. The German Pioneer squad came out to eliminate the scout squad. The scout squad was sacrificed to remove an objective the German player had in his deployment zone, by claiming a “Spread Disorder” objective. The Pioneers had been protecting one half of the 2 objectives for “Dual Objectives” where each player place an objective within 60cm of the center of the table. You gain 6 points if you hold both at the same time.

German players reserve came on, and the Russians tried to assault them, but no luck.

The Germans had 4 Panzer IV arrive and threaten the side of the table, but the building was a perfect hiding spot for the Udarny platoon.

Panzer IV preparing to take out the Russian HQ unit that was divided between the halftrack wrecks and the building with the long chimney (outside this picture)

The Panzer IVs then turned their attention to the center of the table, as the German player received orders to eliminate the Russian HQ unit.

The Russian HQ managed to take hold of the center of the table and push back the German infantry unit, in large parts due to the PTRDs and their Volley Fire.

KV8s vs Panzer IV. The German player pulled them back, but it was too late. The KV8s managed very little as the reserve rolls made sure they did not arrive in the game till late, and the German Pioneers controlled the forest area making it very risky to deploy them aggressively

The Russian player had been ordered to take control of a building and establish a forward HQ. At the same time, orders had been issued to take out the German Infantry units, in order to minimize future resistance.

Set Up Forward HQ card provided the Russian player with 3 points during the game.

Having managed this along with establishing control of the central area of the battlefield (and thus managing the mission called “Line in the Sand“) the Russian forces pushed the German forces away from the battle after an epic close quarter struggle in the center of the huge factory, eradicating the German HQ and infantry hiding there.

Conclusion/Lessons learned

Fog Of War is enjoyable especially on a table like this. There is so much terrain, and Fog Of War makes it more likely to be “used” by some of the forces. I believe the only area we did not get into was a 30cmX30cm burned out building area. Everything else was used to some extent.

The Russian Udarny units benefit from a skill test of 3+, which I would love to see them use in hand to hand combat. It is, however, very difficult for them to get there, as even a few halftracks or tanks can stop the assault. “Surgical” assaults of 1-2 teams can be done, but I found it very difficult to get an assault of 4-5 teams past the Defensive Fire.

German infantry in halftracks moving around the building, trying to stop the Russian advance through the building.

I have already changed part of my list for the Total War battle, where I will be fielding 4000 points of Russians. The HMGs are really growing on me at the moment, so I plan to field more of them.

2 thoughts on “Bat-rep FOW LW – awesome terrain”

  1. Are the 45 mm obr 1942 in the Udarny BHQ still worth taking , as they now form a separate plt ?

    1. No, not really if you are looking at it from at competetive side. But I find the plt to be useful and even if they die easily, remember that in Fog Of War, it does not matter how many platoons you loose, it does not give your opponent points.

Comments are closed.