“Battle for Sharpe’s Farmstead” Bolt Action 3rd Ed Battle Report, new Armies of Germany book
by Dennis ‘Matt Varnish’ Campbell, pics by Scott Roach
Header picture: From the Sharpe’s Rifle series, Sharpe retires with his french wife to a farmstead in France.. we decided this was that farmstead, and as such I put an objective in it
Warlord Games graciously allowed us a preview copy of Armies of Germany, and since I play a Blitzkrieg-themed German Heer army, I felt I should take out some of the new units and rules for a spin and see what’s new.
“Free” weapons on the HQ units are gone, now every member of the Officer team gets a Rifle, and pays for Assault Rifle or SMG, or gets a discount if armed with just their Luger. Officer units can now take 4 other men, but only 1 can have an Assault Rifle, but everyone else can take SMGs or pistols. FSJ you can add a 6th man, Waffen SS can take a 2nd Assault Rifle.
As Kreighton mentioned in his article, Initiative Training has been rewritten to be simple and easy, and we get a new National Rule, Panzer Ace. Certain tanks can get +1 Pen, +1 damage roll vs vehicles if the vehicle selected is Veteran, one per Force.
I scheduled a game with Scott Roach, his Early War French vs my Blitzkrieg Germans. I decided to try some of the new units and abilities, namely the SIG 33 Assault Gun, Panzer Grenadiers (Mid / Late War), and Panzer Ace ability (Mid / Late war) on my german infantry and Pzr III respectively. Another unit I was keen on trying out was the Feldgendarmerie, some Inex. military police that help with reserves and Rallying and Strafbattalions, see below.
Panzer Grenadiers:
Feldgendarmerie:
We rolled up: Long table Edge, Objectives, Meeting Engagement on this excellent table (foreground is South, back edge is North):
Lists:
French Early War (from pdf)
Infantry HQ (all Reg unless noted) w extra man, Free SMGs
French Regulars x9, 1x LMG
Senegalese (Tough Fighters) x8, 1x LMG
French Foreign Legion x8 (Stubborn, Veteran) w Tank Grenades, 1x LMG
Forward Artillery Observer (2 call-ins) w extra man free SMG
Heavy Weapons Platoon HQ w extra man, free SMG
2x MMG teams
2x Medium Mortars w Spotters
Panhard w Command Vehicle upgrade
Somua S-35 (One Man Turret, Reinforced Front Armour)
German Heer, 1000pts
Infantry HQ (All regular unless noted) Rifle
Panzer Grenadiers x8 NCO SMG, 1x LMG + Halftrack
Panzer Grenadiers x8 NCO SMG, 1x LMG + Halftrack
Panzer Grenadiers x8 NCO SMG, 1x LMG + Halftrack
Feldgendarmerie (Inex) x4 on motorbikes
Panzer III (Veteran, Cmd Vehicle, Panzer Ace)
SIG 33 Self propelled Heavy Howitzer
For the actual Battle Report, I have bullet points for everything that happened, not sure if this is the best method but I find with dice pull activations its harder to describe the action than with ‘I go, You Go’ games… I’ve colour-coded the text like my objective markers, Blue for French, Red for Germans
Set Up phase:
German rolled first, elected to put FeldGendarmerei (FGA) and Pzr III in reserves, Pzr III in Outflank. French elected all first wave, Forward Artillery Observer (FAO) team Infiltrates into the NW wood
Turn 1
French Foreign Legion (FFL) advance West by back hedge
Senegalese and HQ advance by the east fields
Regulars advance in the East
Support platoon, 2 Mortars central behind ruins, 1 MMG central east and 1 MMG central west
Somua East on Road, Panhard central west
Half-Track with HQ and Heer advances near W Wood, Half-Track shoots kills the FAO assistant, 1 pin (French FAO have 2x Artillery strikes so killing him was a priority)
HQ inside Snaps-to the Heer to dismount and advance into the wood, they shoot and pin the FAO, HQ advances and
claims OBJ E
Center Half-Track advances behind the church, their squad dismounts and enters the Church, all of which is OBJ A, SIG 33 advances, shoots at Senegalese, misses
East Half-Track advances behind the east ruins, Sharpe’s Farmstead. Their squad dismounts and claims OBJ C
FAO fails to call in artillery onto the Farmstead thanks to the 2 pins, at end of activation claims OBJ D
Turn 2
Heer in west trees shoot LMG into the FAO, kills him.
Panhard shoots at west Half-Track with Light AT gun misses, MMG kills two Heer in West wood
FFL shoot LMG at West wood Heer, kill 1
French MMG team can only reach the Heer LMG team, kills loader. West Wood Heer have 3 pins and are
at half strength already (we were incorrect here, as even though the loader and LMG guy were only ones in range, you can pull casualties from anywhere even if out of LOS and range)
Somua attempts to Advance to shoot at the SIG 33, fails One Man Turret roll
Regulars advance, claiming OBJ D, Senegalese and HQ advance SE behind cover of barn
SIG 33 shoots and hits the Senegalese, five under the template. Only one dead thanks to hedge cover and bad wound rolls, only one pin
Other French MMG advances into NW woods near OBJ B
Heer in Church and their Half-Track shoot and KILL the French MMG team
French Mortar targets and ranges in on Sharpe’s Farmstead, killing 4 and causing 3 pins
2nd French Mortar targets in on Church and squad, failing to range in.
Turn 3
Panhard shoots MMG at W Woods Heer , that squad down to NCO and LMGunner w 2 pins, misses with AT gun at Half-Track
Somua passes 1-man Turret advances, kills SIG 33, Senegalese and HQ advance side of barn to threaten remnants of E Heer
Regulars Run across road to the small shack near Farmstead
Pzr III successfully Outflanks on left side (thanks to the FGA in reserves), behind the line of FFL, to try and use his Panzer Ace skill on the side of Panhard, misses. Hull MMG shots all fail to hit the legionnaires. In Hindsight I should have shot into the FFL with both MMGs
FGA on motorbikes come in from reserves near the E Heer squad to help them rally with their skill
Mortar ranges in on the Heer in the Church, killing two and inflicting 2 pins.
Church Heer squad is able to Mount into their Half-Track thanks to the PzrGREN rule
The Centre Half-Track road moves to MMG the Regulars, killing three.
Remnants of E Heer mount into their Half-Track again thanks to Panzer Grenadier rule and the Half-Track moves up the side of the board to machine gun the Senegalese.
Somua tries to advance and kill the Half-Track on the road, FUBARs the One Man Turret roll and falls back nearly to the board edge!
FFL assault the PZR III with 8 men, needing 6s to hit. Gets 3, and scores a Superficial hit on the tracks, two pins on the tank.
W Half-Track advances and MMGs the FFL killing 2 leaving 4 left.
Turn 4
East Half-Track with remnants of E Heer attempts to advance along the board edge to MG Senegalese, but FUBAR off the table (we were incorrect here they should have fallen back but honestly were probably within 9 inches of the back board edge too)
FFL, with HQ near them, attempt to assault the Pzr III again now that’s its immobilized, but FUBAR and turn their SMGs and pistols on their HQ, killing the adjutant!
HQ snaps-to Heer to mount the W Half-Track, and the Half-Track advances and MMGs the FFL
Panhard shoots and blows up the W Half-Track, and even with the PzrGREN rule of taking d3 hits and not d6 hits, they take two hits and wipe out the squad.
Senegalese HQ advances up and are finally able to contest the ruined Farmstead, OBJ C it was unclear whether it was the whole building (so his men can claim) or the obj marker only (too far) so we thought it fair to just have his men contest it since I had claimed it turn 1. I need to be more clear which objectives are the token (if sitting in a building) or the whole building is the objective, like the Church I declared in the Set up Phase
Game thus ends with German holding Church and W Woods obj, French holding north Ruins and NW Woods obj , with the 5th contested (Sharpe’s Farm). Tiebreaker goes to units killed:
Heer 2: FAO and MMG team
French 5: SIG 33, E Half-Track and Squad to FUBAR, W Half-Track and remnants who did not survive.
Analysis of new book units and abilities used: Panzer Grenadier is worth the extra 1 point per man, it helped three times with my Heer units. Panzer Ace, you still have to hit!
I still think I did the right thing Outflanking with the Veteran Panzer III, since I correctly guessed he would have his two mortars in the back and I had clear LOS to them to MMG them, but the Panhard was too tempting a target and I wanted to try out Panzer Ace.
I rolled a ten for the outflank so the FGA in reserves helped there (negates the -1 reserve roll modifier), and while I didn’t try and Rally off the pins on my battered Eastern Heer squad, the HQ nearby plus the Panzer Grenadier boost to remount meant I was better off trying to kill stuff.
The SIG-33 in a Meeting Engagement isn’t ideal and I was tempted to try and outflank with it too, but opted having it come on First Wave. All it was able to kill was one lousy Senegalese trooper, but it was a threat forcing Scott to keep the Somua occupied.
My HQ guy , I was going back and forth whether to bring a full squad with him (5-man total) and buy the halftrack and take one less heer squad, and if I did I would have taken 4x SMGs, but the cost does add up now. In the end I kept him by himself with a rifle and just added him to a Heer squad for deployment.
For next projects for my germans, I think I need an MMG team for my Support Platoon and maybe some light mortars for the Inf Platoon. I’m really glad I don’t have any Opel Maultiers or Blitzes with pintle MMGs since those are GONE now as well as the plucky Pzr III Ausf models with the twin co-axial MMGs. Glad I never went meta and converted one of those.