FOW Bagration clash: German Vs URSS (Tabletop Simulator)
When I get a new army book from our friends at Battlefront, I really like to try it out as soon as possible at my club in Milan. Since we are still under lockdown, it’s almost impossible and unsafe to meet and play in the real world, so we decided to do a match with the new Bagration German book army and its natural enemy Bagration Soviet using the PC/Mac digital game Tabletop Simulator.
What is Tabletop Simulator? It’s a videogame you can , priced around $20. Technically speaking, it’s not a proper “videogame”: I consider it more like an “open box” where you can place everything you want, closer to titles like Minecraft. It was originally created to play boardgames over the Internet, but wargamers around the world understood its potential and did lots of “user-created content” to play their favorite 3D games. During 2020, with half the world in lockdown, it conquered a lot of players.
When you launch the game, you just have a simulated table, where you can “load” tokens, cards, chess pieces – anything other people created. If you look under the “Workshop” tab in Steam, you can see there is a lot of material for 3D wargames: Star Wars, DBA, Art de la Guerre, Bolt Action, Saga. And obviously, Flames of War and Team Yankee. You can find virtual tables of the right dimension, armies from Mid or Late Book, dices – anything you need.
The game: Russian attack!
I played with my tournament arch-enemy and FOW best friend Claudio Tiso from the Turin club. I used the new German Bagration army, despite I normally prefer to play with Allies, while Claudio fielded his virtual Russian from the Bagration book.
, the German book has some new interesting surprises, so I wanted to try them out. Here is my list.
| PanzerGrenadier Company | ||
| PanzerGrenadier HQ | 2 small bases | 4 |
| PanzerGrenadier plt | 7 bases | 11 |
| PanzerGrenadier plt | 7 bases | 11 |
| Panzer IV/70 | 3 tanks | 27 |
| Support | ||
| Wespe | 3 tanks | 9 |
| Nebelwerfer | 6 guns | 18 |
| Elefant | 1 tank | 15 |
| Panzer III OP obs post | 1 tank | 1 |
| SD KFZ 221 & 222 light scout | 3 tanks | 3 |
| Cards: Lucky | 1 | |
| Total | 100 |
The first “new weapon” is the PanzerIV/70 platoon: same gun and frontal armor of an expensive Tiger, but they cost a third less. They have limits: forward-firing, worst cross (5+), and vulnerable flanks, but they can shot 6 hits at 14AT per turn. Next new item, a single Elefant: it can defend an objective, with better stats (hit on 4+ and 3 MGs) than the “old” Ferdinand. Finally, the PanzerGrenadier Company can field a tank platoon inside the same company now, making it harder to beat.
Claudio’s Russian force is very similar .
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A solid infantry force with some hard-hitting tanks, but still nothing that can worry the Elefant frontal armor!
The field
I created this table with Tabletop Simulator. It’s very easy to build roads, place buildings and hills – very similar to what you would do for a game with friends in the real world. Here is the map from the top view. Since my list is perfect to defend and Claudio’s one is best suited to attack, we ended up with a Rearguard mission, with Russian flooding everywhere on the table and Germans trying to flee in good order. Really historical, considering the Bagration background!
Here is the deployment. The red dots are the minefields: I placed them on the left flank to protect the first objective, while the Elephant is on the right hill guarding the other one. I also deployed an infantry platoon near each of the two objectives and kept the Panzer IV/70 in ambush. The Nebelwerfer was on the rightmost corner, ready to send some serious barrage on the advancing infantry, while the Wespe are in the central wood, ready to shoot on heavier targets.
Claudio deployed the “heavy” tanks on the far left, knowing he couldn’t face the Elefant, together with two infantry platoons. The right flank was kept by the 120 Mortar battery, the BA 64 scouts, and some infantry 57cm guns. It was clear Claudio wanted to push fast on the weaker flank, the one without the Elefant. The German army is normally outnumbered, but thanks to their heaviest tanks, can defend a flank with a single vehicle.
First turn: Russians rush to attack
An excellent player like Claudio never sits back: he charged with his best flank, moving full ahead with the two infantry platoons and their HQ, followed by the IS-2 and the SU-152s. If you can’t avoid them, give them the more targets you can – a solid URSS WW2 rule.
On the right, he stayed back, sending the scout BA 64s towards the Nebelwefer battery: to avoid Claudio’s barrages, I spread the 6 guns on a wide area, and this decision made the battery vulnerable to a suicide attack like Claudio’s one. I had to find a way to repel his scouts, or my precious Nebelwerfer could be wiped out in a couple of turns.
The Nebelwerfer battery was spread on a large patch of rough terrain, but a bit too vulnerable to a rush attack, like the one of the BA-64s.
Germans try to stop the Red Tide
I moved the Panzer III Op to physically hinder the BA-64 advance and rushed with the right infantry platoon to shoot to them. The Elefant went on the top of the hill to send two shots with a quick blitz, remembering to keep its fragile flanks away from unwanted Russian attention. The nimble BA-64s managed to avoid almost any German shell, and the final result was a single BA-64 bailed out. Ouch.
On the left, I place the Panzer IV/70 ambush in the central corn camp, right on the stressed objective. They shot towards the ISU-152s and killed two of them – much better! The Wespe and the Nebelwerfer bombed the Russian infantries, killing some bases and pinning them down. As a final move, I shoot-and-scooted with my Panzer IV/70s, moving them behind the infantry line. If the Russian infantry were to charge, better to face them with the PanzerGrendadier than the tank-hunters and their weak counter-assault value.
Well hidden in the cornfield, the “new” Panzer IV/70 sent their message aloud, killing a total of nine heavy Russian tanks during the game. Keep these guys out of difficult terrain
The Russian keep advancing
Claudio moved his small reserve of T-34s to reinforce the left flank. When you face AT14, the only chance for the Allied players is to place more tanks than German shots, to hope to have some tanks delivering the final charge. The infantry platoons cleared the minefield with unusual skills, and moved in the two buildings on the flank and on the front of the objective.
On my right, the Ba-64s were repelled by the German infantry, and fast moved behind the Elefant. Smart choice: I couldn’t shot them without turning the back towards the enemy, and Claudio forced me to keep the Elefant near the Objective. Meanwhile, the Russian 57mm guns moved towards the objective. Useless against the Elefant, but annoying for everything else.
Germans begin to leave the field
I had to remove a unit per turn to simulate the German retreat. The first one to leave the field was the scout 221 section, the second the hammered Nebelwerfer, and finally the Wespe battery. With the Russian rushing fast, the artillery was less effective due to the “close range” rule. The infantry on the left, together with the covering MGs from the Panzer IV/70s, repelled two charges of the Russian platoons. Also, the Panzer IV/70s destroyed all Russian tanks, leaving wrecks of the IS-2s, 152s and T-34s. However, on the right flank the situation was worsening: the advancing 57mm guns began to shoot on the Panzer IV/70s, and the last infantry tried to move toward my objective on the hill. Was the Elefant enough to single-hand keeping them off?
Final turns: Russian assault
The left flank was targeted by a final Russian assault: the Panzer IV/70s were killed, but the last remnant of the PanzerGrenadier managed to repel even the last assault, thanks to the vicinity of the surviving HQ element. On the right, the Russian infantry charged the Elefant leaving it untouched and losing base after base. In the end, they won the close-combat when the Elephant failed a counter-assault test. The Russian won the battle at the very last turn, after losing more than half of their army.
Claudio’s trick was really effective: the Ba-64s were almost useless against the German list, but proved an annoying constant menace and forced my Elefant to stay near the right objective.
Aftermath
My first “Bagration” game taught me a couple of things. First of all: finish off your opponent’s units. I began to bombard the infantry on the right, but in the next turn I immediately ranged in on the left one. With wiser and later hindsight, I should have kept the attention on the same infantry platoon to destroy it or weaken it further. Once it was destroyed, I could consider the right flank secure and concentrate on the left one.
The Panzer IV/70s work very well: you just need to place them in a rough terrain and in the back, to avoid cross tests. They kill like Tigers and cost a third less, so they are good when facing a flood of enemies. Finally, the same list could be even stronger using the Beach Formation (simulating “tired” infantry divisions in Central Europe): the PanzerGrenadier platoons need to defend the objectives, and if I downgrade them to Beach infantry I should be able to sneak in some MGs or Mortar platoons to help their effort. However, I’m also happy with this “historical” formation taken from a single book. Next time, I’ll try the Stukas!
“The first “new weapon” is the PanzerIV/70 platoon: same gun and frontal armor of an expensive Tiger, but they cost a third less.”
It has the same gun as a Panther .
Yes, you are right – in the real world it’s a Panther gun. However, in game terms, they are all three totally equivalent.