FOW Historic event – Danish Viking Style

By: Benny Christiansen

In the Danish FOW Community, we have a tradition of playing historic events. Once a year, I participate in the event called “Østerskov”. This year it was in a simplified version. I hope to give you an insight into the event by providing you with information about my lists and why I chose them, as well as brief reports of the battles I played.

The event had around 26 players. As a typical historical event, we play Axis vs Allied and we had to make two lists; one from Overlord/Atlantic Wall for the game Friday night, and then for Saturday’s games, you can choose to play a list from one of these books: Atlantik wall, Overlord, Bridge by Bridge, Market Garden, Battle for the Bulge, the Ardennes Offensive, Bridge at Remagen or Nachtjäger. Lists were set at 1400. We had to note, in advance, which units we wanted in reserves.

So I had to make a choice. What would I like to play? My first thought was Infantry and Infantry. I looked at the Assault Company from Overlord. I like the many flamethrowers, and then I considered the Armored Rifle Platoons (ARP). The 2nd A.D is interesting with its chance of getting a spearhead move. Churchills has been a favorite of mine for some time. I had not tried it in V4, but I was curious to see if they could do some damage to the Germans.

In the end, I chose these lists:

 

The assault list is mainly because I love infantry in V4. The list contains all that I consider a good and strong. Infantry platoons and AT gun platoons in transports. This makes for a powerful and dangerous attack. Two Infantry platoons, with one AT gun platoon, in transports moving at dash speed and with Follow Me can get quite close to the opponent and potentially be on an objective in two turns. With the Redundant Teams rule, the list is allowed to get to 1450 pts.

I chose the tank list is for two reasons. First, moving infantry in large amounts is hard to do for a whole day, on tables that are too low for me. The second reason was I wanted to try and see if I could make a tank-list work. Many people tell me that tank lists are good, but so far, in my experience, Infantry lists are better. So I decided that this was a good chance to try and make a tank list work.

I was fortunate enough, to be asked to be the Allied General. This meant I had something to do between the games. I had to get familiar with my players’ lists, rather quickly, to know who could defend and who could attack.

In events like this, we tend to use Facebook as the way to coordinate.

Being the General of the Allied forces, I had asked one of my friends, who is in the military, to make a briefing.

Another one of the players ensured that we could have appropriate beverages for the end of the briefing. Afterward, we were matched up with our opponents and started playing. The first game was supposed to simulate attacks right after the landing on D-Day, with 12 out of 13 Allied players were attacking.

Each side had a bag of numbers to draw from. Green = defend, White = attack.

My first game was a No Retreat, against a list with two Tigers, two infantry platoons, an infantry HQ and some PaK 40s and two sIG and one Plt AA. The two Tigers were too expensive, in a list at 1400 pts, in my opinion.

At the end, the Tigers were killed, as he could not get more than 15 cm away from me using a Tatical Move. Something I thought would be pretty much impossible to do, but the edge of the table helped a lot.

The infantry list was very effective. Too much infantry and too many guns for the opponent to stop the assault.

At events like this, the games are naturally the center of everything, however, the place where such an event is being held, is naturally also essential in making it a success.

In this case, it is being held in a boarding school, where the majority of the students are interested in board games, roleplay, tabletop games etc. This means every 2 or 3 players share a room with bunk beds and shower and toilet.

 

Deployment is done in the first game. At the end, he had spent too many points on the Tigers.

Also, there are many chairs and tables etc. We get food on the evening we arrive, before the first game. During the meal, we spend a good and healthy amount of time to getting the “Long Time, No See” conversations out of the way. This is similar to events I have participated in, everywhere. It is my recommendation to any TO, to ensure there is time for this before the gaming starts, as it will otherwise slow down the pace in the first game or two.

 

The first game ended around 10.30 pm. After that, I played in a 2vs2 game, where the infantry again (supported greatly by artillery) proved its worth. However, both sides had infantry lists, and at 3.30 at night, we could not manage more, and it ended a draw.

The next morning, we got up and had to get ready for breakfast and battle. I switched to the tank list. I looked forward to testing it. In the first game, I ended up playing against a relatively new player. We decided to try the Fog Of War cards for the Meeting Engagement game. His list was comprised of both veteran and trained units.

We were supposed to play for a city, so we ended up playing on one of the City tables. It is a huge challenge for my tank list since my force had to move around a lot of ruins or take chances on Cross checks.

 

An example of his saves and “to hit” rolls.

I chose to play by going towards the middle. Often in Fog Of War there are objectives, that are centered on the middle of the table. I wanted to be prepared to flank the StuGs. so I set a platoon of Stuarts on my left flank while making one platoon go right.

 

I focused my efforts on controlling the center, and I was lucky enough, that for two rounds my opponent’s dice rolls provided him with no hits, while his saves were miserable. He lost almost a whole platoon on my first artillery strike, even though they were in a building in bulletproof cover.

To use the Fog Of War cards, a player draws three cards in the beginning of their turn. The player selects one, then returns the other two cards to the bottom of the deck. There are three types of cards; Reveal (you reveal the card when you choose it), Hidden (you reveal it at any time in the game), Persistent (these objectives can give points more than once).

 

With a bit of luck, you can see my Stuarts at the top of the picture at his measuring tape, trying to flank the Stugs. On the main road, my HQ and Sherman observer is on the way to the center of the map

I used my HQ and the Observer Sherman to go to the center. I wanted to flank the StuGs in turn 2, hoping to be able to take at least one of them out with my HQ and the Stuarts on my left flank, before he got any reserves. However, my plan changed quickly, as he had his Panzer IV on the table right away.

 

With my HQ in the center, I drew a card, giving me a chance to put an objective right at the center of the map, and we could fight to claim it both of us. He chose to go for the objective with his infantry, but failing in his saves, as seen above, it ended up with me gaining points for the objective.

Taking the objective cost me two Stuarts, as the turn after I claimed the objective, the StuGs punished them for standing in the open.

 

While the Panzer IVs hunted my Stuarts on my left flank, I maintained relative control over the right flank. He had three PaK guns that wouldn’t move. All he wanted was to make them move a few cm forward to make them shoot down the main street, but the dice rolls went against him.

 

 

In the end, I won because I had two Fog of War objective cards that made a piece of terrain, outside 30 cm from my deployment zone, worth points (you roll a dice to determine the number of points). This, combined with his bad luck at the beginning of the game, ensured my victory. I sacrificed a platoon of Chaffees to prevent him from moving his StuGs too close to me. This is one of the things, I really like about the Fog Of War. You can choose to sacrifice a unit, without effects on the final score.

The important terrain can be seen at the top of the picture.

For my next game I ended up playing vs a mech list, and I was defending in Rearguard. As expected a tank list, that is going to defend, is not in a good situation. I was up against German Mech, and I had to remove one unit in turn two.

 

My HQ platoon is facing German Mech. I was tired and made a mistake, that cost me the game.

With one half-track infantry platoon in his list, he had a lot of MG shots to send at my infantry, and I decided to take my pioneers off first. He was rushing me on one side of the table. The table was divided by a small stream, that I had to cross. I made a tactical mistake and moved one platoon of Stuarts too far towards his deployment zone, and strayed too far away from the objective, so he could claim it.

 

It was a lost cause no matter what, as his Pak40s were decimating my Chaffees and Stuarts. As the game ended, I had lost 1 Chaffee platoon and 1 Stuart platoon was taken out, so I had my HQ and 1 Stuart platoon left. My Hq could not last against the entire German force for another 3-4 turns alone.

My last game this tournament was going to be a Fog Of War game. I was ready to make a lot of video and pictures so I could show in detail how the Fog Of War game affects the game. I have included the first few rounds here below..

Turn 1 summarized

Turn 2 summarized

In my third turn, I shot and assaulted his HQ, thereby getting his formation into Bad Spirits, and I won the game. This kept the whole “Fog Of War” part of the game from unfolding.

Despite fierce German resistance, the result of the campaign was close to the historical events. The Axis side was a decisively defeated. With 63 games fought, the Allies had 29 wins and Axis had 17 wins. Final result was German 256 points, Allied 395 points.

All in all, it was a weekend with lots of action and I hope you get an idea of how it is at the event. We have up to 4 events like this every year, as well as “normal” tournaments.

Is this similar to your events and tournaments?