The Nordic Champ/Wannabee Scenarios Chat

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Ahhhh, a Churchill, a Churchill.. my kingdom for a (working) Chruchill! Economy of Force was my downfall in the tournament with my "juggernaut" Churchill being reduced to just "naut" in a very early duel with one of Lopaka's green Stug's. Second shot from the Stug was a gun hit and that was then end of my push down the left flank as the British. Things went from bad to worse when I lost a Sherman II to a, there's that word again, green Pz IV when my regular Sherman aquired the enemy tank after moving through bocage, fired a shot and missed then proceeded to lose acquisition for some strange reason while the Pz IV plugged it in return.

Luckily I had a Stuart on my right flank take out an enemy Stug after it had, in turn, destroyed my Sexton. My Stuart then managed a weak point penetration against the offending green Pz IV, extracting some measure of revenge for the loss of my Sherman. Unfortunaty I became a bit too cocky with my little Stuart and tried to outflank the remaining regular Pz IVj on my right flank but timed my move very badly so it simply wandered into view of the advancing Pz IVj to be promptly killed. Things were looking grim at this stage as all I had left was the Daimler and the 2nd Sherman II able to fight against the enemy's Stug, Lynx Flammpanzer and Pz IV (which was proceeding to roll up into my rear area from the British right flank). Oh, did I mention that the same green Stug that castrated my Churchill also blew away my 2nd Stuart with its first shot while my Stuart was reversing and targeting the exact spot where the enemy AFV appeared?

The long and the short of it was that this green Stug from hell also took out my Veteran Daimler with its first shot (sound familiar?) although my Daimler had the perfect opportunity to hit the Stug on the side from approx. 60 metres the previous turn and missed. This left me with 1 regular Sherman vs 4 enemy AFV's and I was not happy.

Thankfully my luck turned by about turn 20 when I rushed my remaining Sherman across the British controlled bridge from the south to north and in the process managed a side shot against the Flammpanzer as it was starting to get menacingly close to my infantry holed up in the centre line of buildings near the river. I then used the Sherman to play ring-a-ring-a-rosy around the 2 story heavy building just to the west of the Church and managed to catch out the Lynx in the process with a shot up its rear for good measure.

While this was happenning my Churchill was beating a hasty retreat directly towards the rampaging Pz IV that was shooting up my rear area. I figured the only way it was going to survive was to charge directly at the Panzer while it tried to get a rear shot on me when manouvering between the rear-most line of 2 storey buildings. So directly did I charge it at the enemy that we eneded up colliding head on and the greater weight of my tank prevailed. I then 'fast' moved the "dentureless" Churchill between the narrow space betwen 2 large buildings at my rear while the slow turret of the Pz IVj desperately tried to turn fast enough to kill it from the rear. The immense speed of the Churchill prevailed and it escaped to go on a magical mystery tour down my right flank using the back north/south road for the British. Despite the Pz IV chasing in hot pursuit along the same road, Lopaka (thankfully) decided I had too much of a head start and called off the chase after destroying one of few remaining (fleeing) halftracks, to head back towards the disputed bridge on the British side. BTW, can a Churchill EVER have too much of a head start I wonder?.

As it turned out, this proved to be to my advantage as a shot up PIAT team happenned to be in the right spot at the right time and hit the Pz IV first shot as it trundled around my rear area making a beeline for the bridge. Just the previous turn or so the the remaining "uber-Stug" was also making a play for the disputed bridge from the north but another one of my fearless one man wonder PIAT teamette's was waiting for it on the far bank in scattered trees and again.. 1st shot.. plugged the Stug from front on at about 55 metres distance. So, with my greyhound-like Churchill I now charged at the German held bridge from the southern flank, using the roads wherever possible and hoping like hell there were no Panzerschreck teams around to completely defang the leviathin. I figured it wasn't worth risking my only fuly functioning AFV (the Sherman) in a 2nd pincer like movement towards the enemy bridge from the north so I stationed it squarely in the middle of my reclaimed bridge as I knew a German halftrack was lurking behind the northern buildings in my rear area.

On the final turn my Churchill lumbered onto the enemy bridge shooting up some broken German squads cowering under it with its remaining bow MG. Sure enough, the German halftrack makes its play towards my bridge with my PIAT team taking a pot shot with its last warhead, only to miss from about 80 metres while a 50 calibre I also had stationed for just such an eventuality only managed the one burst from about 90 metres to also do nothing but button the rotten thing up. At this stage the game ended & I had managed to cause the German held bridge to be disputed but to my horror, "my" bridge with a bloody great fully functioning Sherman sitting right in the middle was also in dispute despite having infantry in buildings to the north and south of it. To say I wasn't happy due to that one lousy halftrack sitting some 40 metres away causing "my" bridge to be in dispute would be an understatement. The end result, a marginal victory with the only half decent functional AFV still on my side but if ever a victory could be considered Pyrric, this was it!

Ah well, all's fair in love and war and it was one of those games where one moment you thought you were king of the world and the next turn suddenly you were the janitor cleaning out the urinals. A really fun game all round despite my result causing a loss of over 12.6 Nabla adjusted points for my side. OUCH!

Regards

Jim R.

[ April 22, 2002, 08:04 AM: Message edited by: Kanonier Reichmann ]

[Kanonier Reichmann]

So has everybody already given up discussing those 5 fine scenario's? Personally I think it's a shame but that's just my humble opinion.

Regards

Jim R.

[Ricochet]

OK

In “Gotta Get Up” did anybody as the Allied player stay and try and fight it out?

All I did as soon as the game started was bug out down the road.

I took my platoon on the right flank and ran straight for the exit road.

I loaded up MG’s and squads in the halftracks and took the Sherman and moved as quickly as possible up the road.

I had a feeling the Germans would cut me off so I ran a jeep near the back edge on the road and sure enough it discovered the Germans back there.

When I got to where the road entered the woods I quickly formed a line of battle and just pushed up the road on both sides. I also sent the halftracks slowly up the road also where a couple were hit by fausts. I succeeded in getting out most of my troops a few halftracks and the Sherman.

I left behind at the bridge the 60mm mortars and a flamethrower in ambush.

The hero of the day though was the crew of the 40mm. It took out what I think is a Lynx and a Tiger leaving them burning on the bridge.

[Silvio Manuel]

Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

I figured the only way (the Churchill) was going to survive was to charge directly at the Panzer while it tried to get a rear shot on me when manouvering between the rear-most line of 2 storey buildings. So directly did I charge it at the enemy that we eneded up colliding head on and the greater weight of my tank prevailed.

Huh? You can ram a smaller tank and KO it?!??

[Redwolf]

Meeting of Devils.

I didn't talk about it yet because it was my least favorite scenario, although I consider myself a good low-visibility player.

Despite or maybe because of that I am very curious how everybody else playing the Allied side did so much better than me. What exactly did you do? Did you get lucky with the Jeeps and/or got lucky kills on the German armor? Did you successfully concentrate?

I think I concentrated quite successfully, a good-size force in a good place, but my force just melted away.

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Silvio Manuel:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Kanonier Reichmann:

I figured the only way (the Churchill) was going to survive was to charge directly at the Panzer while it tried to get a rear shot on me when manouvering between the rear-most line of 2 storey buildings. So directly did I charge it at the enemy that we eneded up colliding head on and the greater weight of my tank prevailed.

Huh? You can ram a smaller tank and KO it?!??</font>

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by Ricochet:

OK

In ?Gotta Get Up? did anybody as the Allied player stay and try and fight it out?

Yep, I did and paid the price with a pretty horrible loss but I figured there was no fun in simply pissing off full speed for the rear with whatever could realistically make it so I decided to make a stand. Not a good idea from the "attemting to win" point of view but at least I had a number of firefights and one good ambush to enjoy while playing the game right out. All I managed to exit off the map was a couple of halftracks, a shot up Coy. HQ with 2 shot up squads in tow & a veteran flamethrower with another veteran (untouched) squad alongside. Not a particularly good return for the loss of just about everything else.

Regards

Jim R.

[Lopaka]

Kanonier,

Our battle was indeed a fine one. My greatest complaint was not having a "Chase" command. You either outmanuevered (ala my dead lynx) or I expected you to outmaneuver me (the Churchill chase) and gave up. Both times I figured that if my driver could have simply followed your boys that would have the upper hand. Having to guess where you might go was a sad impediment.

In Meeting of Devils, I had the very pathetic situation of many of my platoons panicking at the same time and rushing for cover. Unfortunately they all picked the same cover - one of the houses. This meant that when one squad went in, it pushed another squad out. Because they were then under fire, they wanted to go back in again , thereby pushing out another group and putting them under fire. I had 5 squads all running in and out of the house getting shot up and panicking even harder. Nobody was taking orders. It was one giant drunken frat party where heading out to the front lawn meant getting shot.

[Redwolf]

Bump.

Anyone else wants to ambarass himself over Meeting o Devils?

[Redwolf]

dp

[ April 27, 2002, 09:15 PM: Message edited by: redwolf ]

[Kanonier Reichmann]

Originally posted by redwolf:

Meeting of Devils.

I didn't talk about it yet because it was my least favorite scenario, although I consider myself a good low-visibility player.

Despite or maybe because of that I am very curious how everybody else playing the Allied side did so much better than me. What exactly did you do? Did you get lucky with the Jeeps and/or got lucky kills on the German armor? Did you successfully concentrate?

I think I concentrated quite successfully, a good-size force in a good place, but my force just melted away.

I'll have a go at answering your query redwolf.

Basically, I was able to achieve a decisive victory as the British in Meeting of Devils through better drop zones for my troops, as I perceived it. What I found tended to happen was that a re-inforcement platoon of Paratroopers would appear one turn and provided I didn't charge them around too much in the turn they arrived, invariably an enemy platton of FJ's would also appear by the next turn or soon after, often in the open and within 40 metres or so of my squads.

Most of my losses came in the 1st turn from my Engineer based platoon which was mainly in the open and surrounded by enemy forces. I can honestly say that after that turn, probably more than 50% of my infantry losses came from friendly fire when all squads and Vickers MG's would open up on enemy squads in the midst of my forces, causing horrific losses to not only the enmy but my guys as well. There is nothing more frustrating than watching a squad & Vickers continue to fire at 1 pinned enemy man left in scattered trees while 2 squads of my own who could easily deal with him get shot to pieces from so called "friendly" fire.

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One "tactic" that worked particularly well for me was actually initiated by the AI towards the end of the game. In this instance, a partially reduced Green Para squad was sneaking through bush towards the enemy held building (the one with one of the objectives & surrounded by bush & rough) when it took fire from enemy units within the building. The Tac AI took over and immediately rushed the squad into the nearest coover being the enemy building (as is its habit) where 3 other enemy squads were either in and around it. What ensued was a huge firefight where you could literally see the enemy squads shooting themselves to bits trying to kill my pinned 2 man squad for virtually an entire turn. I'm not sure whether it was Warhammers experience as well but I'd venture to say he probably was wringing his hands over "friendly" fire incidents as well. This general trend seemed to be the order of the day (night?) time and time again.

The upshot of all this was that despite the Germans still having their Armoured Car & re-inforcing Pz IV on the map, they auto-surrendered due to their losses in infantry being so great at the stage of 2 turns after the re-inforcing Pz IV arrived. All I can say was that I was lucky for the auto-surrender at that point to cut in since the tank was drawing a bead on my own AT gun which couldn't rotate in time and was almost certainly dead meat. If I had lost that then that Pz IV could really have done some damage I think.

Overall, I'd have to say I was a bit lucky to have the better landing positions for my Para's when compared with The FJ's which invariably seemed to appear in my gun sights, often in the open, a turn or 2 later. It was still good fun from my point of view but I was never able to achieve much with my Jeep MG's as they were very quickly shot up as soon as they came within range of small arms fire. I probably used them badly, more like scouting units rather than as back up mobile MG's to scouting squads up forward. Oh well, you live and you learn.

Regards

Jim R.

[Cogust]

Yeah, I felt that my Fallschirmjägers kept appearing in front British paras deployed in woods. Messy all the way, I was lucky to get a draw as both sides made a mutual ceased fire due to low morale.

[Tero]

In the end my opponent had the Puma and the PzKw-IV left. All his infantry was expended. Not that my paras were much better off. But at least I had some cohesion and I could advance in a coordinated fashion. The game crapped out five turns ahead of time, one turn after the PzKw-IV arrived in the scene. :mad:

I took the cautious approach after the first turn. I tried to keep a tight reign on the squads and I succeeded. This may have cost me the game as I was just getting close to the VP's when the game crapped out. Anyways, I do not think I suffered any friendly fire casualties. Some freak occurances did take place, like my FT could not hit the house it was aiming at..... also the HQ units seemed to be very prone to charge ahead and get killed if they were not under any orders.... which was not nice.

I lost my jeeps pretty soon after they arrived. The 6pounder I did not get to use at all.

Where the hell were the PIATs in this scen ?

[Redwolf]

Bump