Friday 11 November 2016

2016-10-30 Conwy Wargames Club Dust Warfare game

Chris hosted a Dust Warfare game with lots of amendments of his own making. The aim of the game was to try out the rules and see if they played well and provided proper fog of war experience.

Scenario

The Germans are retreating and need to hold the junction to allow their forces to get away. They therefore lay an ambush to slow the Americans down for 6 turns.

Objectives
 Americans - take the junction
Germans - stop them

Forces

Now I'm not a Dust expert so don't get upset about the descriptions

Germans
Tiger 1
37mm AT gun
PAK 40 AT gun
Squad of Heavy Grenadiers
Squad of  Grenadiers
Advanced panzerfaust x 2 (like a recoiless rifle 75mm)
AA gun on a truck
Sniper
Observer team
Stuka zu Fuss
1 x Wunder fraulein - not deployed because Chris forgot to tell us about her
2 mines (operated by the observers)

Americans
2 x Light Scout walkers
1 x Medium Scout Walker
2 x 75mm tank walkers
1 x Howitzer walker
1 x Large AA walker with 4 HMG and dual big guns
1 x squad of bazooka infantry
1 x squad infantry
1 x flame thrower squad
1 x Hera - I think he was called Big Joe


The Game


The Germans started the game hidden. Snacks courteous of Tony.

Dave and I hid a Tiger and the 37mm AT gun in these building at the head of the vital road junction.

The US scout walkers appear commanded by Ian. The overall commander was birthday boy Gaz. Tony commanded the infantry

Lovely models from Chris's collection. Shocking photography by me. I knocked a button on the camera for low res piccies


The US advance and Dave opens fire with his super panzerfaust ... and misses


Luckily the US were just as good shooting.

Dave reveals his Heavy Grenadiers after his super panzerfaust destroys the light walker. Most of our shooting was done as reaction actions in the US move.

The Heavy Grenadiers destroy the medium scout walker. In the background US infantry rush towards the German held woods


The US left flank keeps moving trying to flush out any ambushers

The US right flank

The only troops left on the US right flank 

US troops in the centre


The big walker arrives. Wonderful model full of menace flanked by the tank walkers


It promptly walks on to a mine and is put out of action with all crew killed - never fired a shot!

The US howitzer tank walker on the right just millimetres from the 2nd mine 


On the right the US begin to clear the German held right hand wood. My super panzerfaust took out the last scout walker but my grenadiers failed to stop the infantry 

The German AA vehicle takes out the US infantry in the woods while suffering from a hail of rockets from the howitzer tank


On the right the barrel of my PAK40 juts out of the woods. It was forced to reveal itself as the US infantry had come too close. It failed to hit anything! The Stuka Zu Fuss arrived and blasted a large area twice but failed to kill anything before it was put out of action. You can see it burning bottom right.

US infantry destroy the PAK40

The furthest advance of the US 75mm tank walkers

The Tiger announces it's presence

No Germans were now left on the right flank

Hidden in the hedge row were the observer team and the sniper. By now the AA truck had been destroyed. The sniper knocked down the US hero and forced him to retire to the rear for safety.
The game ended with the US advance stalled. Neither side knew what forces the other had so we weren't sure if there were more US units to arrive. We guest not as our opponents kept asking if we still had anything left  once the Tiger was destroyed by the 75mm.

Scenario wise the Germans had won even though we only had a 37mm left which couldn't hurt the US walkers, the observer team, the sniper and our heroine. The US had 2 walker tanks and 2 squads of infantry and the hero.

I enjoyed the game, especially the fog of war element. The rules were OK, and the models wonderful. I found them very similar to other WW2 rules so they were easy to pick up, and very brutal. The lack of rules for side and rear armour meant you weren't encouraged to manoeuvre to take out the enemy but Chris's scenario more than made up for this.

I'd definitely play this again.