Fireball Forward, Brigade Box (Tiger Variant)

Played Fireball Forward, the Brigade Box (Tiger Variant) scenario with my son today - first two turns at any rate, and plan to finish up tomorrow.  Four German Tiger tanks and two panzer grenadier companies attack two British companies supported by Sextons and 17lber AT guns.

Table Setup

The picture looks tan/brown but that is a light green sheet with all the wrinkles...  Next to the box on the right is an orchard, in the middle is woods, the stream goes the whole way across the table (ignore the fact that it does not...), and the bocage is the ones I made yesterday (Detailed in yesterdays blog post).

Closer View of the Bocage

Germans use their prep barrage

My son correctly guessed where my AT guns were setup and used his prep barrage.  One of the guns broke but the other was only suppressed.  Between the bocage and the tree line is an orchard.

Smoke was not going down wind...

Start of Turn 2 - my first two platoons (in the woods) have come off blinds (they work very well!) and fire at the Germans moving in the open, NOT doing as much damage as I would hope - but enough to hold them off.  German return fire is ineffective.

17lber Kills a Tiger

The first 17lber opens fire and kills a Tiger (just).  The total of the range dice was just enough to reach the Tiger and the hit die was exactly what was needed.  The Tiger then rolled a single 6, and single 1, and the rest were 2-5.  Seven hits stopped out of eight and a dead Tiger!  Sadly my son did well on the tank morale roll...

Another shot and Kill!

My other 17lber rallied and fired on the other visible Tiger and the same result!  17lbers are on a roll.

Germans Continue the advance

A German platoon is coming up my left side of the board and managed to run through two of my dummy blinds (most of my guys are on the table already).  My platoon in the woods manages to break them.

Situation at end of turn 2

At the end of Turn 2 I have placed my left platoon on the board and CCd the a broken squad, and the broken squad WON vs 2 fresh squads (I rolled two twos and my son a 5 so both my squads had to take morale checks).  Luckily one of my squads passed and the other ran back to the Platoon Leader.  In the woods my left most platoon's PIAT guy ran from cover behind the broken tiger (Forget how that happened, I think it was arty) and MISSED!  Now he is still sitting behind that Tiger waiting to be shot at.  On the Right I deployed my units in the building and opened fire on the Germans heading down the right side, we managed to push them back but they rallied after routing back to the leader behind the bocage.  In the middle woods my heavy squad was killed and my PIAT team is locked in melee.  Beneath the bottom of the picture in the gap between the bocage on the right and the are three sextons and over on the left behind bocage and just above the stream is a Cromwell.  Off the picture to the right I have a platoon.  A German barrage broke everyone in it save for the leader and destroyed the attached halftrack.  My leader moved up to rally two squads and I rolled four threes in a row so nobody rallied.

I'm feeling pretty good at this point, the Germans have a long way to go and with the Tigers gone it will be hard to take out the remaining allied units.