Kiwis in Italy- FOW Game

You read the title right. I played a game of FOW! My hiatus on flames has ended, I was coaxed into a game last night with Andy, Keith and Steve. We were each running 1200 point lists, Keith and I were running Kiwis, and the other two were the Germans.

Keith had a Staghound company, mainly because he thought we were playing Mid War! A few fudged points later, and we made a semblance of a Late War list for him. I was running Kiwi infantry, using my Guards infantry as stand ins (never got around to getting some Italian british). I had...

HQ
3 Rifle Platoons
4 6pdrs
4 25pdrs
3 Stuart Jalopies (US allied turretless stuarts!)
2 Trained M10s

We were playing a modified dust up, so I opted to put the 25pdrs, 6pdrs and a platoon of infantry on table. Combined with Keith's shermans, platoon of Staghounds and a platoon of infantry, it felt like a formidable force!


The army on the attack!


An aerial photo of the 25pdrs in some conveniently dug gun pits!

Against us, were SS Panzer IV's, Stugs, fearless veteran infantry and a whole manner of nastiness.


Nasty


More Nasty

The Kiwi's got first turn, and proceeded to advance with most of our forces. Being a mobile battle, no artillery or air could help us, so I dug my guns in and hid my infantry as best I could! The Germans did much the same, except for the trio of Panzer IV's who decided to try to snipe at a Sherman (unsuccessfully)

Turn two, the Shermans decided to open up on the enemy Panzers, destroying the one that they could see! This was followed by the 25pdrs firing a barrage at them also, destroying another Panzer. The third and final panzer failed it's motivation and ran away! The Germans response was measured, but a Stug killed a single staghound (aww).


This is the before shot. The after shot is just an empty road...

Turn three, the reserves didn't arrive, and with the Stugs racing to counter the Shermans, the advantage needed to be pressed home. The 25pdrs found a building to bombard, and proceeded to kill another couple of Infantry teams. The Kiwi infantry kept trying to go forward, only to be met by HMG fire from the SS.

Still, the Germans were on the back foot. The StuGs lost one of their number next turn to a Hurricane's bomb, the 25pdrs kept killing the building with FP5+ (yay!) and the reserves arrived and put themselves in a good position to assault.

And actually, this is the way the game stayed for about 4 turns. The SS infantry defending against our reserves didn't fail any saves. They were Concealed and Gone to Ground, but they passed all of the 3+ checks to not die. Because of that, the assault would have far too much defensive fire (them being MG teams) so they were pinned back. On the other objective, it took 4 turns really for the other Kiwi rifle platoon to get into position to assault the objective. All the while the 25pdrs were wreaking their merry havoc on the building, killing and pinning seemingly at will! The Stugs and Shermans had a merry duel, taking four turns to do nothing.

Then, the reserve Panthers arrived, shooting a Sherman in the rear (2 shots, hitting on a 6, passing a 3+ firepower). The StuGs realised what to do, and with their four shots, rolled 4 6's to hit! Keith responded with 2 saves, but unfortunatly the other Sherman died. With the CiC, the single sherman stayed on table.

The Kiwis made a charge into the first objective, killing all the German defenders and establishing a picket around the outside, meaning the Stugs would have to assault them off the objective to prevent them from winning the game!


My building...

The Stugs, dutifully did. One bogged in the assault, the other caused a casualty. The Kiwis came back, sticky bombs in hand and proceeded to roll 4 attacks, with one hit, and one "own goal". The lone Stug passed it's save, but failed it's motivation to stay on table. My Kiwis now needed a 4+ on 2 dice to win the game... and rolled a 2. Followed by a 2. Sigh.

The German reserves had arrived and were trying to sneak up on my 4 6pdr guns, they rolled forward, and the 6pdrs opened up, killing an armoured car and a single infantry team. Then the infantry fired back, rolling 5 hits. I failed 3 saves, and Andy passed 3 6+ firepowers (sigh). So the assault then went in, and my 6pdrs died. Luckily for the British, the Jalopies were not far away, racing their full move to contest the objective, machinegun one platoon and kill it in assault!


This is them a turn before, giving some support fire to one of Keith's platoons

On the other objective, the Germans finally failed a save. And once they failed one, they failed a whole lot more! Suddenly the 9 stand platoon in front of the reserves was down to 5 stands, then assaulted down to 2 stands. They came back at the Kiwis in the assault, killing a stand. So 2 dice to continue the assault and win the game? A 2, followed by a 2. Sigh.

It was at this point that the game was called, it had run pretty late by this stage!

Overall, I think the Kiwis played it better. A few things going a bit more our way, like Keith not failing bomb firepower on Stugs! Or passing either of those rerolled motivation tests for me would have easily won us the game. As it was, because we failed those tests, we very nearly lost the game to their reserves!

The game had all the good and bad points of any multiplayer game. I like how you can chat and talk smack, but having 4 players on a table just makes the games take so much longer. It was enjoyable. Was it enough to get me back into playing FOW? Mmmm not really. Next game for me will be a crack at SAGA Lord of the Rings, the boys from Minas Tirith are getting ready for a scrap!

CP