Club 29th Apil

As Friday was the Royal wedding and we had no interest in watching we headed up the club early for a full day gaming. We started off with some games for our Operation Crusader Campaign. While Rick defended with Ariete against Steve D's British I was to fight another defensive action with my RECAFM (an Italian reconnaissance formation) against a British attempt to break through towards a break out from Tobruk which if successful would open a route to through to Tobruk.

While Rick was successful and even managed to destroy the supporting Infantry tank formation I was ruthlessly crushed very quickly as my armoured car formation where held back in reserve, the supporting fusileri where ruthlessly cut down by the machine gunned on the British Crusader tanks.

Next we set out to prevent the British attack out Tobruk. Having fallen back to opposite this break out we had re-enforced the defenders so we had a good numerical superiority, and with engineers even managed to out out some Barbed wire.As the British moved forward under cover of darkness with supporting infantry tanks we launched our platoon of L6/40 light tanks down the exposed flank and begun to attack their machine guns and mortars. This forced them to turn their tanks around and by some miracle we survived their gun fire. This brave attack was enough to distract the advance and prevent British victory.

The Axis then had an opportunity to launch an exploitation attack which I did, launching the victorious Ariete south at a battered British armoured regiment trying to break a weak pint in the British lines and isolate the forces attacking towards Tobruk. This should have been an easy victory as we had a major numerical advantage. However the ability of the British tanks to move and fire was decisive and they destroyed many of the Italian tanks. However while they were doing this the motociclisti platoons had moved on from their flanking manoeuvre and taken the objective to claim victory.

Above: The Italian armour advance.
Below: Italian air-power attacks (unsuccessfully) the British armour

This means the Axis have now made a another major thrust south which the Allies will have to respond to as we start turn 5 and the penultimate turn.

After all these games in the evening I was joined by Mike to take on Ian and Colin with my Eldar against the ongoing raids of Colin's Dark Eldar. This was a thoroughly enjoyable and close game. With three objectives evenly spaced along the table we had a firebase of Guardians and Dire Avengers with harlequin and war walker support on one flank and a mobile force of primarily Warp Spiders and Jetbikes on the other flank.

But it stared going wrong from the start when they stole the initiative and went first avoiding out heavy fore and destroying the warwalkers, and most importantly getting their raiders a lot closer to our lines. However we started to pull it back as we used our manoeuvrability to hit and destroy units were we wanted.

As the game progressed casualties mounted on both sides. In the games clear highlight my Farseer found himself in combat with a Talos, but somehow managed not only to survive, but to destroy it! By the end of the game all that was left were our two generals, a single harlequin, the second Talos and an immobilised Raider. With no troops to take objectives and both sides virtually wiped out it was a clear draw!