Game night with Luke, 24th July

Luke and I managed to fit in our first mid-week game for quite a while and went back to the good old Flames of War. We decided to ply mid war, and by coincidence both try out something different. I took a Compangnia Carri with some allied Panzers and Luke took an Infantry company with I tank support.We played a no retreat mission.

I decided to mass most of my forces down one flank in a single-minded drive for one objective (above), while Luke spread his force more evenly, with slightly more against my main attack, but the other side had a town to complicate matters (below)

As I launched my main attack I quickly encountered problems. We play that we roll a general terrain type up from the 2nd ed. rule book and then roll for type when contacted using the tables from Hellfire and Back. This meant I knew that there were wrecks in front of me, but it was only as I moved forward I discovered most of them were actually minefield which channelled my force even further. To make matters worse my first assault by armoured cars was driven back by defencive fire.

On the other flank I had discovered the 2pdrs in ambush and attempt to assault them but was repelled, so my armour swept to support the other flank. Here I had managed to assault again, but was again repelled except for the last platoon I could attack with, that managed to drive the Brits out of their defences.

There now started a couple of bitter turns of fighting as Luke desperately tried to hold on and prevent my victory while waiting for reserves. It was now a race for me to drive him off properly before the I-tanks arrived and stared rolling me up as I had very little that could cope with them. Fortunately I as just able to drive him off, they had arrived, but had not got near enough to be a threat. The burning wrecks surrounded the objective (below), but the Italians had captured it and won very a hard fought battle.