What a Tanker II

Down at Black Wolf last night, what was going on?

First off, Tony and Dave played a nice looking “Maximilian Adventure” Sharpe Practice 2 game.  I understand Tony’s Mexican peasants gave Dave’s Frenchies a good stuffing. So what’s not to like!!

Across the way was a game of the new To the Strongest ECW variant. Again a nice looking game in 15mm. Strange how players used to a melee hitting on a 6, get thrown by looking for an 8, even if you get 2 goes. The probability is better, but it doesn't seem that way!

Elsewhere we had “What a Tanker”, this time in 20mm.  A Sherman troop including a Firefly vs a Tiger 1 and Panzer MkIV.  We used a bit more terrain than last week, which did produce a more tactically challenging game. On the Allied left, Malcolm's M4 tackled Chris’ Panzer IV, while Simon and Phil went Tiger hunting! A real (big) cat and mouse game!?
Malcolm and Chris stalked each other around a wood on the Allied left, but eventually “killed” Chris' Mk IV, after driving it back by a series of flanking moves and non-penetrating hits.

In the centre, Phil's Firefly was stalking Rob's Tiger frontally, while Simon's M4 tried to work around the Tiger's flank. Rob's command rolls were not great and the Tiger consequently was unable to get a good shot in. After Simon's M4 started to work its way around the Tiger's flank, Rob started to pull the Tiger back. To keep the Tiger distracted, the Firefly popped out and planted a series of non-penetrating hits on the Tiger, but in reply, Rob's Tiger landed a telling blow on Phil’s Firefly, brewing it up.

The two remaining 75mm Shermans kept up a brave fight, sniping at the Tiger's flanks and rear, but were never able to land a decent hit. The laws of probability are rather against a 75mm armed Sherman killing a Tiger even from the rear, well not against Rob's armour rolls! Not quite Kelly's heroes!