AAR EW V4 Tankovy vs Lend Lease Tankovy

I headed down to the Panzer Angriff club at the Mega Games store in Penrith on Sunday a week or so back. Dave and I had another EW game planned. Unfortunately, that was all the pre-planning we had done prior to the day so we both turned up with a Tankovy. Fortunately they were different...

Dave had a T34 company with a unit of flame tanks, an I153, some scout tanks and some AA trucks. I had a Lend Lease company with Valentines, Matildas, T60s, Pioneers, a Sturmovik and some AT guns.

The mission was rear-guard and I defended.

Right Defense.

The objectives were spread widely forcing me to split my forces to cover both objectives. I dropped my three minefields in front of the left objective forcing Dave to choose between crossing the minefield and channeling his attack against my right objective. Dave chose the latter.

Battalion commander deployed.

I dropped my unit of Matildas on the left objective expecting to move them all or partially off depending on what Dave opposed this objective with. I set my pioneers on the right hand objective with the AT guns adjacent. The Valentines were in Ambush and the T60s were located centrally ready for a fire-fighting role.

The first of many successful raids by the I153

 The early turns were pretty uneventful with forces simply moving up. The flame tanks pushed down the right hand flank with the 5 T34s beside them. The AA also moved up against the unarmed pioneers in front of them. The Scout Tanks pushed up on the left to try to force my Matilda Company into staying there. The planes arrived and bagged an AT gun.

T60s

 I dashed my T60s to behind the forest on the right where my objective was. Thank you halftrack movement! The Matildas moved towards the right and were able to brew up a Scout vehicle.

Soviet Sentinel.

 Dave’s attack was developing. The flame tanks were still out of range and the AA and T34s couldn’t convert hits to casualties on the pioneers. The scout tanks skulked back to cover. The dreaded air arrived again and bagged another AT gun and bailed my commander.

Repositioning behind the minefield.

I withdrew my T60s early. Given the presence of T34s, their AT 5 wasn’t going to bring much to the fight and the other on-table units were needed. I dropped my Valentines from ambush behind the wood so they could shoot at the T26 flame and AA trucks tanks without being seen by the T34s. This worked, with 2 AA trucks dying to machine gun fire, 2 T26s succumbing to 2 pound fire and a further T26 being bailed out. Leaving a Matilda behind, the other 2 tanks moved further towards to the main fight on the right.

The dreaded biplane arrived three times from three in the early turns, it made short work of the AT platoon and kept the commander bailed as he remained in position to bolster the morale of the guns. The T34s redeployed and starting working on the Valentines. The remaining T26s moved up and delivered flaming death to more than a few pioneers.

Ruddy Biplane.

The game quickly developed into a stalemate on the left. The remaining Matilda couldn’t leave the objective and the scout tanks couldn’t leave their hiding hole for fear of losing another vehicle. The real action was all on the right. The pioneers spent turn after turn being whittled down and breaking off from assault from the flame tanks and the BT7s who had joined the fight. It was only their numbers that kept them in the fight. The T34s were table to fire with impunity easily bouncing shells from the Matildas and Valentines.

Valentine Ambush!

The game really heated up when one of the units the T34s boldly moved forward to take some side shots on the Matildas. They were unsuccessfully and eventually were lost to some knife fighting where some lucky 2 pound shots found weak points in the Soviet steel.

Brewed T34s

The fighting progressed in a circular motion around the wood with the pioneers in the thick of it and the BT7s and flamers chasing them. The objective, by now under severe pressure was reinforced with 2 Matildas who had finally arrived from the far flank and the commander Valentine. Sadly the unit of Valentines couldn’t continue to sustain turn after turn of T34 fire and were destroyed.

Destroyed Valentines

Rear-Guard is a timed mission with the defender winning in turn 9. The Lend Lease tanks were still barely alive at the end of the game. My forces had taken severe losses in what was a tightly contested game. The Valentines and AT guns were dead, the pioneers were down to 6 stands and the T60s and Sturmovik were withdrawn. Given that I didn’t have a huge unit count and taking fairly consist loses (AT guns, Valentines) I often picked up a counter rather than having to withdraw units. This kept me in the fight with my relatively robust units.

Time Gentlemen Please.

This was another good V4 game. Considered piece-meal, there are aspects of the game that stand out as different to V3. For example, the morale rules are certainly different and kept the pioneers in the game where they would have been testing earlier in V3. However the morale rules have also forced me to run Matildas in units of 3 rather than 2. This tied up a considerable amount of points in a single unit. Small units of 2 tanks can be testing after a single loss or bail in v4. Overall, I think that V4 is a fine game. Even with the old lists being used for the new version, the game is still fun.

I hope you enjoyed this article.