EW North Africa Escalation League (1)

This was the first game I was able to play in Adler Hobby's new early war North Africa / Italy Flames of war escalation league. Anxious to put my new Kangaroo tanks to use I chose to field my 600 point army as a commonwealth infantry company with a single platoon of three M13/39 tanks, a platoon of 3" mortars and a platoon of portee 2 lb. AT guns as support for my one combat platoon.

I drew as my opponent Gordon with his Italian Posizione Di Fucilieri (Defensive Infantry Position) company. Gordon wisely constructed his 600 point force to maximize his defensive assets including two AT nests and two HMG nests. All of which scared the hell out of me. Behind these was his artillery battery. The photo above shows starting deployment. We played the 'Trench Fight' mission which means the defender gets even MORE defenses. At the start I was pretty overwhelmed by this that's for sure, but things improved greatly when my initial bombardment for the scenario took out 3 of Gordon's artillery pieces.

A couple turns in I decided that in 6 turns I wasn't going to get my Infantry into the fight moving at regular speed, so I took a chance and double timed them counting on my mortars to smoke the defenders protecting me from their fire. Well the mortars didn't come in and I lost that platoon in one turn to devastating fire from the HMG nest, AT nest and defending infantry teams. We broke for dinner and I was thinking all was lost, but somehow I was able to assault with my one team of three captured Italian tanks under the cover of another smoke screen and miraculously through some lucky dice rolls managed to clear the defenders from the objective. My assault killed just enough infantry to force a company morale check which the Italians failed due to my assault also wiping out their HQ. Close fight which I was lucky to win and felt like I lost. Gordon was both a skilled and gracious opponent.

While Gordon and I played our game Aaron and Adam played a quick game on another table. Their game ended so quickly that I didn't get any photos of it. I'm not even sure who won!

After all of the Flames of War games ended Gordon and returning gamer James played a scenario game of Axis & Allies War at Sea which is pictured below. This game featured a British reprisal raid on a Vichi French Battleship in an all-or-nothing raid. This was a close fought game with Gordon edging out James in a battle of attrition where Gordon was able to preserve the target ship while reducing James force to below what would be needed to exact the desired revenge the scenario calls for.