Cold War at the Club

 Work commitments have been keeping me busy of late but a window of opportunity opened up tonight for a game so I headed over to the Beacon Wargames Club in Elton for a game of CWC2 with fellow Cold War Commander Andy Canham.

The battlefield before we deployed troops. We had decided on a reinforced West German battalion taking on a Soviet brigade. I totted up a Panzergrenadier battalion with 2 companies of Leopard 2  plus 3 M109s and a pair of Phantoms in support and it came to just over 4,000 points. Andy C's force on the other hand was a bit over 9,000 points. Hey ho...

The Soviet horde advanced, with BMP mounted infantry supported by T64s (I think) and on table 2S1 122mm artillery. My Jaguar dedicated ATGM unit managed one shot before the rapidly approaching Soviet tanks blew it away.

Undaunted, my stalwart Panzergrenadiers dismounted and headed for the BUA while their Marders backed up and tried to get out of range of the Soviet tanks.

The hits built up on my Leopard 2s but they gave as good as they got, although several of Andy C's tanks survived what looked like certain death as he rolled a series of astonishingly high saving throws. They make their steel tough in the Urals!

Late in the game an unfortunate command blunder resulted in my flank company charging off their hill and towards the oncoming red tide. Andy took the opportunity this offered and wiped out the infantry and M113s. This blunder had dire consequences for me as it took me to within 1 unit of my breakpoint.

With my battalion morale looking shaky and fresh Soviet forces arriving on-table, I decided that that was enough and left the field in Andy's possession.

A Soviet win and defeat for me then but an enjoyable game nonetheless and a good workout of the new rules. There are a few significant changes that we noticed: Leopard 2s have had an armour upgrade and are now very difficult to kill. I didn't lose a single one over the course of the fight. The change to aircraft attacks, so that AFVs are now hit on a 6 rather than a 4+ has made them much weaker and is not something that either of us agree with. On-table artillery rules seem strange too.

We are heading to Richard Phillips' new unit for a big game next weekend so General Von Klinkerhoffen's Panzergrenadiers will not have to wait long for their chance for revenge.