Operation Overlord AAR #1

Was hoping I'd see more of this.... drat.

Densmol and I got in late on the WWPD.net Operation Overlord campaign and thus far have only managed to get in 2 games to add to the overall scoresheet.

This first game was played prior to the delivery of the new D-Day compilation and so our lists came from the old books. Sadly I didn't have my camera on hand so no pics, but that's probably for the best as we used books as hills, etc and almost my entire force was unpainted so it wasn't a pretty game in the least.

We played 1780 point lists, mine from the 7th Armoured Desert Rats Company, my first try at fielding a Reluctant Veteran list.

HQ - 2 Cromwells
2 Platoons of 3 Cromwells + 1 Firefly
1 Recce Platoon of 3 Stuart V's
1 Platoon of 4 M10's
1 full Platoon of Lorried Rifle Infantry
Confident Trained Corps 25pdr 8-gun artillery
Confident Trained Limited Typhoon air support

Densmol played a Mechanised Infantry German list that I can't remember entirely -

Infantry HQ
2 Grenadier Platoons in 1/2 tracks
1 4-gun 15cm Artillery platoon
3 Stugs that he kept in ambush

He had some Warrior in a tank, (Barkmann?) who sat on a flank and maybe something else?

Table was set out with hills and woods on one end and village and ruins on the other. Densmol set up in the village and ruins and I tried to keep my armoured teams as hidden as I possibly could from his nasty heavy artillery.

My Recce move had my Stuarts right up in his grill from turn one and on my 1^st turn I made sure to pour as much firepower into his dug in big guns as possible killing two right off the bat. My armour moved up trying to stay out of line of sight as they advanced on the objective. My airpower went about killing the odd stand and killed another 15cm gun, until I rolled a solitary plane on the 4^th or 5^th turn which was promptly shot down by ½ track AA guns and refused to return. (I guess planes suffer from morale too!)
In the end, the game came down to me not jumping the objective quickly and offering Densmol chance to get reserves in place to camp the buildings next to the objectives. And also my Reluctant troops refusing to get back in their tanks and ending with a company command roll that was swiftly failed…..

Needless to say, this will be the last time I play a Reluctant list ever again….. 5-2 win to Densmol.(And his 1st win versus me! Damn, my record is tarnished!)