Friday Night 20mm WWII with "Iron Cross" Rules

 At my request, seeing I will be game-less for about a month after tomorrow at Barry's, last night we had a game of Iron Cross - it did not go at all well for Julian and I (playing the Germans in a Battle of the Bulge inspired scenario) - but we had some fun and laughs.

I supplied some of the forces, and Julian the remainder. Owing to the nature of the game (and the rules, to some extent) it was not a particularly photogenic event - troops remained in the same spot, exchanging fire for several turns etc, but by combining some close ups from John with my own record, there might be 25 pictures in the following AAR

The table layout - Germans entered on the two roads to the left, British were secretly deployed anywhere on the table and the US reinforcements would enter on the road to the right on the turn number when they succeeded in rolling that turn or lower on D6 - I am sure everyone has used this method at one time or another!

My three German squads were composed of Valiant 20mm hard plastic figures from my small collection

The Panther and Puma are Julians, and the two halftracks are mine

If you go into the woods today, you are sure of a big ........

SURPRISE!

Julians infantry also decided to clear the woods

The HMG forced my infantry back, so their carrier advanced in to act as a mobile MG platform - and was immediately taken out by a PIAT - scheisse!

Next up, I brought on my Panther - the PIAT squad moved from the woods up to the corner of the field to engage it - I managed to "interrupt" the British activation and the big cat fired at point blank range - and missed!

The bloody PIAT didn't though, rolling a 9 on a D10 (which was what John needed) and putting max number of shock on the Panther, which it then carried for the remainder of the game, rendering it basically useless!

The Panther pulled back out of sight of the PIAT and remained in this position for the rest of the night - I had a couple of goes at clearing the shock, but it basically needed me to roll two sixes in a row on a D6...so not very likely then!

Another German squad moved up the wall to engage the British infantry opposite

Whilst a third moved off in the direction of Antwerp!

Turn 2 (turns take quite a long time to get through - you have to use up all your activation tokens before the "turn" ends) - and Chris rolled a 2 didn't he - on came the US reinforcements at breakneck speed!

Supported by GI's from AB Miniatures of Julians collection

The arrival of the Americans was basically the nail in the coffin of the German assault, which had already been pretty much blunted by the dogged Brits - Chris had 14 activation tokens I think which was equal to Julian and I combined, so all he had to do was, move a unit on, then pass the turn to us, then move another unit and pass the initiative over again etc until Julian had no activations left and he still had 6 or 8 - he then brought on his two 76mm Shermans, drove up to Julians Panther, paused to take aim, fired and destroyed it!

A good end to the working week but I did think the balance of forces was a bit generous to the Allies - John also had a mortar, two AT guns and more infantry squads that he did not have to reveal as they were not required - I think he might have had a total of 10 or 12 activation points whereas Julian and I had 7 each - so in addition to having fewer troops, we had significantly fewer activation points overall, so did not really have the command initiative that attacking Germans might be expected to have against the Allies - I was not very surprised by the result, but, hey, it's the Battle of the Bulge, so it was historically accurate!

Thanks for your visit - hope you enjoyed the pics and scribblings!