Boom-boom-boom; let me hear you say way-oh!

WAYYYY-OOOOOOOOOHHHHH!

Good afternoon treadheads and welcome once again to the Phatcats Does Tank Aces blog.  Last night was a night of epic heavy metal carnage with us finishing off all of the remaining turn one games.  There was triumph and defeat; joy and despair; painted and unpainted; pure luck and sneaky twattery.  Take my hand, gentle reader, and let me guide you through the magical forest of the tabletop mini-tank demolition derby ... (that's not your hand, is it Ross?)

COMBAT ROUTE A

Dan (US Armoured) v Coops (StuG Battery)

Employing sneaky twattery to great effect Coops hid his four StuGs in the corner of the table behind some boccage causing Dan to have to flush him out using his Shermans' enhanced engines.  He took some casualties heading in but before long it was toe-to-toe across the boccage with a tense last couple of turns with rounds bouncing off each others hulls.  As the smoke cleared though a single Sherman remained amongst the smoking ruins littering the battlefield.

Coops
Ace Kills: 1 - Ace knocked out
Total Kills: 3

Dan
Ace Kills: 1 - Ace knocked out
Total Kills: 4


ALLIED WIN

Dan (US Armoured) v Nick (Schwere Panzers)
Outnumbered again Nick was rightly concerned about the larger gun on the 76mm Shermans field by Dan.  Their speed and punch meant Nick was soon cornered and on the back foot.  He got a quick kill early on but ultimately, to quote Admiral Ackbar, he just couldn't repel firepower of that magnitude!

Nick

Ace kills: 0 - Ace knocked out
Kills:  1

Dan
Ace kills: 2 - survived
Kills: 2

ALLIED WIN

COMBAT ROUTE B

Lee (Schwere Panzers) v Phil (AARR - tiny tetrarchs!)

Played to faint background music of Benny Hill's theme tune (Link for our younger readers) a huge horde of Tetrarchs wazzed round two hulking Tigers for a significant number of turns.  To his credit Phil did manage to bail out one of the Tigers in a moral victory however the brute force of the Tigers gradually whittled the Tetrarchs down to a mere two by the end.  On the plus side, the fact that some of the Tetrarchs survived meant the actual game was a draw!

Lee
Ace Kills: 2 -  Survived
Kills: 10

Phil
Ace Kills: 0 - Survived
Kills: 0

DRAW

Dan (US Armoured) v Spencer (Panzer Lehr)

More boccage hide and seek ahoy! Spencer wasn't budging from his hidey-hole boccage stretching across his deployment area forcing Dan to come to him (again). By this time though, the dice gods were beginning to abandon Dan. A single tank bogged, unbogged and then bogged down again trying to enter a building before finally being destroyed. The respective tank aces squared off over the boccage firing a point blank range but it took the intervention of an additional two panzers to take out Dan's Ace. In the end Spencer headed out to kill the last Sherman, which in an act of sheer defiance managed to take two panzer with him to fiery oblivion!

Dan
Ace Kills: 1 - Ace knocked out
Kills: 3

Spencer
Ace Kills: 2 - survived
Kills: 4

AXIS WIN

COMBAT ROUTE R

Coops (StuG Battery) v Chris (British Armoured)

British Shermans v StuGs; the ultimate match up. At least on paper. In reality the numerical superiority paid off for Chris. His ability to be in multiple locations at once meant he could take advantage of the weak side armour of the StuG which he did with brutal effect.

Chris
Ace Kills: 0 - Ace knocked out
Kills: 4

Coops
Ace Kills: 1
Kills: 2

ALLIED WIN

Spencer (Panzer Lehr) v Gaz (Guards Heavy Tanks)

In a match up that turned the tables on the Axis, so used to having the biggest baddest tanks in the table, Spencer quickly worked out that shooting an IS2 in the face was just going to piss it off. Here however numbers couldn't carry the day; the IS2s were bailed out a few times but those crazy Ivans just kept climbing back in (no doubt due to the Commissar with a pistol to their heads). Gradually the massive firepower of the IS2 was the telling factor with each hit an almost guaranteed kill.

Spencer
Ace Kills: 0 - Ace knocked out
Kills: 0

Gaz
Ace Kills: 1 - Survived
Kills: 5

ALLIED WIN


CAMPAIGN POINTS

Route: Current State (Allied Wins/Axis Wins)

Combat Route A:  ALLIED WIN (2/0)
Combat Route B:  ALLIED WIN (2/1)
Combat Route R:  ALLIED WIN (3/1)

Kill Scores

Player (Company) Total Kills/Tank Ace Kills/Games Played

Lee (Schwere Panzer) 16/5/3
Gaz (Guards Heavy Tanks) 11/3/3
Spencer (Panzer Lehr) 11/3/3
Dan (US Armoured) 9/4/3
Chris (British Armoured) 8/1/2
Nick (Schwere Panzer) 5/3/3
Coops (StuG Battery) 5/2/3
Phil (AARR) 2/0/3
Dustin (Panzer Kompanie) 0/0/0