1st SoTR battle done

Well Mexican Dave and I decided it was about time that we chucked some dice at this, so we trucked our forces along to our local club on Saturday. Sorry no piccys but I just plain forgot to chuck the camera into the box. It was a straightforward "capture the tech" scenario, with a large crate plonked into a ruin near the centre of the table. Things started badly for Dave with me winning the initiative (the only time I did btw) and moving my Mech up and taking a potshot at his Mech, a shell through the engine block saw that thing stuck in its start position for the rest of the game. This turn and the next couple saw very little firing, with both sides running at the double for both the objective and any cover they could grab near the objective. What helped the Soviets to get into better positions was the much higher number of activations they had (Dave could have had at least one more by splitting his squad into 2 fire teams) which meant that even after Dave was all done moving I still had 3 or 4 teams to move into a good firing position. In the end the Mechs had very little effect on anything other than themselves with Dave's ending up immobilised and with his HMG arm blown off, mine took a shell through the leg and keeled over wrecked. The main fighting took place at the edge of a scruffy looking village with the Soviets getting into the upper floors just before the German infantry could claim cover from the roadside hedges. Soviet Infantry have a barbaric amount of firepower, its a free upgrade to dish out assault rifles to all the goons in your squad, thats 3 dice a figure. I had 6 guys in that top floor and they let loose a firestorm at Dave hapless guys still running across the meadow, boom 18 dice and 12 hits later I think 3 guys actually made it to the hedge. After that Dave tried to get his Werewolves into buildings next turn, but made the same mistake as the infantry, tried crossing open ground in front of the now dug in Soviets, Red-Mist time as they got pumped full of good Russian lead. He would have been much better going for the RPG team outside the village and working his way from builing to building, but patience in wargames has never been Daves strong suit. It ended up with both side banging away at anything they could see for the rest of the game but with little effect, but in the end the numbers were with the Soviets.

All in all, it was a good game, we liked the turn sequence and once we'd done a couple of turns the shooting was second nature, we didnt get any close combat done, but thats for another game, I suspect that Dave's Mech is getting a tiny red star painted on it, just to remind me that it HAS indeed shot down a Soviet Mech every time I see it.