Infantry Aces @ G3. The First Tentative Steps...

We played our first round of the Infantry Aces campaign for Flames of War at G3 in Glasgow last night.
Myself and Brian are still trying to come to terms with the huge number of rules in this game, but we are slowly getting there. What I like about FOW is that almost all of the rules make sense if you try and apply it to the real world setting. It - so far - feels like everything is very fair and balanced.

Apologies for the quality of the pics. Lighting in the hall is a bit ropey.

Edit: Mark, who is running the campaign, is blogging all about it.
Have a look  HERE

Setup

The US forces were dug in protecting an area just south of Castle Hill.
Resources were stretched to the limit with only a single under-strength rifle platoon (6 teams) and a small weapons platoon (3 x 60mm mortar teams supported by 2 x MG teams) in the vicinity. The US commander had been assured that reinforcements were inbound. His larger concern were the intel reports that the Germans were readying an attack.
Reports expected a light German force of a single Rifle/MG squad (6 teams) and a squad of 80mm Mortars.(6 teams). Likely they would have reinforcements too.

Turn 1

Through the treeline of the small copse west of the German objective, Colonel William H Harkin of the 1st Infantry Division spied the German advance.
Grenadiers – a single squad – moving slowly up his flank, just out of range of both his guns and mortars. Intel reported a German mortar platoon south of the cornfields. They would be in range but strangely they seemed reluctant to fire and were staying dug-in, in their position. They would have spotter teams out and about in the area.
Harkin was stuck in the copse. If he moved now the Germans would see him.
He radioed his riflemen to advance upon the nearby village. The houses would give them cover from the advancing Germans.

Turn 2

Harkin watched through his binoculars. The Germans led by Klaus von Wurstsauger, were slowly moving up the flank.
Gunfire!
The German troops had opened fire. The US commander spun round to look in the direction of his own men. Nooo! They were too far west. A single team of riflemen were killed. Two still left in the open.
Now mortar fire on the exposed Americans. A poor rifleman was heard to cry “why are they shooting everything at just us Sarge?”. Twelve mortar shots at two rifle teams, 4 hits, two teams dead.  The German mortar squad whilst experienced in combat had only just received these new model weapons, and were under-trained, so never realised the potential of these weapons for the whole encounter. (Doh! @ Me  )

Movement behind Harkin’s position signalled the arrival of the US reinforcements.
A full platoon of riflemen (9 teams) marching at the double into the arena. They hold position at the edge of the copse.
The US troops in the village scatter under fire, taking cover as best they can around the buildings.
The Germans in their haste for combat had strayed into range of the US mortars.
Harkin calls in a bombardment on the German position. Three mortars land in their midst, the resourceful troops take cover behind some daffodils (3 x 1s rolled for saves) and 3 teams are downed.

Turn 3

The German reinforcements arrived (about time - the German dice were out of sorts all game) An under-strength platoon of Grenadiers (4 teams Rifle/MG) arrives to the East, their eyes on capturing the allied objective. They hope the fighting in the West will distract the Americans and march double time up the field.
The first German platoon seeing the US reinforcements diverts into the village to take cover. Wurstsaugel must have taken a piece of shrapnel to the leg in the mortar attack as he lags behind the rest leaving him exposed.
The German mortar platoon are still trying to work out which is the dangerous end of the big tube and do nothing useful. Their platoon commander places a call into tech support.
His call is very important to them. He is 9th in the queue.

The US commander senses the battle turning his way as the reinforcements move through his copse to the edge of the trees taking up shooting positions near the Germans. One lucky son of a gun takes out the German leader (Klaus!! Noooooo)(Infantry Ace, My A*se!)
A further German team is downed by MG fire from the village. The Germans are made of strong stuff though as they pass their motivation test and fight on.

Turn 4

A very sheepish German mortar platoon is all that remains at the end

The German reinforcements make an all or nothing charge towards the allied objective. (doubletime)
The first German platoon take cover in two houses in the village, taking pot shots at anyone in range but hitting nothing.
Finally the mortar platoon commander gets through to tech support (Norman sitting next to me :-) ) who explain how to fire the weapons correctly. Unfortunately they are cut off before they can discover how to range in. They fire everything they have at the US reinforcements. It wildly overshoots and misses everyone (Yes they did and I had 4 failed attempts at it too)

The end was nigh for the Germans. The US troops in the village diverted their attention eastward and ripped into the German reinforcements with a devastating barrage of MG and mortar fire, wiping them out to a man.

Finally the US reinforcements lined up to assault the Germans in the houses, killing 3 teams. The last remaining team fled.

The battle lost, the surviving German mortar platoon beat a hasty retreat, pledging that none of them talk about this to anyone and that defeat was down to the incompetence of von Wurstsaugel and not their inability to point a big tube at the enemy and shoots bombs out it.