4th March 2007

OK first off: I am *not* to blame for losing 4 Challenger IIs to Iraqi forces...oh OK then, I am...

Just really to say that we had a blast - really good to meet some folks from the forum and to have a day's dice-chucking.

We managed to get the tables looking great, thanks go to Jason for nicking his neighbour's boards, and to kiwidave for the loan of his bedsheet which made a really nice desert! He'll need to wash it before it goes back on the bed though cos we had some scrub terrain -might be a bit itchy otherwise

We generated a lot of interest throughout the day - and a good number of people were either BKC players or at least familiar with it...lots and lots of admiring comments - both for the table and for the figures - a lot of people pleasantly surprised how good 10mm can look!

CWC played nicely too - and I was pleased with the look of the table with some roads, the Kerr & King city-in-a-box and of course, mcgurk's magnificent chopper. I'm not going to dwell on the fortunes of the Iraqis against me - nor mention Jason's really nice command rolling - and by using the rigid tactical doctrine to his advantage he was really able to concentrate some serious firepower at key moments [I'm *not* going to mention my saves for the Challengers...!]

I was embarrassed enough at losing the first Challenger, never mind the other three...hehehe

Anyway, a great day out - and I'm pleased to report that everyone involved is as nice in person as they are on the BKC forum  

Basically: about 3500 points each give or take: something like [from memory]:

Iraqi - 9 T54/55, 3 T72, 3 BMP1 + militia, 3 BMP2 + commandos, 1 Sagger, 1 Spandrel

British - 8 Challenger II, 5 Warriors + infantry, 3 MLRS

...deployed on long table edges [6 x 4 table] - there's a town between us, a hill on J's right flank on which he plonks ATGW. Then a mass of T54/55s in the centre & on his left flank [although still relatively central] the BMPs & more T54/55s & 3 T72s. Infanty all in ths BMPs

British [left - right] 4 Ch II, 5 Warriors + infantry, 4 Ch II - simple eh?

Iraqi first turn - advance into town, get infantry out into buildings ASAP, some ineffective fire onto Brits. Brits roll up, open fire - some units suppressed. Theme throughout the game was good artillery from the British but resulting in mostly suppression...I sent the Ch IIs on the right way out onto the right to flank his force as it moved into the town - worked OK in terms of opening up fire arcs, but did expose their flanks...that's OK thinks I, that's only a T54 over there....

My rolling for direct fire was largely unimpressive - bit hit & miss throughout really. I made the mistake of trying too much to suppress as much as possible during my fire allocation - this combined with some rubbish dice rolling [after kiwidave had touched them ] meant that there wasn't enough destruction early on in the game...

Anyway, as I said before, Jason really managed to use the rigid tactical doctrine to his advantage - by gaining that command bonus, his large formations were able to bring concentrated fire down on me - by this point we'd closed so there were bonuses to be had for range etc - and the exposed flank of the Ch II on the right meant that off it went [with me of course failing *lots* of saves...]

The other *major* tactical error [I know, I know...more than one in a game?!?!] was that I didn't dismount my infantry from my Warriors - thinking that they'd be OK until I got them into the BUA to assault & dislodge the Iraqi infantry....unfortunately, Jason was able to scupper that plan by taking them apart wholesale..

The other Ch IIs on my left flank quite frankly were rubbish...nothing about tactics here - just again, concentrated fire from tanks that *really* should have been dust by this stage of the battle - and some abysmal command rolling by me followed by similarly stunningly awful saves...

Ho hum! A good game nonetheless [actually, aren't they all?] accompanied by some really good banter - a pleasure to play with such a nice opponent. Cracking stuff.