King of the Playtesters

December 22, 2012

King of the Playtesters

Ok, so you may have read about this silly little tournament we held at BFHQ on the Flames Of War website (found here...). Anyway, I chose list 5 from my previous post, the Romanian motorized infantry company. It was a solid list and netted me two 6:1 victories. I was shooting to win the title, but had to bow out because we lost a man during round three. Oh well! There's always next year. Anyway here's a quick rundown of my two games and my slightly modified List Number 5.

My List
Following my brother's suggestions I made some changes to my list. In my experience, no one knows how to play Romanians better than him, so I felt confident with his suggestions.

Romanian Vanatori (motorized rifles) - 1000 points
045 pts - HQ (with 1x Command Panzerfaust SMG)
195pts - Vanatori Platoon
195 pts - Vanatori Platoon
155 pts - Divisional Heavy Anti-tank Platoon (with 3x Resita 75mm guns)
245 pts - Tancuri Medii Platoon (with 3x TA [StuG G] assault guns)
060 pts - Armoured Car Platoon (with 2x AB armored cars [Sd Kfz 222])
105 pts - Heavy Mortar Battery (with 4x 120mm mortars)

The six platoons served me well in both games, allowing me to put stuff in reserve, while also maintaining a strong presence on the battlefield with infantry, StuGs, and anti-tank guns. These were essential for counter-punching the many tank companies at the event.

I'd definitely take this as a full 1500-point army in a heart-beat; just add one more StuG platoon, a pioneer platoon, a mortar platoon (for smoke), and some HQ Panzerschrecks. All I would loose is a squad out of each Vanatoi platoon (making them 7x MG stands), but this is made up for to some extent with the addition of Panzerschrecks to the platoons, as well as the full-strength pioneer platoon. It also hits the magical 9-platoon mark as well, making it harder to lose VPs off the potentially Reluctant force in the end.

Game 1: Hold the Line

Defending (Resita anti-tank guns and StuGs in Ambush)

Attacked by Wayne's Hungarian Panthers, the Romanians dug in deep and let their ambushes do all the work. I waited for a few turns until the Panthers got in close. Then the Resitas and StuGs caught a Panther platoon in a deadly cross fire, knocking them out over two turns. Meanwhile, the anti-tank guns weathered some fire from Wayne's second Panther platoon, but thankfully they only lost one gun. The rest turned around and engaged the panthers in a duel, eventually getting the best of the tanks after some incredibly lucky rolls (AT13 vs FA 10).

Result 6:1 Win

Game 2: Dust Up

Defending (Resita anti-tank guns, Infantry platoon, heavy mortars, deployed. StuGs, infantry and recon in Reserve)

Once again Panthers attacked but this time they were from Pieper's lot. I got aggressive with my infantry platoon and went panther hunting. Gav only had a few Fearless Trained Panthers on table and I figured it would be wise to be aggressive straight away because he had a King Tiger in reserve for which I hardly had an answer. So I assaulted Gav's Panthers and managed to eat my way through them one by one, when suddenly the KT showed up and started crushing my heavy mortars, which bravely held off the heavy tank for several valiant turns. They bought enough time for my infantry to push Gav's tanks away from the objective and claim victory.