Cavalry Showdown

So luckily at our local club, I am not the only one who, like Louis-Ferdinand Celine, followed the cavalry into the fort and signed up because the uniforms were so pretty.
Dave is another one with a nicely painted cavalry force, a prerequisite I should think, and we had a showdown at Cavs last Thursday.
I have been tempted with a mid war force for some time. I really like the transition from total newbs in Tunisia to hoeing the hard row up the west coast of Italy. If I could find a pile of M3a1 Scout Cars and M3 GMC's it would happen.
In any case Dave had his awesome looking Aussie Divisional Cav Squadron which I don't have enough good pictures of.
1500 points
He had roughly 5 platoons including;
HQ 2x Crusaders (Go 'saders!)
Troop 3x Honeys
Troop 3x Crusaders
Troop 6x Carriers 2x .50 cal
4x 25 pounders
Brit Tank Platoon 1 Sherman, 2x Lees
Now these were all Vets except the Brits, which were trained. I planned on exploiting this 'easy to crack' platoon.

I had a swarm of Con Trained Armored Recon Joes
HQ of a jeep and a half track with 2x Carbine teams(!)
3x 1 patrol Cav Platoons with 2x M3 Scout Cars and 2x Jeeps each
Lt Tank Plt 4x Stuarts
Med Tank Plt 3x Shermans
Armored AT Platoon 4x M10's
Combat Engineer Platoon with full complement and a bazooka
Full battery of 105's



We rolled Encounter and began to set up.
With Dave only having 5 platoons he put his arty to my left and his British armour to my right.
I left my Cav platoons and my Combat Engineers out and came in swinging with the TD's to the left, Arty on the Center/Left, Stuarts and then Shermans on the right.



Deciding to throw in some serious weight I popped my TD's and they moved into the small village on the Center Left, while the Tanks on the right jockeyed for position to take on the Brits.

On the M10's first volley we hammer the OC of the Aussies destroying his vehicle, luckily for them they are typically 'Disorderly' and redesignate the 2iC.
No luck on the right though.



They pop off some arty and fire a few rounds at the TD's bailing one or two, (maybe killed one but it may have been his OC next turn).

The slugfest down the road continues, with failed firepower rolls the rule which is finally broken when we kill the Sherman. Meanwhile the Stuarts and Shermans are still getting into position.

We are both eyeing the turn marker and expecting reinforcements soon. I know that nothing really useful is coming for me, I must take this objective ASAP.



My Sacrificial Stuart Platoon makes it's patented jaunt through the woods attack, one bogs... multiple hits, not one successful firepower test. I can't remember if we bailed both or just one.



They return fire with ROF 3 from their 37mm turrets,(WTF!) and bail two.

Meanwhile on the left we lose an M10 and then his air shows up finally!
A single gorgeous Hurricane threatens our valiant tank destroyers.
We shoot that puppy down!

And his reinforcements show up. Craptastic!
They threaten our left and I fall for the bait, leaving my TD's to the left instead of driving up and dispatching the lone tank platoon on the table!


On the right it has devolved into a complete melee!
Point blank firing as the Shermans show up and also fail to kill the beseiged Lees!


On the left the UC's are playing hide and seek with the M10's and a couple pay for it while they ping away at the lightly armored TD's.

Finally we move to within 4" of the right objective but fail to kill both Lee's while getting sniped from the rear by their OC's Crusader.
My hair is being pulled out in chunks when Dave makes his reinforcement rolls and both tank platoons (Troops!) pop up right behind the objective as 'Scattered Reserves'. (Frak !?)

Then the cavalry arrives!

Those are not decapitated M8 Greyhounds they are proxying M3's;-)

We slug it out for a couple more turns but it's 22:00 so we call it and go home after checking in on Simon and Tim's epic battle which is still going on.

Too late to be effective tonite... v