Firestorm: Red Thunder

As we're training for our first local tournament I ended up helping Lorenzo test his army with the new available scout units. The mission was Hasty Attack and I was defending - you know how much I dislike the prospect!

Given the amount of heavy armour I had to face I put down my best guns from the start, 2 Chieftain platoons, an infantry platoon and the Swingfires. Lorenzo fielded the two Abrams platoons and one infantry unit with an ITV unit on the other flank.
He moved his tanks in a very aggressive fashion towards my centre where my objective was. His M113 platoon pushed towards the Swingfires to threaten them as soon as they were in range.
In my turn I immediately revealed my ambush in front of the lead Abrams unit and the firing was decent, with two tanks knocked out. My tank platoon on the left engaged the ITVs but couldn't see them.

As the surviving tank passed the morale check, he swung to the flank of the Chieftain platoon, and failed to hit anything despite shooting in the open. On the left side the ITVs knocked out a tank while the M113s destroyed the Swingfires.

As I was yet to receive my reserves I moved the FV432s to draw the fire of the M113s from the infantry, a job they did sterlingly before burning all to Dragon fire!
But the worst was yet to come. With 7 Chieftains aiming at the second Abrams platoon (one had moved) I failed to roll a single 5+ to hit them. At least the infantry Milans were able to blow the last Abrams from the lead unit.
In the enemy turn, Lorenzo received two more reserves and started bombarding my infantry, keeping them pinned. He also managed to bail two Chieftains with the Abrams but I passed the check.

In my turn things went even worse because one of the Chieftains failed to remount (he actually never remounted in the whole game). My return fire was very poor, with only one tank bailed. The infantry stayed pinned and I had to hide my tanks from the prowling ITVs. Meanwhile, another mech platoon entered from reserves and dashed towards the objective previously kept by the Chieftains before I had to reposition them.

The next turn was going to be all the more eventful. While the Chieftains and Abrams were trading ineffective shots on the centre of the table, the mech platoon on the flank disembarked and moved over the objective. If I couldn't contest, kill the infantry, or both, in one turn I would lose.
But I finally received my Scorpions and they even bothered to enter from the right (i.e. the left!) corner, MGing the infantry in the open to death. Two Chieftains sacrificed their essential firing to add more shots to the tally and 5 lay dead, with the remaining two fleeing the table and taking their M113s with them before they could ravage my infantry.
Lorenzo positioned his newly arrived VADS to engage the Scorpions, but the combination of long range, cover and poor firepower checks meant only one was bailed.

I received another reserve in the shape of the Abbots, who failed to blitz to enter the table and thus couldn't hit a barn door from five paces. The Scorpion remounted and proceeded with his mates to waste the VADS, killing 2 and bailing 1, forcing them to flee. I finally managed to knock another Abrams in the centre and bail another, but they passed the test. In revenge, they killed the second Chieftain from the centre platoon, with the ever-bailed one fleeing.

In my following turn the HQ tanks were finally able to destroy the surviving Abrams unit, while the Scorpions and Abbots destroyed the ITVs. This meant Lorenzo only had an infantry unit, the mortars and the scout patrols against a bloodied but undefeated Chieftain army (I still had 4 Chieftains, the Scorpions, Abbots, Blowpipes, infantry and Lynxes), so called it a day and conceded the game.