Firestorm: Red Thunder

With more club members getting back from the holidays I've managed to get another game under the belt before the end of the week. It's blue on blue but finding opponents is hard enough as it is!

We played Encounter (yet again!) with our regular forces although he wanted to try the A10s so his list was less than optimal with 7 platoons (bad for split reserves).

I deployed both Chieftain platoons, the infantry and Rapiers while he had an Abrams platoon, the VADS and infantry. He won the toss to go first and set about the objectives in the least defended half of the table. I blitzed and then moved the FV432s and my own infantry, while the tanks moved at a leisurely pace towards the enemy half of the table.

My advance was put to a very abrupt halt when the Abrams rushed out of their cover and knocked out two Chieftains without working a sweat. The survivor passed his morale check. On the other side of the table the VADS bailed two transports but the M113s couldn't add more damage to the tally.
In my turn I decided to encircle the Abrams despite having a great disadvantage in speed, but I passed the 2+ blitz with the HQ Chieftains and avenged the fallen tankers.

In the US turn he got a platoon from reserves, which arrived on the "right side" i.e. the left! My flank looked decidedly shaky especially as my reserves weren't exactly game changers, but in they went anyway with a furious brawl of lightly armoured vehicles. The Abbots did a lot of casualties before dying horribly and the infantry accounted for two VADS.

In his turn the US players received more reserve and my opponent decided to bring the A10s in. It was a veeeeery bad move as my tanks were under the umbrella of Rapiers, which spectacularly scored ELEVEN hits out of 12, knocking out both before they could fire. This also left his objective to my left entirely unguarded, while putting a ground unit in would have required me some more heavy lifting before I could move in. I managed to knock down the HQ Abrams with a lucky, long range shot as well from the Chieftain survivor.

I got two reserves and brought in the Swingfires and Scorpions. Since I rolled a 5 for the latter I decided to send them on a suicide mission to get rid of the two remaining VADS, bailing both (on double 1s) but they passed the test. The Swingfires blew another Abrams and my infantry looked a lot safer now!
One of the VADS remounted and punched the Scorpions pretty hard, but the remaining Abrams missed the Swingfires. The worst thing for the US forces was getting their reserves on this side of the table, far from the objective that was being rushed by the Chieftains.

In my turn, the Chieftain platoon got to the objective but couldn't kill the surviving Abrams. On my own objective things got rather brutal as the surviving Scorpion destroyed the VADS and the British rifles blew two M113s while the Swingfires wiped out the Abrams.
Lorenzo sent the infantry towards the objective and issued a follow me order to assault my units, pinning my infantry with his mortars, but the defensive fire was enough to push them back anyway. On the opposite part of the table, the Abrams killed a Chieftain but failed to scoot, leaving it in a dangerous position. In my turn I simply shot the hell out of it with the two Chieftains left and sealed the game.