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Firestorm: Red Thunder

The Team Yankee Global Campaign

Surrounded

80 POINTS
British
HMS_Belfast
VS Warsaw Pact
Robbie

Soviet forces (largely unpainted and proxied :D !) of our new guy to start TY were pitted against my British forces for lack of opponents.
Mission was Rearguard with the British in defence, among the ruins of south Hannover.
My army was very compact and withdrawing units was going to be a big issue.

I kept a Chieftain platoon in reserve and deployed the infantry on one of the objectives with the HQ tanks on the other. My opponent massed all of his forces on his left flank with a token force of BMPs to keep the pressure on his right. The helicopters were sensibly kept off the table, to prevent me from withdrawing the Rapiers.

In his opening moves he moved his forces cautiously to go around the minefields and didn't do much firing. The BMPs on the right flank moved to threaten my other objective, currently only defended by the recce.
In my turn I sprung the ambush (having very few turns of firing with my whole army I couldn't afford to lose shooting rounds and the combined fire of the Chieftains and Swingfires destroyed 4 T72s. On my left flank the HQ Chieftains engaged the BMPs. There was very little stopping the mass of BMP2s and infantry pushing on the other side but I had bigger fish to fry.
During the second turn the BMPs and Shilkas wiped out the FV432s that would have been very troublesome for any future infantry assault and the artillery pinned my infantry. The remaining BMPs on the other flank destroyed 2 Scorpions.
In my turn I withdrew the surviving Scorpions, unpinned the infantry and proceeded to destroy the BMPs. The Swingfires failed to destroy the surviving T72s and so did the helicopters (they were kept conveniently out of range of the Gophers). The infantry scored some hits on the Shilkas. A jolly good show.

On turn 3 the soviet infantry made contact with my lines. By "made contact" I mean they destroyed two Chieftains with lucky side shots with RPGs! The Shilkas and artillery pinned the infantry and the T72s destroyed a Swingfire. However, there were enough MBTs left to add their weight to defensive fire and make the assault a non-option.
In my turn I withdrew the surviving Swingfires and concentrated firing on the remaining tanks and BMPs. My infantry failed to unpin but the Carls were good enough to destroy the remaining Shilka. I directed the artillery against the BRDMs; as long as the tanks stood, the infantry couldn't assault the objectives.
In the following turn, my opponent managed to sneak two BMP2s on the flanks of my Chieftains and scored two kills, destroying the platoon. Not good. The artillery pinned the infantry but even with only two tanks I was able to push them back.
In my fourth turn, I got a delay counter and unleashed all I had against the infantry. Forget about Brutal guns - they don't work. MGs are way more effective. I focussed my firing on the AK teams because RPGs only hit on a 6 in assault and so I was pretty safe my infantry would have survived even if they managed to get past defensive fire. My opponent's saves weren't great and 5 teams lay dead. The Abbots destroyed the remaining BMPs.
My opponent didn't have much left. He brought the helicopters in but they were shot down and his assault failed. He did manage to take down a Lynx and the other failed the check. Although he still had many formation-worthy units to drag the game until turn 8, he conceded the game. I had lost three platoons and that gave me a 4-3 win.

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British
HMS_Belfast
Wins

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