Firestorm: Red Thunder

On Saturday, the Battlefront team gathered at Pete's place for a big game.

My force of 14 Chieftains (the proper ones with Stillbrew armour) four Scorpions, and some (very effective!) AA missiles had the task of holding the left side of the road.

[Yes, I know I'm supposed to be fighting for the liberation of Europe by the victorious Soviet Army, but I'm a swinger - Soviet, East German, British, and back again!]

The far village had my advance guard of three Chieftains, while my Scorpions staked out the overpass hoping to surprise some unwary Soviets.

Unfortunately for them, those Su-25s in the background came for them. Only the torrent of Soviet armour streaming past up the road saved them from complete annihilation.

In revenge though, my Rapiers annihilated Wayne's Hinds. One save out of five, and four dead Hinds! Wayne wasn't impressed.

When my turn came, the Scorpions bagged a couple of BMPs before going down in flames, and the Chieftains bagged a few T-72s, then ducked back out of sight. Once again Wayne wasn't impressed.

Wayne continued to advance, but hindered by lack of space and my thick armour (and good die rolling!) made little progress for the loss of most of his tanks and a few BMPs.

With his tanks taking the brunt of the fire, hist BMPs managed to flank the Chieftains, bailing one out. At the same time, Casey's artillery landed a solid hit and knocked another out. One bad roll and that was it for my advance guard.

Now it was the turn of the main defensive position further back.

Meanwhile, Aaron's US force on the far flank was holding out surprisingly well, aided by Chris's heroic Mech Platoon who saw off a Soviet assault before retiring far to the rear.

With their front uncovered, the Swingfires who had been having a great game until this point, started to come under heavy fire, being the focus of Casey's Acacia heavy artillery as well as just about everything else in range.

The Swingfires didn't last long before they were replaced by the Berlin Troop coming out of ambush.

The battle continued for a while with Wayne managing to knock out two Chieftains with his first turn of artillery fire from his Carnations, but me wiping out most of Casey's T-64 company in return.

By the end of the game, I'd lost more than half of my Chieftains from artillery fire and missiles and was considering breaking contact and retiring to the next defensive position.

Lots of fun!