Turn 10
AND AS THE SEXY HALF NEKKID CHICK WALKS THE ROUND CARD ABOUT THE RING TO ANNOUNCE THE 10th TURN, EL DAVO IGNORES HER LIKE SHE WAS A BAGGED TUNA SANDWICH... MEANWHILE, LETO'S OWN JOCK PROTECTION MAKES A DISTINCTIVE "DING"... WITH LETO OBVIOUSLY DISTRACTED AND VULNERABLE, DAVE GOES IN FOR THE KILL... AND THEN SLIPS ON A BABY GHERKIN PICKLE AND GOES DOWN IN A HEAP!
The beautiful thing about this game is that your opponent doesn't see exactly what you see, and vice versa... I saw a charging T-34/85 (with perhaps 1 or 2 more coming up behind it) and at least a platoon of tread chewing smelly Soviet infantry emerge out of the blue and threaten my poor stricken panthers...
Dave saw three panthers primed and ready to pump AP into his red armor and HE into his red men.
Dave's T-34/85 retreats behind the farmhouse, and my panther retreats back to distance itself from the foul smelling soviet troopers and what looked to be a serious T-34 induced hemorroid problem.
Smacking with desperation, Dave sends his infantry out to engage my tanks... that much like the bullfighter, simply step one foot back and remove themselves from imminent danger with the wave of a red cape. The Soviets, incensced by the red cape bellow forward, and meet a wall of HE, MG and german name calling.
Meanwhile, my troubled PUMA commander Klaus, attempts to make the TACAM his byotch... but apparently, the Hans incident is still traumatically affecting his performance.
The TACAM is caught trying to HE my FT dude, and the CRACK PUMA gets the first shot.... and misses... ugh. The TACAM responds, and thankfully, he misses as well while in mid retreat (here you go kiddies... wonder why the enemy always hits and you never do? Well ask yourself, is your tank moving on fast? or is he retreating from another enemy tank in reverse? If the question is yes to either of the two above, you probably ain't gonna hit jack while moving... and if the enemy stays stationary, no matter how fast you are moving, the enemy unit has a better to hit %).
Nevertheless, the PUMA punches through THREE (AH AH AH, THREE VUNDERFUL PENETRATIONS FOR NO KILL!) AP shells as the TACAM retreats out of LOS... I'm at least hoping that the upper superstructure full penetrations took out his gun... but I'm not even counting on that with my luck.
In the meantime (and in between time), Dave is sending his valiant Romucks on the offense in the town... this is playing right into my hands, but I can see why Dave is doing this... he's trying to get a foothold on my side of the town and force an issue with my flag... he's also probably doing this to ratchet the pressure up on me as well.
Unfortunately for Dave, my mini turan is at least immobilized in a good position to deal with his onrushing troops, and my FT unit is going to fry some Romuck up in a pan for breakfast next turn.
Note* I am still keeping my second FT hidden, even with him in FT range of a Romuck infantry unit in the building just ahead of him... No use revealing an asset when you can use other assets to do the job... that being the Turan Turan's on the hill that have LOS to the heavy small building they troops are in... one turn of shelling and it should be all over for the Romuck engineer in that building, while the Romucks in the street are getting kidney punched by my entrenched troops. My FT that previously advanced to take on the Romuck light tank now will turn his attention on the Romuck unit that entered the heavy building bearing the German flag next turn.
Now, the hill flag to the west is going to be interesting. I need to try and lure Dave's SMG troops into the building, but on calculation, even at the range from the building with the flag to the edge of my side of the woods, allows an SMG unit 300 FP at that range. I need to flush out any SMG troops in that building and then blow the mother up if it is infested. That's the reason on my Soviet map, I quickly bypassed the house and got to the other side of the woods to take on the german infantry there... staging your defense in that heavy large building only invites trouble...
So, here we are, the turn previous, I was ready to admit defeat, and Dave pulls a YIPE YIPE YIPE on me and retreats... my fire is still inneffectual, as the TACAM escapes, and I am down a NASHORN from the rocket attack (grrrr).
The good news is that I now believe Dave only came with three T-34's and two companies of infantry. I also suspect he bought a few light vehicles for towing guns, and that those light vehicles are the ones burning in the Soviet backfield. I'm also intuiting that one of his T-34's (of the platoon he bought) is either immobilized or spread out to the west side of the map to help his lone Stuart that now is the only armor presence over there.
Next turn will be a good turn for me as I can now leisurely pound the hell out of Dave's exposed SMG units on the east side of the map with my 4 Panthers, my heroic LMG squad and the AT gun pillbox (that has LOS on the advancing troops and will be indirect firing like a bastard). I suspect a company of Soviet infantry on my right, and one SMG company on my left in the woods around the hill house flag.
Dave's only real armor offensive capability is the T-34's, as he has lost 2 Stuart's, 2 Tacams, 1 Churchill, and most likely another Tacam GD'd. I've lost my nashorn and heavy AC.
I'm once again feeling good about things... that's usually when disaster strikes....
THE CROWD REACTS VIOLENTLY TO THE TURN IN FORTUNE FOR LETO, AND THEY BEGIN TO RIOT AND THROW BEER BOTTLES AT THE SIDE OF THE CAGE... THE GRIN ON LETO'S COUNTENANCE RUNS FROM EAR TO EAR AS HE LINES UP EL DAVO'S GSTRING CUP LIKE A FOOTBALL ON A TEE AND TEARS IN TO KICK HIMSELF A THREE POINTER...
(Alas, the fumbling Coil has allowed Dave to collect a major victory on him while Dave has just beaten JDSU, a very TOUGH HOMBRE and ELO leader himself, putting the ELO distance between DAVE and I to almost 30 points... I will need to win both these games to knock Dave out of ELO first place and take back the ELO ducal signet ring for myself...)
Cheers!
Leto