Boom-boom-boom; let me hear you say way-oh!

WAYYYY-OOOOOOOOOHHHHH!

Good afternoon treadheads and welcome once again to the Phatcats Does Tank Aces blog.  Last night was a night of epic heavy metal carnage with us finishing off all of the remaining turn one games.  There was triumph and defeat; joy and despair; painted and unpainted; pure luck and sneaky twattery.  Take my hand, gentle reader, and let me guide you through the magical forest of the tabletop mini-tank demolition derby ... (that's not your hand, is it Ross?)

COMBAT ROUTE A

Dan (US Armoured) v Coops (StuG Battery)

Employing sneaky twattery to great effect Coops hid his four StuGs in the corner of the table behind some boccage causing Dan to have to flush him out using his Shermans' enhanced engines.  He took some casualties heading in but before long it was toe-to-toe across the boccage with a tense last couple of turns with rounds bouncing off each others hulls.  As the smoke cleared though a single Sherman remained amongst the smoking ruins littering the battlefield.

Coops
Ace Kills: 1 - Ace knocked out
Total Kills: 3

Dan
Ace Kills: 1 - Ace knocked out
Total Kills: 4


ALLIED WIN

Dan (US Armoured) v Nick (Schwere Panzers)
Outnumbered again Nick was rightly concerned about the larger gun on the 76mm Shermans field by Dan.  Their speed and punch meant Nick was soon cornered and on the back foot.  He got a quick kill early on but ultimately, to quote Admiral Ackbar, he just couldn't repel firepower of that magnitude!

Nick

Ace kills: 0 - Ace knocked out
Kills:  1

Dan
Ace kills: 2 - survived
Kills: 2

ALLIED WIN

COMBAT ROUTE B

Lee (Schwere Panzers) v Phil (AARR - tiny tetrarchs!)

Played to faint background music of Benny Hill's theme tune (Link for our younger readers) a huge horde of Tetrarchs wazzed round two hulking Tigers for a significant number of turns.  To his credit Phil did manage to bail out one of the Tigers in a moral victory however the brute force of the Tigers gradually whittled the Tetrarchs down to a mere two by the end.  On the plus side, the fact that some of the Tetrarchs survived meant the actual game was a draw!

Lee
Ace Kills: 2 -  Survived
Kills: 10

Phil
Ace Kills: 0 - Survived
Kills: 0

DRAW

Dan (US Armoured) v Spencer (Panzer Lehr)

More boccage hide and seek ahoy! Spencer wasn't budging from his hidey-hole boccage stretching across his deployment area forcing Dan to come to him (again). By this time though, the dice gods were beginning to abandon Dan. A single tank bogged, unbogged and then bogged down again trying to enter a building before finally being destroyed. The respective tank aces squared off over the boccage firing a point blank range but it took the intervention of an additional two panzers to take out Dan's Ace. In the end Spencer headed out to kill the last Sherman, which in an act of sheer defiance managed to take two panzer with him to fiery oblivion!

Dan
Ace Kills: 1 - Ace knocked out
Kills: 3

Spencer
Ace Kills: 2 - survived
Kills: 4

AXIS WIN

COMBAT ROUTE R

Coops (StuG Battery) v Chris (British Armoured)

British Shermans v StuGs; the ultimate match up. At least on paper. In reality the numerical superiority paid off for Chris. His ability to be in multiple locations at once meant he could take advantage of the weak side armour of the StuG which he did with brutal effect.

Chris
Ace Kills: 0 - Ace knocked out
Kills: 4

Coops
Ace Kills: 1
Kills: 2

ALLIED WIN

Spencer (Panzer Lehr) v Gaz (Guards Heavy Tanks)

In a match up that turned the tables on the Axis, so used to having the biggest baddest tanks in the table, Spencer quickly worked out that shooting an IS2 in the face was just going to piss it off. Here however numbers couldn't carry the day; the IS2s were bailed out a few times but those crazy Ivans just kept climbing back in (no doubt due to the Commissar with a pistol to their heads). Gradually the massive firepower of the IS2 was the telling factor with each hit an almost guaranteed kill.

Spencer
Ace Kills: 0 - Ace knocked out
Kills: 0

Gaz
Ace Kills: 1 - Survived
Kills: 5

ALLIED WIN


CAMPAIGN POINTS

Route: Current State (Allied Wins/Axis Wins)

Combat Route A:  ALLIED WIN (2/0)
Combat Route B:  ALLIED WIN (2/1)
Combat Route R:  ALLIED WIN (3/1)

Kill Scores

Player (Company) Total Kills/Tank Ace Kills/Games Played

Lee (Schwere Panzer) 16/5/3
Gaz (Guards Heavy Tanks) 11/3/3
Spencer (Panzer Lehr) 11/3/3
Dan (US Armoured) 9/4/3
Chris (British Armoured) 8/1/2
Nick (Schwere Panzer) 5/3/3
Coops (StuG Battery) 5/2/3
Phil (AARR) 2/0/3
Dustin (Panzer Kompanie) 0/0/0

Tank Aces Week 2 Preview

Welcome back track-addicts! In this post we'll be looking ahead to Thursday 21st March ( a day that will live in infamy!) and the second week of the Phat Cats Tank Aces Campaign.

Fresh Meat!

Dan and Dustin have yet to play a game so the upcoming clash between US and German armour should be an interesting set up. Both sides have good firepower and veteran ratings so it is probably going to come down to positioning and a little bit of luck.

One Down, Two to Go

Spencer and Coops have just one game under their respective belts but their results couldn't be further apart! Coops will no doubt be looking to claw back a couple of victories with his next two games whereas Spencer will want to extend his kill total to stay ahead of the pack.

Last Chance Saloon

Nick, Lee, Gaz, Chris and Phil have just one more game left in turn one and they will all want to make it count. Only Chris' chirpy British tankers remain undefeated amongst this grouping although they are all tightly grouped in terms of kill score. Except for Phil of course ... He's showing real cojones fielding the Tetrarchs but in at least one of his battles he may have well be firing tennis balls.

We'll arrange the match ups this Thursday and I'll blog the outcomes tomorrow night

On one final note, several readers have contacted me about my ongoing and persistent bias that I have expressed in this blog. They claim I have gone too far and indeed one might say, over stepped the bounds. I've been thinking about this and, after some soul searching have come to the conclusion that in essence my critics are right. For too long I have allowed my prejudice to cloud my judgement and pollute this blog; but no longer! I intend to address this wrong right here, right now and I want all of you here to bear witness to the epiphany I have experienced:

Not all Germans are bad people.

Thank you for reading

ParthianShot

(I've also been asked if Ross really does love the cock? I would answer by saying do fat kids love cake?)

Scores on the doors

So after week one what do the stats look like for our tank aces?  Lets look at the numbers:

CAMPAIGN POINTS

Route: Current State (Allied Wins/Axis Wins)

Combat Route A:  DRAW (0/0)
Combat Route B:  ALLIED WIN (2/0)
Combat Route R:  DRAW (1/1)

COMBAT KILLS

*I calculated the kill count incorrectly; the kill count for experience points is for tank ace specific kills.  Seeing as no-one recorded when their ace specifically killed another tank I've divided the combat kills per company by the number of tanks in it to get the number of tank ace kills for now (rounding as per the laws of mathematics).  We'll do it properly next time!

Player (Company) Total Kills/Tank Ace Kills/Games Played

Gaz (Guards Heavy Tanks) 6/2/2
Phil (AARR) 2/0/2
Nick (Schwere Panzer) 4/2/2
Spencer (Panzer Lehr) 7/1/1
Coops (StuG Battery) 0/0/1
Lee (Schwere Panzer) 6/3/2
Chris (British Armoured) 4/1/2
Dan (US Armoured) 0/0/0
Dustin (Panzer Kompanie) 0/0/0

Spencer is just in the lead in terms of total kills followed closely by Gaz and Lee.  I can see Axis players eyeing Phil for a match for the target rich environment it will provide!

ParthianShot signing off

Tanks Aces Rumble Round Up

 <Geordie-Accent>Week One in the the Tank Aces house ...</Geordie-Accent>

Welcome again tankophiles to Phatcats Does Tank Aces, your regular(ish) penetrating 88mm tale of armoured joy.  In this blog we'll be regaling you with tales of bravery, foolhardy antics and utter randomness from the first week of the campaign.  The campaign map is divided into three attack routes through which the heroic Allies aim to drive the villainous Hun back to the foetid arse-pit they call home*.  A win requires you to kill all of your opponent's tanks.  Anything else is a draw!

Combat Route A

Match 1:  Phil's AARR v Spencer's Panzer Lehr
Phil's plucky truckers squared off against the might of the Panzer Lehr and a game that involved a rather aggressive tanky tango.  With kill opportunities limited for Phil he had to use his mobility to outflank and out position his tougher opponent.  Spence played it cautiously though sticking to terrain and using his tougher tanks to out muscle the tiny tetrarchs.

Kills:  Spencer 7 Phil 2
Result:  DRAW

Match 2:  Phil's AARR v Nick's Schwere Panzer
It didn't look good from that start to be honest.  Phil's sole chance at a kill required two sequential hits on the flank of a Tiger with Nick rolling a 1 both times.  Not quite lottery odds, but the kill stats for Phil won't surprise you.  What might surprise you though is that with 12 Allied tank on the table Nick needed at least two kills per turn to win.

Kills Nick 2 Phil 0
Result: DRAW

Combat Route B

Match 1:  Nick's Schwere Panzers v Chris' British Armoured Company
An unfortunate checker board deployment left Nick with one Tiger in each corner of the board surrounded by angry englisher-schweinhunds in their verdamt Fireflys!  Without enough fire power to kill the British quickly enough Nick finally succumbed.

Kills Nick 2 Chris 2
Result:  ALLIED VICTORY

Combat Route R 

(not a typo; this is an American naming convention apparently!)

Match 1:  Gaz's Guards Heavy Tanks v Lee's Schwere Panzers
In the tank equivalent of the super-heavyweight championship Gaz's IS2 rolled out against Lee's two Tigers.  In what would become the most one-sided combat of the night Lee took out all three IS2s in very short order.  Apparently he didn't roll a single dice throw lower than 4 for the entire match!

Kills Lee 3 Gaz 0
Result: AXIS VICTORY (subject to tests for performance enhancing drugs on Lee's dice)

Match 2: Gaz's Guards Heavy Tanks v Coops StuG Battery
Like a scaled up version of Tetrarchs versus Tigers, Coops realised early on he need to flank the IS2s in order to get a kill shot.  Gaz had learned well though following his early match and it wasn't long before the field was full of burning StuGs.

Kills Gaz 6 Coops 0
Result: ALLIED VICTORY

*Journalistic neutrality disclaimer:  If you're expecting fair treatment of all parties in this conflict then you're going to be disappointed.  Expect jingoism, shameless xenophobia, blatant stereo-typing, rampant, unbalanced and sweeping generalisations.  In this world the baddies wear black hats with a swastika on it.  One thing we haven't exaggerated for comic effect however is Ross' love of the cock.  I mean he is an absolute cock monster, a cockaholic, a pink-oboe playing, rooting-tooting cock-wrangler with a life time supply of amil nitrate and a case load of oranges.  He doesn't always buy you dinner first either apparently ...

Tank Gallery!

Welcome once again oh followers of the rumbling track and the penetrating shot!  I thought I'd get our tank commanders to send me photos of their forces - whilst this hasn't exactly forthcoming I have managed to get a couple of shots of our British Armoured Commander, Chris Boulton's army:

These are Chris' base force and a bunch of beauties they are!



... and these are what he has waiting in the wings for Turn Two!

I'll add more when I get more!

ParthianShot

No reason ...

... it just made me piss myself laughing.

El Pollo Diablo

Meet the Aces

Welcome back tank fans for another slice of the armoured-sex-pie that is Phatcats do Tank Aces!  In this post I'll be introducing you to the aces who will be duking it out in the campaign; the tactical masterminds (?!) behind the remorseless steel.  For no other reason than I'm biased, lets start with the Allies!

Gaz Higgins

Club president and a Flames of War newbie Gaz is fielding a Soviet Guards Heavy Tank Company and is riding atop the soviet armoured behemoth that is the IS2.  It's a brutally simple tank; massively armoured with an enormous gun the IS2 takes a knocking but keeps on rocking.  The IS2 is a lot like a really angry house; a really angry house that has an unreasoning hatred of you.  Yes; you specifically Ross.

Phil Lewis

Normally a proponent of 20mm WWII gaming Phil has dropped 5mm to join in with Tank Aces.  Incredibly Phil has opted to field the Airborne Armoured Recon driving the minuscule Tetrarch tanks.  Some of the bigger tanks have exhausts larger than the main gun on the Tetrarch so I can't see this ending well for Phil.  On the plus side there are a lot them and they are bloody annoying.

Chris Boulton

With a tally-ho and a yah-boo to you Fritz, Chris is leading the cheeky chappies from a British Armoured Company.  The mix of Shermans and the large gunned Fireflys may prove a deadly combination when it comes to mixing it up with the Bosche.  To quote Corporal Jones, "they don't like it up 'em".

Dan Porter-Brown

Amateurish, clueless, tactically inept, hopelessly out-gunned, over-sexed, over here; yes it's true:  Dan and the US Armoured Company he is fielding have a lot in common.  The Shermans that make up the bulk of the company can't stand toe to toe with the larger German tanks but with mobility and numbers he might just pull off a victory or two.

And so on to the Axis players 

Nick Ayres

Nick too is a 20mm refugee bringing from that scale all of his love for sausage-sucking, atrocity-committing blockheads.  Nick, not content with sullying himself by playing Germans has lowered himself further by opting for a SS Schwere Panzerabteilung of Tiger tanks.  Fair play; the Tiger tank is a fearsome beast and a very tough nut to crack but with only two of the to begin with Nick might find himself in trouble when squaring off against a numerically superior force.

Spencer Moulds

Spencer is a proper treadhead and once told me he wanted "nothing in his army if it didn't have tracks".  A very fair viewpoint many players could agree with.  Spence has gone for a a Panzer Lehr Company fielding the sturdy and reliable Panzer IV.  It's not as tough as a Tiger, but there are more of them and those German's are quite handy in a tank.

Adam Cooper

A man after my own heart, Coops is fielding a true man's tank; the StuG.  The StuG is so manly it don't need no stinking turret.  You just point it at what you want to kill.  The StuG battery Coops is using has power and numbers.  As such its going to be one to watch.

Lee Oswin

It would appear tank Aces has drawn out all the closet fascists in Phatcats as we have ANOTHER SS Schwere Panzerabteilung.  For the sake of public decency I shall be monitoring any suspect "high-fiving" and clicking of heels going on.  Also if anyone turns up in a monocle or a dodgy tache its an automatic loss.  Give the lack of flexibility in this company Lee is fielding the same two Tigers as Nick with the same limitations he may encounter on the field.