Egyptian Attack (AIW)

This weekend I played in an X-Wing Tournament at the shop, but afterwards we were able to get one last game of Flame of War for the Six Day War in, with my rules, before Battlefront releases its new booklet. It was a 1500 point game of fighting withdraw, with the Israeli's defending.

The Egyptian force consisted of:

1 - HQ T-55
9 - T-55's
5 - T-55's (proxied with IS-2s)
9 - T-34/85's
4 - ZSU-57's

Confident Trained

The defending Israeli's were:

1 - HQ M50 Shermans
3 - M50 Shermans
3 - M50 Shermans
3 - M51 Ishermans
3 - M48 Pattons (90mm)
4 - AMX-13's
Priority Vautour air support

Confident Veteran

Joel played the Egyptians, Mathew played the Israeli's and I helped them both out, since neither had played any Arab Israeli Wars FOW.

A wall of steel, ready to roll out.

Israeli's ready to hold the line.

The board.

That's intimidating...

I think early on I should have let Mathew know that the M50's would have a lot of trouble dealing with the T-55's from the front. He placed the AMX's in ambush.

Some of the only Israeli tanks that can touch the T-55's from the front.

Moving forward under an anti air umbrella.

Moving through the pass.

Forward!

One of these things is not like the other.

I'd be hiding to if I was in a Sherman.

Why aren't we M51's?

The T-55's bag a Patton...

And a Sherman.

The first turn saw the entire Egyptian force move up and take out 1 Patton, 1 M50 and 1 M51. Not a good start for the Israeli's.

The Vautour gets through the flak.

A few dead Egyptian tanks, but there are a lot more.

One of the precious M51's burns.

The Israeli's return fire is largely ineffective. With semi indirect fire they hit with almost every shot. But the M50's can only bail at best and Joel rolled very well for armor saves from the bigger guns. In the end the pattons killed one T-55, the M51's killed one T-55 and Air killed two and bailed three T-34's.

Continuing the advance.

The high velocity 75mm gun on the M50's just isn't enough.

Going for the right most objective.

Two shots connected and the last two M-51's burned, dang those stabilizers.

Joel continued to push up the Egyptians aggressively and was rewarded by killing the remaining M51's and another M50. Mathew knocked out another T-55 with the Pattons and bailed a few more, but it looked like he couldn't stop the Egyptian juggernaut. Air snuck through and killed another couple of T-34's.

Fire in the Sinai.

The AMX ambush comes out but can't contest both objective.

So they go for the shots against the T-55's weaker armor.

One last gamble, but they only killed one T-55.

The reduced T-34 keep moving.

The Patton's just couldn't kill enough T-55's, but they did shrug off lots of hits.

The IAF has one last chance to kill the T-55's on the right objective.

But the ZSU's shot the fast mover down.

With that it is a 6-1 Victory to the Egyptians.

Mathew was making a list mainly based on what miniatures I had finished so that many M50 Shermans verses a horde of T-55's is certainly not ideal. He is already eying an Israeli Centurion list.

Having been so busy at work lately I haven't had much time to play or work on anything, but watching this game has gotten me fired up for AIW FOW again. I have several boxes of BF's new M51's preordered and think I will pick up the Magach box as well.

Also Khurasan Miniatures has finally got their Yom Kippur War line going and will have a ton of miniatures that can work for the Six Day War as well, link to their stuff HERE. They will be a great way to add individual tanks to your list, since BF currently only has them in boxes. They will be producing almost everything you need, eventually.

So between Battlefront and Khurasan, all the tanks used in the later AIW's should be produced in amazing quality, Yeehaw!