Stuarts vs FJ, Free for All

I am in the midst of my longest losing streak ever at the moment and this Flames of War game from a couple of weeks ago was yet another game I lost recently. But I am really enjoying my games despite not being able to beat any one at anything recently. This late war game we played saw my Late War US Stuart list versus a German Paratroops list from Hells Highway in a 'Free for All' mission. I did two critical mistakes in the deployment phase. Not sure what I was thinking or if I was actually thinking at all. First mistake was putting some Stuarts partially in a woods out of line of sight from any enemy teams. Why do this? Really! The list I used means I get a recce style move with one unit that is not an actual recce platoon. So what do I do? Move the platoon and bog 2 Stuarts quick smart. On the other end of that table I deploy 2 Priests at the back table edge in plain sight! What the hell! Nothing between them and the opposing deployment area. Not even a wall or a hedge or a large rock! Result is two destroyed Priests in very quick order. I didn't get first turn and this is probably the dice gods answer to my acts of stupidity. This robbed me of one of my template devices and left me with a Trained artillery unit to hand out some hate. They failed terribly turn after turn despite have stats like AT 5 and fire power 2+! It was more like the unit had been taken over by dirty hippys who loaded cute fluffy Care Bears as ammunition.

Oh yeah my list was...
HQ 2 Stuarts
Combat 1, 5 x Stuarts
Combat 2, 5 x Stuarts
3 x 105 Shermans
Recce, Foot slogging Infantry with a Zook
3 x Preist battery
4 x SP big Artillery
1 x AOP
6 platoons of Confident Vets except the Confident Trained Self Propelled Artillery.

The FJ horde I faced is an awesome beast and as an FJ player I can see where Alex is going with it. The focus is the infantry and keeping them large. This has worked for me and is going to work for Alex. What was really interesting about this game (and hilarious as well) was that the true heroes on the German side was the unit of four trained tanks. They ended up snatching the Objective that was the former home of the Priest battery. Here are some game pics. Perhaps one day I will do a proper turn by turn battle report. :)

My bogged tanks above highlighted with red blobs. Start of the game. I liked this table layout and will try and recreate again in the future. Things got really hot in the woods and I managed to get a lot of FJ infantry teams removed but not an entire platoon. Facing Fearless teams sometimes means you have to wipe them out to get them off the table.

Trained hero tanks.

Heroic German tanks don't need no stinking camo paint.
 

The action got hot in the woods.

Meanwhile deep in the woods....Stuarts die. I did manage to lift the Gone to Ground status of the AT gun though with my recce infantry. But didn't manage to destroy it.

Happy Gaming from Brendon (The Kiwi).