I used it a small "destroy the gun" scenario, it was pretty fun. Having the German goal to protect the gun made it more interesting.

I played a game a few days ago with the 88 included.

It was DD beach landing (random) scenario at the back of the DD book. The germans started with a few MG's in bunkers and the 88 looking at the beach. US started with Rangers, Combat engineers and Heavy weapons platoon storming the beach.

The 88 was quite powerful, one-shotting landing crafts and forcing the US troops to swim ashore… The US finally managed to wound the 88 with bazooka shot from the beach and it was finished in close combat by a brave combat engineer team. Those engineers died at a later turn by a strafing Me109 though.

Other notable event in the game was a lone german Panzer IV going head to head against US Pounder tank (Dust walking tank) and a pair of bazooka crews. The Panzer took two hits from the bazooka and two hits from the pounder in the front armour and survived. It then killed the pounder and withdrew from the battle alive (the germans had only 1 command star left at that point, so the battle was lost already…)

Also, The flamethrower teams were scary in the game. First flamethrower team managed to run beside a bunker and suppress the MG inside before exploding into a flaming column of fire (does the fire side of the dead flamethrower stay in that square for the rest of the game? I couldn't find it in the rules, so I left it there, burning). A second flamethrower team then ran to the bunker and burned everything inside it (MG, Gunners, officer) to a crisp. The german officer was wounded though and was dispatched by a Ranger team charging inside the bunker.

It was a bit random game (the US reinforcements were drawn randomly from a bag) but a fun one.

The 88 was a bit scary in the game because it's so accurate in long range, but against a landing infantry force it was not in it's element really. The only things it was powerful against were the landing crafts. It forced the US to land their arriving armour (the Pounder) on another part of the beach though (There was a big bunker in the middle of the defences that blocked the firing lanes of the 88 to about half of the beach).

Quote from Colhammer on [01/04/2015] à 08:53

I played a game a few days ago with the 88 included.

I snipped the rest of a really excellent battle report. We need more like this 🙂

Quote from Nostradunwhich on [02/04/2015] à 02:37

Quote from Colhammer on [01/04/2015] à 08:53

I played a game a few days ago with the 88 included.

I snipped the rest of a really excellent battle report. We need more like this 🙂

I used the flak and the other AA german pieces I own (the 38 mm, the quadrinate one and the binated from the Goering 's train expansion) along with a Luchs tank and an antitank piece in a home made game some months ago: it depicted a scenario held in Holland, where Germans created swamps by blasting off dams that usually contain the ocean, preventing it to enter and sunk the country under meters and meters of water. Such AA pieces where setup in a T like pattern. I also used a bridge and the just bought expansions regarding hills and swamps/woods. I created a sort of AA german emplacement defended by an SS elite officer (the renown "arian plague" which every HoN player knows so well and so much) along with a group of SS tankers (the luchs) and worn out and battled combat group of german paras. Each AA piece was linked to the other via a web of deep trenches and smaller ones, along with a quadrinate AA gun used to keep the above mentioned bridge under fire. To the sides of it there was a swamps on the left and a small rural hamlet on the right. An house of such hamlet wss blown up and burning. Another one, the rural laundry which waters led into a small rural pond and small river, actually linked to the SS made swamp. The bridge was also kept under fire from a small hill to the north. There the luchs tank and the at piece of the germans were put in ambush as the AA quad above mentioned. Such T shaped gun emplacement was also directed by some medium ranked officers into a group of small bunkers around the flak 88. It, the 88, also kept the hamlet, the burning house and the bridge under fire. Suddenly a recce group of USA rangers and Harley Davidsoned troops approached cautiously the hamlet, arriving from south. They were backed up by several Greyhounds recce tanks, a jeep armed with a 50 cal. And 3 bigger Sherman tanks. Shermans halted behind the still intact houses. The 2 recce upon harley davidsons arrived at the bridge but did not went through it. They setup a sort of watchpost. They observed for time and time the other river bank, the hilltop and the flak 88 with its command and control bunkers around it. And the woods that covered the 88's flanks… Only a small and straight rural road passed over the 88 stationary emplacement… And they started to mumble and think how and when the attack order would arrive… While doing so a pair of "hound" tanks backed up by an officer and an armed jeep arrived. It was the spearhead of the main tank group fighting in the surroundings. Germans were retrating along the whole line but some SS fanatical dudes remained still and firm… Willing to block the american "shweinen" advancing at all costs… Main tank group has to pass that damn 88!!! Then the officer took the guts in his hands and shouted orders to the 2 g.hounds tanks and the jeep to advance and set a spearhead on the other side of the bridge and the (supposed to be) passable rural small river at the feet of the hills… Ungortunately such move was already been taken into account by the "krauts"… And munefields and barbed wired or frisian horses awaited the US, well hidden into the crops and woods or upon the roads… And as the jeep finished to pass over the bridge a sounding explosion occurred… Lifting the poor jeep crewman and vehicule itself meters and meters into the air… None survived. The germans started to rush into fighting positions as the US infantries that accompanied the hounds recce team… Did… Germans had small mortars and US had too. Then rounds started to be exchanged. In the meanwhile, the 2 hounds recce tanks bogged down into the small river and pond, and the At gun and the Luchs tank of the SS appeared… But they started too quickly and not taking into account the main plan… So they were quickly spotted by the Shermans crewmen, and the rounds exchange went into US favour… The Luchs being set on fire then blowing up… The 2 recce hounds been blown up too… The AT piece however managed to excape and retreat… A slowly retreat… The Shermans rushed onwards… One blocked inside a mined crops field, one was blocked by a minefield and a set of frisian crosses at the hill sides… But managed somehow to resist 2 direct hits from the 88 (!!!). The last one attacked deeply… Managing to blow up the AT piece crewmen while they tried and struggled to retreat and replace, the gun in the 2nd line of defence, on the spot that was thought and prepared for it. Meanwhile a team of sappers of the US tank group advanced… Tring to open a pathway into the main minefield on the spot where the burnt jeep now stood… They managed to pass over the bridge, but suddenly, from the other bank side of the man made swamp, a quad AA gun revealed itself and started to kill and keep them pinned down like it had no tomorrow!!! The 2 recce us with harleys started to open fire to cover their friends… And from both sides the toll was high. Strangely the SS sniper managed to fail 2 shots and was redirect to the second line of defence when US mortar rounds fell too close and the other infantry team of the US started to slowly crawl the swamp and somehow managed to set a foot on the other river banks… Approaching firmly but slowly, to the flak 88 place. The 88 seemed however badly manned or damaged somehow, or to have the sights badly adjusted, since it struggle to place shots !!! Only 2 or 3 reached their goal: one blocked the last Sherman where it stood after it blew up its german nemesis; the other one silenced it by passing it from side to side with ease and the last one blow up the laundry onto smithereens (where a good US sniper team had found a good spot to shoot upon the retreating germans). Cutting the story short, it was a massacre!!! Both sides suffered too much, so the german officers ordered the general retrat… But US had not the momentum or the might and will to proceed onwards, that day… And the last scene of the battle ''Ambush at hilltop 647" (as I called mynownnmade scenario) was the remaining fanaticals SS manning the quad gun being attacked in hand to hand… And the gun being blown apart by engineers team afterwards… With the last surviving mortar teams, engineers and harley davidsoned recce dudes mustering into the hamlet; to recover and count the deaths… While two halftracked lorries and artillery tractors of the germans left the ground on the orizon… Where the flak 88 silhoutte stood. After a minutes or two… Another big explosion sounded in the countryside… And US troops exulted, and started to whistle, when the AA gun piece exploded… Mined by the retreating germans themselves.