Shortly after recovering from shock of having to return to
work after the Easter break. It's time to publish a battle report on our latest
game of Chain of Command down at Central London. It was the first
time Gary and I had played each other at Chain of Command.
We opted to play Scenario One: the Patrol. I commanded the French, keen to see how they worked. having never played them before.
In the patrol phase Gary’s Germans did a great job boxing me
in to the wood on the left flank of the board. This left me with one option, to
attack strike on the left flank. Wisely he had positioned an infantry squad to
protect his flank. I deployed my VB rifle grenade section
behind the vineyard. To support the infantry
units which would move up on put pressure on the flank.
While getting my infantry ducks in a row I decided I needed something
to shift the focus away from that flank attack. So early in the game I trundled
an armoured car down the road in the to
shift focus.
This worked well and resulted in Gary deploying an anti-tank
rifle and a squad of infantry on the far side of the table to deal with this
lumbering lump of metal.
What resulted was
an exchange of “ping” noises has the German anti-tank rifle fired, hit but
failed to damage the Panhard armoured car.
Back on the left flank, I advanced two sections up to the position
where they could strike at the German flank. By combining the fire from rifle grenadiers
and an infantry section I began to wear the Germans down.
Throughout the game I constantly rolled fours with my
command dice so I could activate my senior leader who happily continued give orders and encouragement
to his assaulting infantry. This kept the pressure up very nicely. It was helped by rolling a mix of threes or
ones and twos to allow me to use the grenadiers or the Panhard has appropriate.
My luck was further compounded
by rolling great dice each time I fired –always getting at least three hits.
While Gary’s dice rolling was below par, on one occasion he failed to score a
single hit with an entire squad firing. Interestingly there were no double or
treble sixes rolled with the command dice in the entire game meaning it was one turn long.
As I applied pressure on the left flank the German’s pushed a
squad up to take the hill in the centre of the board and pressure my assault.
At this point I was worried things were going to fall apart. I ordered an infantry
section to cross the road but rolled too short. They were stuck in the
open.
Thankfully, I had just pinned the
nearest German unit. The Germans on the hill returned fire and hit a couple of
them.
Nevertheless, they made it across the road, over the hedge, on
to the other side where they assaulted the remains of the German squad who were
kind enough to fall back. This was the
point I felt I hand made a breakthrough, because, junior leaders were getting
hurt and a jump off point was about to fall in to my hands.
It was time to turn the screw. On the next phase I advanced my armoured car
around the hill to a position on the left flank of the Germans on the top of
the hill. This cut them off and meant I could
pressure them from multiple positions.
With the German force moral sliding below five it was clear
the game was decided and we called it a French victory. Naturally I was delighted with the result even
if it was down to some great dice rolling.
By contrast to my last game, I conceived a simple plan and stuck to it. That
makes all the difference.
Now I am considering investing in a French army for 1940.
