Martlet moves on.

Stuart came along today to continue our 'Operation Martlet' campaign, he had to be careful as the village main road is being resurfaced and there is a blanket of tar encrusted gravel over everything, I am willing to bet money that this will no sooner be complete than it will be dug up in the next few months for broadband cables, water leaks, electricity problems or simply just to use up the budget before someone claws it back.

Anyway, Stuart arrived safely and we got on with campaign turn five. Previously the Royal Scot's Fusiliers had taken most of the day (25th June) to oust the tough defenders from the outskirts of Fontenay, by 2000 hrs the Jocks were knocking at the door of the village itself. For this game I took an extra squad, a Sherman, a 3" mortar and a 2" mortar, I also asked HQ for replacements, with all my squads back up to full strength I was feeling confident, there was a lot of terrain and possibly no German tanks. Stuart did not bring a tank to the party but beefed up his squads instead, he also took an Adjutant to help his troops get on the table.

Things went awry for Stuart from the beginning, the British barrage played havoc with his arriving troops and he only got half of them on the table, not before I however had got myself into a forward position with good fields of fire. I quickly managed to pin or destroy the Germans opposite me and once my tank appeared and added its fire Stuart wisely decided to withdraw. A great result for me which did not require a huge effort, I was very pleased as night fell. We decided against playing another campaign turn as we did not want to have to stop with it half done so we rolled up an attack/defence scenario from the main rule book. Oh, the results of the win means my officer is still full of himself but the troops remain to be convinced although they have relented a tad, I am however running out of time.

We did not roll for a lot of support points for the second game, I could have brought in a Sherman as I knew Stuart was not going to get a tank, I compromised and brought in my little M5 Stuart, it has never been in a battle yet and with its new sandbag armour I thought, why not. I did better than Stuart with the patrol phase, a sheer accident, and I managed to get my troops into really good positions before the game got off the ground. Although the defender Stuart took an aggressive stance and moved his infantry forward, I got the drop on one squad on the road in the open and my little tank hit them hard, I was hoping this would continue. It was not to be as a panzerschreck team popped up and stopped my tank dead, that is a deadly weapon in this game, it was the good one and hit at the end of its range rather than the short range useless one.

Stuart then threw caution to the wind and hurled a squad into close combat, I thought Bolt Action was deadly but this is worse, I wiped out the attackers while suffering six losses myself, we both lost leaders. Things went from bad to worse for Stuart, his Senior leader was out on a limb and we got him as well. I now began to manouever against his surviving squads and at that we called a halt, another win for the boys, have I broken my miserable streak of losses and draws?

 
Again two good, enjoyable games so I am not tempted to give up with CoC as I did before. It is still early days but I am looking forward to doing a few more stand alone scenarios with possibly more support options to use up bits and pieces of my collection.