Chain of Command Solo

I am doing fairly well with wargaming at the moment albeit I would prefer to look into the eyes of my opponent as my plan comes together and I can see the panic come over him, I wish. No matter, I thought I would again try the Konigsberg campaign as I bought all the troops and equipment which it might need. I also thought I would fight the first battle with both CoC and Bolt Action to see what happens.

First up was Chain of Command, the Germans have to get a unit off the enemy end of the table, my mate Matt chose the German supports and gave me a guide to how the attack would take place, I was basically rooting for the Russians. Matt took an MMG and a Forward Observer while I took a Commissar, an MMG and entrenchments to cover one squad.

The Russians managed to get two squads out first and make it to the edge of the village, the heavy squad was behind the entrenchments while the second was in the open behind barbed wire, they also managed to get the MMG and I put it on the left flank commanding the approaches to the village on that side. The Jerries were attacking the Soviet left as the left hand approach to the village was completely devoid of cover, despite this I placed the MMG here along with the Forward Observer, both of whom had entrenchments. Also in the first wave was a German squad who took up position in a small farm which would become the jump off point for the attack, as the bullets began to fly this squad lost their Junior Leader which meant the German Senior Leader had to deploy early. The Russians now got a sniper who started shooting at the MMG, this was trading shots with the Russian squad behind the barbed wire and this time a Soviet Junior Leader bit the dust, this caused the Platoon leader to abandon the heavy squad and leg it over to the uncommanded squad.

The Germans now dropped their barrage on the heavy squad and it was on target but surprisingly ineffective, however under the cover of this two more German squads began to move on the village. The barrage was lifted but the swarm of lead heading towards the Russians hardly dented them, on the other hand return fire brought down two Junior Leaders, being a commander in this game was proving deadly. Although the Soviet squad behind the barbed wire was just still holding on the heavy squad controlled the approach to the village on their flank, the Red Army also still had a squad in reserve. Looking over the battle from the German point of view the attack had fizzled out with only one leader left on the table, they were not going anywhere fast and unusually for panzergrenadier squads had taken heavy casualties without owning the battlefield. It was game over.

I need to point out a few things, I used my own late war Soviet Rifle Platoon which has a heavy squad with two LMG's, this is a boon fighting those damn MG42's. I also used the rule amendments by Truscott Trotter an active CoC forum member, there are some I like and others I am not so sure of. I am also a believer in allowing pinned units to retreat without taking off pips for shock, luckily this time I did not need to do that although it was building up on the heavy squad and the German assault troops. I also dropped a dice for each double phase, another thing which is quite good is that if a unit has already fired they don't get to fire again, so some poor mugs just don't sit and get shot to pieces and then run away.

So there you have it, playing solo was no problem and you just went with the command dice, what I did miss is that if you have another person they help with rules which you might overlook while you are concentrating on both sides. I have the table back to pristine condition having removed the bodies so it is Bolt Action over the next few days, I am using the same forces and cards for the German activations.