Road to Bremen 1: A Surprise

 Might have mentioned this before, but my old wargaming mate from Scotland travels this far south of the border on business and we mentioned that at some point I could put a game on. Robert is a big fan of Chain of Command so we decided on one of the easier campaigns due to the infrequency of managing to get a full game in. Hence we started 'The Road to Bremen' which takes place in the dying moments of the war as the British head for said town. In their way is a mish mash of German units, Fallschirmjager, Heer and Volksturm along with some Hitler Youth, however the Germans cannot afford to defend every table, there are eight and they must choose where to fight, but even then the chosen defenders may instead simply surrender when the British turn up, so they can only hope for the best and delay the British enough to get a win of sorts.

A straight road.

 

The British get ready hit resistance.

The stalward defenders.

I decided to fight for the first table and took a Fallschirmjager platoon which thankfully decided to put up a fight instead of running, I took up defensive positions in the small village and awaited the arrival of the British. Robert came on in a very  calculated manner and made very good use of his carrier section and their bren guns, a Sherman also turned up in support and his annoying little 2" mortar ruined my lines of fire with smoke bombs. My sniper was a waste of time and the amount of fire I was taking forced me to seek better shelter than the wooden fences, although one of my sections broke for the rear I did manage to bring on my Pak 40 and take out the annoying Sherman, but I was then forced to withdraw the gun. At this point we had to break off the game, I photographed everything on the table in order to pick the game up at a later time.

Run Hermann.

A Target.

 That time came two nights ago, Robert was in the area, five minutes away so I set the game up, as I looked over the table it seemed to me that with some deft moves the game would fall into the British lap, I had a couple of Jump Off Points within reach of the enemy, one section broken on the edge of the table and I was sure my morale, which was at 6 against the British 9, would soon collapse. I offered to surrender andmove on but Robert was happy to continue and get a proper result.

The British again carefully advanced building up powerful fire bases in order to overwhelm my remaining squads. I had a Chain of Command dice and dithered on whether to end the turn and lift all the smoke and overwatch tokens or make an ambush with my panzerschreck team, I chose the latter, a second Sherman went boom and British morale fell. I now also pulled my men back into woods or the dark recesses of a building out of the line of fire leaving the British with no targets unless they moved. I also now dragged my anti-tank gun around to target the hotel where a British squad had been hiding. I took another chance to lower British morale by ambushing the carrier section, although I hit the target I could only immobilse the thing, it was a risk and I lost the panzerschreck team but it could have won me the day as the British will withdraw on a morale of 3.

More angst for the British.

 

Damn smoke.

 

British start to move.

Robert ended the turn and the smoke all disappeared as did my overwatch on several teams, he now began to switch his attack to my left and did manage to cause a couple of morale checks, one of which included capturing a JOP, which I dodged by throwing low, I still had 4 left. As he began to move his forces into position to open up an overwhelming amount of firepower I managed to get a double move, my second although he will say my third or fourth, this along with playing a COC dice to interrupt wiped out a Bren team which caused the Britsh morale to hit 3. Against my initial thoughts I had survived and actually won, a big surprise to me and perhaps to 'We wus robbed' Robert.

Pesky carriers.

Stalwart anti-tank crew.

In out, in out of the woods.

I have taken heavy casualties and I do not receive any extra support or reinforcements for the next game on the same table, the British on the other hand get oodles of support points, so like the second half of this game I shall be starting very much on the back foot, possibly worse. We ended up fighting for three hours a game which I was prepared to surrender, it turned out to be a nail biter and was very exciting, my second most exciting CoC game ever. I have also learned some things from Robert who is a much better player than I am at this rule set.

Yesterday I managed to give Erik a game, it was SYW with Honours of War, I usually struggle to set up a scenario for this so treated myself to Neil Thomas' 'One Hour Wargames' which I got as an epub for £4.99. It is an impressive book for wargamers and contains thirty scenarios which can be tweaked for most periods, he also includes rules but I don't need those and anyway I prefer larger games on bigger tables. Anyway I settled on Bridgehead where two armies feed troops in piecemeal in order to secure a bridge or deny it to the enemy, I also doubled the number of units used.

Road jam.

Steady boys.

Erik chose the British and had to dice for his entry points, our troops would turn up over the first six turns, mine from the south side of the river, I already had two battalions on the north side of the stream. First to arrive was the British cavalry and artillery to the north, the guns set up while the cavalry made a sweep towards my left flank, next up was a brigade of infantry arriving from the north-east which moved towards my right, my own forces slowly arrived and extended my line of battle, I moved out to keep the British from getting too close to the bridge.

British flank move.

The enemy get closer.

The British artillery were a pain and were uncannily accurate, it did not help that the bridge became a bottleneck for my troops as they raced across while cannonballs rained down. I did manage to foil the enemy cavalry's attempt to outflank me as the Scots Guards chased them away, but the British had now engaged my right and I was losing the firefight. Sadly for the British their second infantry brigade had chosen to enter at the north end of the table and at least twice refused to move forward so it took no part in the action. While my right hand battalions were taking a pounding I eventually managed to bring reserves across the bridge and bolster the line so when Erik did charge in although I lost a couple of battalions I had built up a new line which then took revenge and the British had to withdraw.

The British about to be sent back.

Time had run out and the British had not managed to get a unit within range of the bridge to force a draw, they had been close. The scenario needs a bit of tweaking perhaps but then again if the British had brought on two infantry brigades at the beginning rather than the cavalry and had not had two forces arrive to the north perhaps they would have been able to bring more pressure to bear on the French as I had the devil of a time crossing that damn bridge. I have not fought with HoW for a long time and we had a problem with 'grazing fire' as we were not sure how it worked and I see the Forum has gone so I couldn't check it out. Mind you the Osprey Blue book rules are not meant to cover things in great detail and have to be taken with a pinch of salt. I did make a change to rallying hits off, I allowed the brigadiers to do this which makes units a little more resiliant, but only just.

I had expected to be at the club this week but took a really bad turn with chills and shakes about an hour before leaving the house and had to retire to my bed, the bout only lasted a few hours so I will now plan my return for next week. Rob has a Muskets and Tomahawks game planned so I will hopefully join that, I also have the second Konigsberg game to fight next Thursday.

I have added some Waffen SS command to my platoon and have 90% finished another little Vickers MkVI, the decals are on their way but the guy is on holiday so it will be next month before I add it to my early war forces. Mate Stu has a Morris CS9 and Lanchester armoured cars waiting for me as well which I hope to get next week at the club.