Bremen 2: Tears and Smiles

I have been fairly quiet of late, a run of bad luck with Covid and some cancelled games here have not helped. I did manage a couple of games at the club and although good fun nothing serious, Kill Team courtesy of Simon and Dead Man's Hand for Jimi and his son.

Mate Robert is at nearby resort Pine Lake for a week, five minutes away and got the green light from his missus to pop up for a game, we therefore played the second game on Map 1 of the 'Road to Bremen' campaign. This time however I had lost all my riflemen from my squads along with the sniper, Robert took a new platoon. Even more this time I thought it would be goodnight Vienna for the Jerries, however as things turned out my boys, despite their lousy die rolling for shooting, remembered the Fuhrer's stand fast rule and in the end it came down to one point between us, sadly Robert got the point.

 

The battlefield.

British armour.

German defenders.

Bloody annoying carriers.

British surge forward.

 

The game had come down to the wire and could have went either way at the end, Robert fought another good game and I thought I had done well to have come so close to winning, albeit with hardly anything left if we had went for another game on the same table.

My shooting aside, and it was desperate at some points, things got worse. I had decided not to fight Map 2 and had laid a large mine on Map 3, in an effort to slow the British down, they took 2 and swiftly moved unhindered to 3, some local hayseed set the mine off before the Tommy's arrived, the British leapt forward to Map 4.

As I said Robert was only just down the road, so after treating his wife and daughter to a successful trip into the Lakes he got another day off, so we settled down to fight the next game. My second Fallschirmjager platoon had decided to put up a fight and I set up three minefields and some wire obstacles on the battlefield, I had also decided to bring my last Pak 40 and a 3.7cm Flak 36 as support, Robert had another new Platoon along with the usual tanks and carriers. I did not envy him his task as the Germans had a large wood at their end of the table while the British had almost no cover at all.

Open ground.

 

My poor sniper.

Give me some room Dave.

Sure enough I held back while Robert crammed as much as he could behind the only cover in the British deployment area, he plastered my front line with smoke from his mortars but he would still have to make a move across the open ground at some point so again, I waited. I did deploy my sniper but due to a mix up with the rules he missed the entire game, I therefore hope to make this up in the next game. I did eventually deploy my three squads but hidden in the woods just waiting, I did see an opportunity and deployed my Hitler Youth with their 3.7cm Flak, they fired on one of the carriers and sent it backwards off table, sadly not destroying the thing but at least the British were now a 2" mortar down. The boys took a lot of accurate fire before they could damage anything else but I was happy enough.

Smoke and more smoke.

Covering fire, annoying but great idea.

There now followed a cat and mouse game as the smoke dissapated and before more turned up I advanced and got into a firefight, as the British reply mounted I again slunk back into the woods. Robert now took the opportunity to move forward and the Tommy's surged ahead, I brought on my Panzerschreck and brewed up the last carrier, British morale fell and they withdrew to fight another day.

The British advance.

 

The defenders prepare.

Casualties were very light considering the toll in the last two games, I eventually suffered one man wounded while the British lost 2 dead and 2 wounded. Robert had started on the back foot with low morale and a low score for support, my morale was high and although I lost the Flak 36 I still have a Pak 40 in reserve and a full Fallschirmjager squad to defend the same table. In the last game I threw some 40+ dice and managed to inflict one shock, that was the last straw with the 'German' dice, I dug out my other 'German' dice (with 2nd Panzer logo) and used them this time, yep, 32+ shots and one shock! It's not the dice then, it's me.

Still fighting to get my painting mojo back, I started the SYW battalion but had to put it aside again, I have had a sudden rush of map commissions and sorted a couple of Eastern Front buildings which I was never happy with. Robert brought me some Russians which I am painting up as tank killer teams now that I realise how dangerous these guys are so they have been moved to the front of the queue for now.

I hope to continue with more games here, I should be playing Matt this week and I am hoping to get an ECW game maybe the week after. Back to the club with Bolt Action.