Yankee Doodles and a Gift

 After visiting the Seven Years War and getting to at last use my big bag of smoke I returned to Chain of Command which is consuming quite a bit of my time at the moment, why, because I am enjoying it, simple.

Matt from the club and I are hoping to kick off the 'Many Rivers to Cross' early war campaign in the near future but as Matt hasn't played CoC for a while we decided to have a refresher game here in the Bunker. Matt has chosen the French and I will be playing the Germans, we played The Patrol which only uses infantry so a bit different. I was quite engrossed in the game so there are only a few pictures, I started on the wrong foot and got an 8 for my Force Morale which is the lowest you can get, this is a real bummer and tends to make you cautious. No matter I anchored my right in a small wood and pushed my left forward, as the game progressed we were both down to 6 morale points, then Lady Luck deserted me and I fell to four after having an NCO wounded and throwing a six, this meant I had lost.

The battlefield.

Too little, too late.

Holding the woods.

Frenchies at the Estaminet.

It had been a good little game and exposed a lot of the new rules which really do improve the game and offer so many more choices. I normally play along the table and I found playing across unusual and I was quite unsure what to attempt in the Patrol Phase. No matter we are now ready for the campaign, more of which later hopefully.

After clearing and rearranging the table I was ready for my second game the next evening, friend Robert was in the area and had made time in his schedule to pop in for a game. He brought his Americans while I took Late War Germans, I took the opportunity to use my winter mat and pretend my Jerries were trying to grab a crossroads during the Battle of the Bulge. Expecting to play along the table I laid it out to be neutral for both sides with plenty of cover for placing Jump Off Points, in the Attack and Defend scenario you dice for the approach and to my dismay we got to fight across and not along the table. This left me with almost nowhere to hide and my start points were basically at the table edge as Robert closed me down quite swiftly. To top this off I got a morale of 9, as the attacker not the best roll, you can see where this is going.

I also managed a rubbish support roll but still managed to get enough for an extra squad, a Senior Leader and a PzII Luchs, I could have went overboard and got a real tank but thought that would be unfair on my Yankee opponent to turn up with a PzIV or worse, a Brummbar, I need to toughen up. Robert went with two bazooka teams. I first brought on a couple of sections, one in a wood the other just outside as the Americans did not have a good line of sight on them, despite being in the open. I had an idea of moving on the enemy right but never seemed to get enough commands. Robert ended up with most of his men behind a stone wall near the centre of the table, I brought on my little tank and it proved to have rubber bullets as it failed to kill the enemy time after time, the firefight continued with the bazooka teams trying their best to kill the tank while I tried to kill the bazooka teams.

The battlefield, I came in on the left.

My big hope.

Yanks holed up in the wine merchants.

The Yankee firing line.

The end of my hopes.

The Luchs was hit several times and at one point was driven off table, but it came back again. I managed to get several double phases but was still struggling to put some hurt on the Yanks. Robert was in the same boat and both of us decided to change dice half way through the game. We both now started to lose men however the end came quickly, the surviving bazooka team managed to at last get a powerful hit on the tank and it exploded, killing the commander and hitting the troops nearby, two morale throws followed and I went from six to two, in the blink of an eye I was done.

More of the new rules showed themselves and I got to use the smoke dischargers on the tank, I also used command pips to 'hit the dirt' several times which was very handy. There was a contention about the 'bunched target' rule but I have since had it explained on Facebook. This is the first time I have fought against Americans and I cannot say it was fun, especially as Robert knew how to take advantage of their capabilities. They can move one dice and fire without any penalty, yes I know all about the marching fire nonsense, this to me is more suppressing fire while you manouvre, not an excuse to move, fire and suffer no penalty despite what Rambo and others do in the movies. They also get to reroll 1's as the Garand is semi-automatic, I can live with that. No matter I still enjoyed the game although my report card should say "can do better".

Before he left Robert joined the ranks of Matt Smith, David Bickley and Phil Robinson by gifting me figures to paint when I had made up my mind that it was 'no more.' The gift this time was a full Fallschirmjager platoon to which I would only need to add a mortar and maybe the odd figure, it was unexpected and caught me by surprise. I will finish the Romans, of which I have now ordered the last, yes the last, two units from A&A before moving on to the Paras but already I am looking forward to them.

My gift.

Talking of Romans I have completed the fourth cavalry unit which are heavy cavalry, they could also be upgraded to Contarii should I wish, I will have the option in the army list.

There will be a large ACW game here on Sunday as part of the ongoing Valley campaign, later in the month Matt Crump will be coming for some CoC2, I have one day open next week which I might try and organise something for. Big Ed has intimated he may be able to visit at the end of the month, I will look forward to that.