"5th Platoon" - A CoC Arnhem Campaign #5 and Final

Fourth and final game of 5^th Platoon, the Arnhem Campaign for Chain of Command published in issue 74 of Wargames,Soldiers & Strategy magazine. As expected, a straight win for the British, given the really bad state of the German forces after three consecutive lost games.

This final game was an “Attack on an objective” scenario of the main book, and the British had to take the crossroads in the east side of the map. The map shown only two ways to approach the crossroads:  north of the road, totally open flat terrain, likely to be a suicidal attack; south of the road, hopping from house to house until reaching the line of German defense… guess what route the British players chose.

Operation Martlet - New Campaign Supplement for Chain of Command

Operation Martlet was published this week, a new 28 pages campaign supplement for Chain of Command in the "Pint-Size" campaign series. This operation is the prequel to the better known Operation Epsom in Normandy (June 1944) and involved the British 49th Infantry Division and elements of the German Hitlerjugend Division. The supplement will last between 6 and 11 games and contains the maps, army lists and support necessary to play.

As usual, the booklet includes lots of interesting historical stuff to put in context your games. The unrivalled cost (GBP3.6) is the cost of a pint of beer in the pub frequently visited by Richard Clarke in his home town St Albans... a shame he does not live in Spain, where beer is significantly cheaper.

"5th Platoon" - A CoC Arnhem Campaign #4

The game of the “5th Platoon” Arnhem Campaign for Chain of Command published in Issue 74 of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy played this morning, concluded in a third straight defeat of the German forces. With only one more game to go and the moral rating of the Germans at worrisome low levels, I believe it will be difficult not to say impossible, to stopping the British in the final scenario.

The German players decided to use his first wild-car option and to launch a counterattack. This wild-car allows the Germans to roll "2d6+6" support points only for one scenario which together with the difference in rating between the German regular and the British paras elite, provided a good bag of additional forces.

As we were playing “Big CoC” in this campaign, we ended up with 40+ points, enabling to buy 4 infantry sections, 2 Jagdpanzers IV and a couple of 250/10 armoured vehicles (armed with a an MG and a 20mm gun).

Plenty of useful stuff but being regular not too many command dice to manage as effectively as one could wish all these forces; with the moral levels already low from the previous games, the risk of falling into the red area where you start losing additional command dice and jump-off points was already high... as it finally happened.

"5th Platoon" - A CoC Arnhem Campaign #3

This is the second game of “5^th Platoon”, the Arnhem campaign for Chain of Command published in issue 73 of Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine. The first game was won by the British paratroopers, who continue moving now along the road towards the bridge at the center of the city.

In this scenario a key role is to be played by Major General Kussin, who historically was ambushed and killed when his staff car literally crashed into some British units moving along the road. In this scenario, when the officer’s car emerged from the secondary road in the North, the mission of the German units changes to save the life’s general. As you’ll read later in the report, this action had a major effect in the battle and the demise of the Germans.

 

The scenario victory conditions were for the British to put at least a unit on the German’s tactical edge by the end of a turn, indicating that they had broken the enemy’s defensive line and therefore the forces could keep on moving towards the bridge.

Countdown to Crisis (Antwerp)

Just a month away from Crisis, arguably the most important wargaming show in Continental Europe. We planned to attend this year and meet again Richard Clarke from TooFatLardies. Unfortunately, Richard is going through a personal ordeal and will be unable to attend in person.

However, there's a significant number of international "Lardistas" attending and we are trying to coordinate a rendez-vous to meet in person and not only through the social media. Murphy's Heroes a Dutch club from Delft is putting a Chain of Command game and they have been kind enough to offer their table as a rallying point, provisionally at noon. The table is located in grid g3b4 of the hall. You can find maps and ither useful information on the event here.

From Madrid we are travelling seven members of the Club Dragón and we'll be happy to meet youy out there.

Incidentally, Crisis will not be our only destination. We have planned a nice battlefield tour, arriving on friday to visit Waterloo, making Hell's Highway and Arnhem on Sunday/Monday and moving into Bastogne on Monday/Tuesday before returning home late that night...  we only pray now for the weather to be just right.

A Small Distraction: East Front CoC

We left the Arnhem campaign to rest this weekend, in the absence of one of the campaign players. And moved our troops to the Eastern Front, ahead of the planned campaign due November using the Chain of Command  scenario supplement Winter Storm.

Our interest was to test the new special rules and Red Army units included in the book and more specifically the cavalry. Today we fielded several dismounted squadrons; these are small platoons (made of 2 squads with 8 men each) that have a special activation mechanism: they use one set of (five) dice for each two units, and you have to distribute the dice between both in each activation phase.