Operation Martlet Campaign - Game 5 ... And a New Beginning

Today we had an international visitor at the club: Will is a young 14-year old historical (!!!) wargamer from Virginia, with a deep afection for the Spanish Civil War. Showing a surprisingly mature personality for his youth, he's spending the Christmas holidays in Spain with his family, have already visited the Ciudad Universitaria and tomorrow the Jarama battlefields. 

After contactting our club email, we invited him to play a Chain of Command with us this morning. As I know he follows this blog, I'd like to thank him for his visit and hope he has enjoyed the morning despite some lack of action in the two games played this morning. Obviously, the invitation to visit us is open to any you travelling to Madrid.

The fifth game of the Martlet campaign for Chain of Command was the straw that broke the (British) camel's back. Already the patrol phase was far from auspicious to the British interests, as the Germans got 5 (!) free moves that basically cornered our deployment area to a narrow belt along the table edge, hindering our options.

Then, in our second activation, we brought a Churchill duly escorted by a Sherman, with the intention of pummeling the German fortified positions from early in the game. The Germans brought a Pz IV to the table immediately after: achieved 3 hits, saved just one and rolling the dice on the “effect table”, the result was the loss of the main gun for the whole of the game.

The loss of our main artillery support asset made it almost impossible to continue the game. We declare a voluntary withdraw and after some consideration, we also gave up any hopes on winning the campaign. British defeat and German victory.

One of the German players and owner of the British army that you may have seen in previous campaign posts, expressed interest in playing again but with the Allies. As it was pretty early in the day, we redeploy the table and started again. I played German today but likely will return to the Allied side in the following games.

The first game of the second campaign was almost a repetition of the first campaign: The British made a dash to the German line and managed to put a jump-off point just 21 inches from the table edge.

Remember the British win if they exit at least one unit through the German tactical edge. This time the British navigated in the mist and two sections emerged from the most advanced  jumpoff point, one covering the flank in overwatch and the other at 6” from the j/o. The Germans were not so lucky, and the pre-barrage interfered with the deployment of their forces.

In the following activation the British ordered the section to move and covered the remaining 15 inches to the edge in a quick run… victory to the British... and what a flashback.

A bad day for me (wargaming wise)… and after the news, now back to my painting table to start competing in Curt’s Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, which just started a few hours ago.