Setting: France 1940
Rules: Blitzkreig Commander
Scale: 10mm
Another game put on by Philip using his completely lovely 10mm early war French and German kit – mostly/all Pithead I believe.
Scenario: After a successful local breakthrough the glorious forces of France (spot which side I was on) was tasked with re-taking a town in the enemy’s rear to secure a road junction and also, if possible, to destroy a workshop that was nearby.
To carry this out we had:
1 Group consisting of a Char B1, a H35 and a Lorraine mounted Infantry coy.
1 Group consisting of a H39, a mounted Cavalry and a truck-borne infantry coy with a 75mm gun pltn.
1 Infantry Btln with a 25mm ATG and a coy of H-35’s in support.
There was also off table Artillery in the shape of a 75mm and 150mm battery.
The evil Hun had an Infantry Btln in the town, the workshop had a motley collection of kit being worked on which could spring back to life once the French got close this included an 88 plus a couple of other guns and other odds and sods. We had been warned that some Panzers were on the way to help out too.
Unfortunately I yet again forgot to take any photo’s until about a third of the way in so I’ll just post them up at the end of the write up as the kit on show was far too nice not to – I will get better at this, promise!!
Anyhow, the game seemed to start well for us, (even though the Bosche got lucky and activated the Panzers on the first go and they rolled onto the table) Warren took the Cavalry group down the right and began taking out the workshop – destroying an infantry gun and a 20mm Flak gun whilst brewing up nearly everything else with his H39’s. However, the 88 managed to relocate to the road from the town where it began setting up ready to take on the Char B’s which it failed to do spectacularly, only getting one shot off which did no damage and then succumbing to a full volley from the Char B1 company. The infantry were a bit reticent in crossing the bare arsed field in front of the town and I just couldn’t roll up the artillery to lay smoke for cover so they just moved up to the hedgerow and hunkered down.
Then things began swinging the German’s way. After taking out the 88 Philip declared his worry about taking on the Char B’s with his Panzers and started moving towards Warren’s Cavalry group over the wreckage of the workshop and kept going – Philip finally got the Panzers to carry on activating and he went (we had been lucky up to now with him failing on the 2nd attempt for the past couple of moves) on the rampage, taking out the H39’s and the 75. Meanwhile I started inching my Group over to assist Warren but the French’s low movement rates meant that I couldn’t get there in time to assist. With time running out and the Panzers looking threatening on the right we decided to charge forward to the town with the Infantry which promptly got chewed to pieces by the defending Germans – their Infantry Gun was particularly nasty – even with eventually getting some artillery support which just managed to suppress one or two bases.
The Infantry Regiment was now broken due to taking savage losses and the Cavalry group was reduced to some encircled Poilu’s hiding in a wood and with the town firmly in German hands and the Panzers about to clean up the rear arrears we decided to call the game with a clear German Victory.
All in all a most enjoyable game even though, apart from Philip, we were all new to the rules I particularly liked the activation mechanics, indeed I’ve been thinking on how it might be adapted to bolt on to FFT3, and look forward to having another bash. I think if we had a different initial disposition we might have made a better fist of it and not being able to call in the artillery for a few moves really was a pain in the derriere, but c’est la geurre!
Here’s the photo’s.
Tracks and Threads 