First of all, sorry for the delay in getting this update posted up but I had a bit of a hectic week last week and didn’t have the time and then the inclination to blog owt. I did manage to get a couple of games in though and have been planning and purchasing figures for my first Chain of Command platoon (more of which anon).
Last Monday’s club night game saw me face Philip again in France, 1940 with his 10mm collection. This time though we were doing a practice game as Philip wanted to try out the Command Decision rules. The scenario was simple as were the forces involved to keep things running easily as there would be referencing of rulebook to be done.
I had a French Infantry regiment of 2 battalions with a couple of H-35 platoons attached, a regimental mortar battery and MG company in support with which to eject a Bosche infantry battalion from a village that controlled a road junction.
Philip had deployed his forces with 2 companies around the village and one company in the wood to the right. I decided to go up the right with a company to try and take the Germans in the wood in a flank attack and then try and roll up the position from there, the remaining 2 companies of the battalion, with a tank and MG platoon, would move forwards to engage the enemy from in front of the wood and the hill to put pressure on the defenders as well. The other battalion would move one company between the hill and wood to its left supported by a tank platoon to directly threaten the village whilst the remaining 2 companies, with 2 MG platoons, moved along the road on the left towards the village and try to either fire the other platoon in or to attack themselves.
First blood went to Philip as his village people managed to score some push backs and eliminations on the left hand battalion whilst my right hand battalion managed to move the flanking company into position to take the wood without him reacting to it at all, the pinning force to their front seemed to do their job well. I had opened up with my MG platoons at far too long a range though and had to move them up to effect the Germans more.
The flanking company managed to beat the defending German company quite handily but were not able to capitalise on their victory and completely take the wood due to a devastating mortar barrage which caused them to break and run! However the rest of the battalion was moving forwards and had secured the hill and was now poised to threaten the village.
Over on the left the Germans were forced back from the BUA nearest the left flank due to some intense fire, although they did manage to get some payback on the company to their front, which encouraged me to charge in with a company from the left. Unfortunately this didn’t go quite to plan and the Bosche saw them off but suffered in doing so and although they still held on they were quite weakened. We had to end it there as time was getting on, all in all my plan seemed to work ok although it did eventually fall short of immediate success with a few more moves it might have just managed to secure a victory.
As for the rules, I quite liked them – nice and easy to grasp the basic mechanisms and combat/firing was nice and straightforward – in fact I reckon I like them better than Blitzkrieg Commander which we usually play and I’d happily play again.
Here’s the obligatory eye-candy shots. All are from Philips 10mm collection as seen before in this parish.
Tracks and Threads 