Von Luck-Turn 4-The Corridor of Death

 

Mike and myself played out turn 4 in our Von Luck campaign yesterday. It was quite a complex terrain layout so we played at my place....just way too much to transport. The next table is much simpler so we will play at the Hobby Bunker, which is a shorter drive for Mike as he comes from RI and of course we like to advertise CoC whenever possible.

Post Turn 3

Brits: CO +1, MO +3, PLO Happy

Germans: CO +2, MO +3, PLO Happy

So on to table 3- Attacking the Corridor of Death.....

Mike had only 1 dead man so he went with the same platoon, I was missing a rifle team, a bren team and a 2" Mortar team from my original platoon but had two opportunities to dice for their return as 2 turns had passed and lo and behold, they all showed up. Since I had only 4 men dead, I decided to go with this platoon. I had a plan and it involved using scout teams, so I decided to remove the 4 SMG armed troops as my dead figures.

British Paratroopers (FM 11)

2 SL

Sniper

Piat Team
2" Mortar  Team

Section 1 (-1 SMG)

Section 2 (-1 SMG)

Section 3 (-2 SMG), Sniper

MMG Team
2" Mortar Team
Gammon bombs

German Panzer Grenadiers (FM 10)

Panzergrenadier Platoon (-1man)

Adjutant

FO

MMG Team
Werfer Pregame Barrage

Lorraine Schlepper

On to some photos....

The British end

I thought I did a nice job on the table

German Approach

The Patrol Phase....Mike got 6 free moves!

The JOP's

So the game started, my plan was to wait until Mike deployed, I was pretty convinced that he would take a Werfer Barrage, a FO as well as the Lorraine Schlepper, he had 20 Support points. He did deploy and I quickly built up 2 CoC dice but at  same time Mike had also accumulated 2 CoC dice! My plan was to break off a couple of scout teams armed with the gammon bombs in the hope that I could get close to the Lorraine Schlepper and take it out as it only had an armour of 2. The Piat was going to be difficult to get close enough even with an Ambush as I knew Mike would keep the vehicle back. I also had to get him to get his barrage down before I deployed. Well this sort of worked aside from the Scout teams, but what I had not predicted that Mike's plan was to destroy all the houses on my side of the table thus leaving with no Hard Cover in which to deploy, this also cleared his LOS to my right flank from his 2nd story buildings. He did lay down his barrage as you can see from above, fortunately I had no troops under it and it only took out one JOP.

Mike then deployed his 3 squads on the table as well as his MMG team in one of the 2 story buildings.

The Lorraine Schlepper is quite a weapon, Mike did a very nice job on the model. It fires 13 HE. .....

......as you can see he destroyed 4 of my 5 buildings. We played back and forth with his initial barrage, but I got a triple 6 on my CD and ended his first barrage as well as his Wefer barrage. I got set up in the forest and advanced my troops but then disaster struck as you can see above. Mike got a double 6 and his FO called up the barrage a 2nd time, he got a five, so it was available! With some miraculous accurracy of fire he was able to trap 2 full sections as well as a SL under the barrage. We both had 2 CoC dice, so when I ended the turn, he would use a CoC to continue the barrage. My troops held up pretty well for a while but Mike got another double 6 and they started to wilt so I withdrew. We ended both with a FM of 10.

Post Turn 4
Platoon 1: Brits 9 dead, 3 missing for next game
Platoon 1: Germans 1 dead, 1 missing for next game

Brits: CO -1, MO -1, PLO Happy

Germans: CO +5, MO +8 PLO Affable

So another victory to the Germans, it is starting to look a little hopeless although I have to say that the next table looks a little easier for the British to win. But of course, one would have thought that  with all that hard cover the Airborne would have been a little safer.

Mike really played a good game here, I have to admit that I never would of thought that of destroying all the buildings as he did thus removing all my hard cover that combined with a very accurate barrage made it quite difficult for me.

I suspect our next game might not be until late July. I am going away the 1st two weeks of July. Lots of gaming planned though. Moving on to the next turn of Too Many Rivers to Cross campaign Saturday week with Greg. Off to Montreal then, I have 3 games planned: A CoC 1940 game with PY, a GdA game with Iannick and then myself and PY are going to start the All American campaign at his place. I am quite looking forward to this as he has some beautiful figures and terrain. It will be also interesting to see how CoC plays in 28mm. Unfortunately myself and Tom appear to have great difficulties getting to game 2 in our Bloody Bucket campaign, very conflicting schedules!