14 September 2014

Chain of Command Scenario 3

Myself and Mike had a quick game of CoC at the Hobby Bunker today. I got Mike to set up the terrain and we then diced for the scenario. Scenario #3 came up. We then subsequently diced for choice of platoon, Attacker/Defender choice, Morale and finally support. Mike won the first two and selected a Canadian Infantry platoon, I picked the Germans, he also selected to be the defender. We then dice for morale, I ended up with 8 and Mike ended up with 11! Finally since I was the Attacker, I threw 2D6 for support and got a six. So I ended up with 6 supports and Mike 3.

Basically I had to push the Canadians into a retreat, or defeat them by morale. I could not drop below a morale of 4 or I was done. On to the patrol phase.
The Canadian jump off points. As you can see there was a variety some trees, bocage, low crops, a hill and a two story house. The crops and hills were broken ground, while the trees were heavy going.

The German jump off points. The hills and trees blocked LOS, as of course did the bocage. We actually played the crops as blocking LOS, a mistake. The trees offered light cover at 4".


Mike uses his 3 supports on barbed wire to block my left flank approach, my supports were an adjutant and a squad of Panzergrenadiers. I think I did a little better out of my choices.

I played a pretty aggressive game, and brought two squads of grenadiers on immediately as well as my Panzerschreck. Mike brought on a couple of sections of Canadians as well as a 2" Mortar. The barbed wire on my left flank limited my advance to up the centre or to my right.

As usual I forgot to take photos, but here we can see a squad of grenadiers advancing, I really focused on splitting my squads in sections with my LMG teams covering the rifle team advance.

I could not resist using Handgranaten, as I had wanted to for sometime but I usually play the British. Here we see my rifle team with their JL, throwing their grenades (scored two shock) and engaging a full Candian section. I think the Canadians had twice the dice as I, but I did manage to kill the Bren team and their JL, as well as taking down most of the rifle team and causing them to be pinned. I lost my whole team and JL. This almost caused me to almost lose the game as very poor throws on the Morale table caused my Morale to drop to 4 thus losing a Command Dice.

I bounced back though when I brought on my PanzerGrenadiers. Their massive firepower wiped out the other Canadian section. Mike then had a very bad throw of the Command dice and was really unable to mount any effective moves. I then threw three 3's with my 4D6, and finished off the game. It was very quick maybe just around 2 hours and we finished in the first turn. Certainly the game flowed well. Looking forward to my next game already!

8 comments:

  1. Very interesting AAR, sir. I´m also looking for an opportunity to use hand grenades and, then, the charge but I think CC is really a dangerous affair!
    Very nice pictures and game table, too.

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    1. Thanks Juan, it is the first time I used grenades in CoC.

      John

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  2. Great AAR John. I really like CoC but I find the close combat to be a little too bloody. Whenever we've played it almost invariably means that both sides are negated or so mauled to be virtually combat ineffective. We're considering tweaking the combat mods to adjust the dice and provide some hope that an attacker, if properly prepared, will actually want to engage in close combat.

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    1. Thanks Curt, bloody but irresistible that Handgraneten! I am going to resist to messing with the rules, until I get a little better grasp on them.

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  3. When you lose that first command dice things don't look good but you managed to pull it out of the bag with those 3's great stuff. I have yet to try the hand grenades.
    Great looking game John.
    Cheers,
    Pat.

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  4. Close combat is VERY bloody unless you pin your opponent first. When he is pinned you really stack the odds up against him. He loses half his dice plus all the shock points reduce him further. Without doing that close combat is a very risky business.

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    1. Yes this became obvious to me in scenario 4. Really have to try to be more patient. I am hoping once I start a campaign I will learn to conserve my troops.

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