There are Many Rivers to Cross: Turns 4 and 5

We played our next game in the Many Rivers campaign yesterday. This has been a very slow campaign with our last game at the end of June...6 months ago! This is the 5th table and the German push through Belgium had been going well with little resistance so far. The German have been advancing so quickly they will try to take this table without any vehicles using the Blitzkrieg scenario from the 1940 source book.

After 3 turns

German Platoon 1: 3 dead.
German Platoon 2: Intact 

Belgian Platoon 1: 15 dead.

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion+3 (+1FM)

Men's Opinion +2

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Droll

Belgians

Commander's Opinion-1

Men's Opinion -4 (-1FM)

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Sad

Essentially the Germans are attacking from the right. I had set up a nice table but had completely misunderstood the victory conditions for the Germans in the scenario. Myself and Greg had a completely different interpretation of them. A bit of a set-to ensued! I will not go into the problems with the wording of the scenario and the very unusual victory conditions as you can read about them here and here. I have to say though that we got almost immediate responses from both sources and I was 100% wrong. 

So we went with the below forces, with the Germans having to get 2 units off the table before the Belgians accumulated 2 CoC dice. The tricky bit is that the Chasseurs Ardennais start with a CoC dice so really need to only accumulate 6 pips to win the game. I have to admit that Greg offered to re-consider this but I was so flummoxed by the victory conditions I just wanted to go ahead and get the game started.

GAME 4

Chasseur Ardennais 1 Platoon (FM 11)

Core

SL

GdC 1 (-7 men)
GdC 2 (-8 men)

DBT Lance Grenade Section 

CoC Dice

Supports (6)
Char B1 bis
Entrenchement

Schützen 3 Platoon (FM 8)

Core

SLx2

5cm Mortar Team 

Squad 1

Squad 2

Squad 3

Supports (22)
Shabby Nazi Trick-Nuns with Guns, Fifth Columnist, Jean Claude
Adjutant
Red Dice
Pregame Barrage
MMG Team x 2
Pak 36 ATG
Off Table Mortar

The Playing Field

Patrol Phase

The JOP's

So the game started and within  3-4 phases it was over as the Belgians had accumulated their 2 CoC dice. Maybe took 20 minutes, it is really quite a drag that one has waited for 6 months to play the next game in a campaign, spend a lot of time setting up the terrain and it to be all over in less then 30 minutes. I believe that the scenario although interesting has been somewhat poorly thought out and written, I am sure no-one considered the possibility that some units in the 1940 sourcebook have a CoC dice to start. Use of the word reinforcements rather then supports in the victory conditions would have been much clearer has been pointed out on the facebook page. But we have what we are presented with, and water under the bridge we can say; time to move on.

The post-game process was pretty simple as we had only to test on the CO's Opinion, once on the Men's Opinion (as no one died) and on the Platoon Leaders Outlook.

After 4 turns

German Platoon 1: 3 dead.
German Platoon 2: Intact 
German Platoon 3: Intact

Belgian Platoon 1: 15 dead.

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion+4 (+1 Support)

Men's Opinion +2

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Guarded

Belgians

Commander's Opinion 

Men's Opinion -3 (-1FM)

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Sad

GAME 5

The one good thing about a quick game is that you can play it again in the same session. The really good news was that I could now take vehicles and with the Blitzkrieg condions this was an enormous plus! I still had to deal with the fact that the Chasseurs start with a CoC dice but I was optimistic.

Chasseur Ardennais 1 Platoon (FM 8)

Core 

SL

GdC 1 (-7 men)
GdC 2 (-8 men)

DBT Lance Grenade Section 

CoC Dice

Supports (4)
Renault R35
Minefield

Schützen 2 Platoon (FM 10)

Core

SLx2

5cm Mortar Team 

Squad 1

Squad 2

Squad 3

Supports (15)
Shabby Nazi Trick-Fifth Columnist
2 cars
Red Dice
Off Table Mortar
Panzer III B

I played an enormously poor Patrol phase and got only 1 forward JOP, you can not see the Belgian JOP's but they are all on the base line and the Belgian right flank. Greg brought on his R35 on overwatch, I brought on my Panzer IIIC amazingly enough Greg hit it twice driving it back! As you can see he placed a minefield in the middle of the road (I will have to make some minefields). In the next couple of phases I bought on all my troops and supports, after all this was a Blitzkrieg and I had very limited time to get 2 units off the board. I placed 1 squad in 2 cars after putting down a barrage. This effectively protected the cars from any firing. One squad with an SL was placed on my right flank with the FO behind the hedge. The other squad was placed on my left flank with the other SL and the 5cm Mortar team and advanced toward the house with the stone wall. I was able to move the barrage to be able to keep the moving R35 under it. As you can see my 2 teams in the cars made it up my right flank (they are just in front of the hedge. They had 36" to go but they are fast on solid ground and amazing enough they through 36" of movement. A German victory! I was a little surprised that Greg did not use his CoC dice to end the barrage but I suppose he was hoping that he could get the 6 pips needed to win the game. It was a little late though as I had 1 CoC dice by now which could be used to continue the barrage or reduce his CoC dice by 3 pips. I was happy with my victory. 

 

I believe, I played a pretty good game here. We both had a few double phases and the dicing was about even but I was lucky with the vehicle's movement, I believe I moved across the board in 5 phases including being slowed down through the fields with the risk of being bogged down.

So the Germans are on table 6, and next up is turn 6 where the Belgians get a chance to blow the bridge, but I initiated the special scenario rule of Blitzkrieg, which allows the Germans to attack the next table in the the same turn bringing with them the same forces and supports as they had in turn 5. I suffered no casualties so I believe this is a good choice as the Belgians do not get a chance to blow the final bridge.

Mid 5th turn

German Platoon 1: 3 dead.
German Platoon 2: Intact 
German Platoon 3: Intact 

Belgian Platoon 1: 15 dead
Belgian Platoon 2: Intact

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion+5 (+1 Support)

Men's Opinion +3 (FM+1)

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Droll

Belgians

Commander's Opinion -1

Men's Opinion -2

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Concerned (-1 FM)


 Hopefully, we will not have to wait 6 months to play the next and maybe the final game!