Bridge over the Kuurtojoki-Chain of Command

This past Wednesday I had a virtual Chain of Command game. I have restarted work on my Winter War campaign and am starting to test some of the scenarios. I played with Tom who I believe is based in Northumberland, I met him through the Fangs of the Wolf campaign that Eero is putting on from Finland. he offered to playtest this scenario and I had a sense that he is quite an experienced player...which he certainly proved to be. I am also planning to present this game at the Huzzah gaming convention in Portland, ME in May of this year.

This is scenario 2 in my campaign and is based on the Going with a Bang scenario from the Blitzkrieg sourcebook. The scenario sees a Green Soviet Rifle Platoon advancing south towards Soumussalmi in early December 1939. A Finnish Regular Rifle Platoon has been tasked with blowing up a mobile kitchen and a bridge to slow the Soviet advance. Victory if the Finns blow both objectives or drive the Soviet FM to 0. The Soviets rolled up a 4, so they had 10 supports while the Finns had half. The Soviets did not have AFV's available this early in their advance

Forces

Finland FM 8 (5CD+Red Dice)

Regular Rifle Platoon with Demolition Team

Supports (5)

Pregame Barrage

Demolition Team

Molotovs for each of the 4 Squads

Soviet Union FM9 (4CD+Blue Dice)

Green Rifle Platoon from the 163rd 

Supports (10)

Wrath of the gods

Maxim MMG Team with 5 crew

Quad Maxim Team with Gaz truck and 5 crew

Game

Photos will tell the story.....

The JOP's are circled, Tom (the Finns) definitely won this part of the game. I should note that we both had 12" of PM movement but the Soviet Daisy Chain was 12" while the Finns had 18".

Mobile Soup Kitchen, had a task roll of 6 to blow, a JOP is within deployment range.

Bridge had a task roll of 12, again as you can see there is a JOP within deployment range.

Unfortunately, the game became quite busy and I forgot to take photos but I will do my best.

I initially placed yellow Soviet squad in the forest to the left and a MMG team as well as another green Soviet squad and a SL in the centre forest. The Wrath of the gods definitely slowed down the Finns deployment, as they were only able to deploy their green SMG squad. I had also placed my blue Soviet squad in the forest on the far edge.

My MMG team got shot up before I could advance the green squad in support by the ......

......green Finnish SMG section that deployed within close range.

Many photos were not taken, but now I had my yellow squad blasting the Finnish green squad and had advanced my green squad towards the cabin. You will also notice that a Quad Maxim has advanced up the road to fire their 16d6 at the green Finnish squad who now has attached a SL. By now the FM on both sides was rapidly falling. It still appeared to anyone's game.

A lot had happened in the farground around the small cabin, the Finns had deployed a demo team who successfully set the charge in one go. I had deployed 2 squads on this flank and the Finns had deployed 2 as well. You can see one squad on the frozen pond, another squad had already been destroyed to protect the demo team, but the Soviets had paid as well having one of their green squad broken with a JL. Tom threw a treble 6 and the turned ended. I believe our FM was respectively 1 for the Soviets and 2 for the Finns. The Finnish demo team as been unable to set off the charge to blow the mobile kitchen and were retreating.....

.....but despite having just 2 CD left the Soviets were able to activate their SL who was in range of both the Gaz Truck and the squad in the woods. They blasted the Finnish squad, the SL was hit and wounded. A roll on the Morale Table resulted in a minus 2, the Finn's FM dropped to 0.

The Soviet blue squad advances to take the soup kitchen hoping there might be some hot food while the Soviet green squad with the Gaz truck advance to the Bridge over the Kuurtojoki. The route has been secured for the Soviet advance to Suomussalmi.

So a very close game indeed. I felt it went pretty well but the tasks would be quite difficult to achieve. Once the charge is set, in the Demo Rules as written it requires a CoC dice to set off the charges. We are now discussing some modifications to this.

Thanks very much to Tom for helping me play test the scenario.