Two Fridays ago our club had a training session for the TFL ruleset Chain of Command. We had 4 players, Dan who had played under 10 games, Gabriel and Julian who had played under 5 games and Artin who was just playing his second game. We set up two tables and I have to say I was quite happy that Graham showed up as well to help games-master. We played in 28mm so I had no need to bring any of my own troops, I did bring a couple of mats and some terrain. We had to utilise the Abyss collection of terrain for some buildings, walls and hedges. Each player brought his own platoons and there were some very nice figures on the table.
Game 1
Soviets vs Italians 1942
For this game we used 2 fan made platoon lists. Regular platoons, the Italians fielded a Motorcycle platoon, while the Soviets used a standard mid-war rifle platoon. We played scenario 2 from the rulebook but played down the long axis of the table. The Soviets were the defenders. They bought an ATR Team and the Wrath of the Gods pre-game barrage. I am not sure about the Italians but they did have an AFV.
Game 2
Canadiens vs German Fallschirmjägers 1945
This game utilised the lists from the main rulebook both regular platoons. Again scenario 2 along the long axis of the table. The FJ were defending agains the Canadiens. I am not sure what supports the Germans had but the Canadiens had a Churchill.
Patrol Phase
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| 1942 Soviet Union, Italians to the right |
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| 1945 Normandy, Canadians in the foreground |
Action Shots |
| L-R Dan, Gabriel, Julian and Graham. I did not get a shot of Artin |
Summing Up
I was very thankful for the players showing up and I hope all had a good time. As noted above I am especially grateful to Graham for coming, there was no way I could manage 2 games with fairly new players. The Soviets won their game so kudos to Artin in his 2nd CoC outing. This game finished first so I was able to shift my attention to the Normandy game, which was eventually won by the Germans. Two victories to the defenders.
Post game observations sent on to the players:
I thought every one did quite well and there was a basic understanding of the rules. I believe the Patrol Phase went well on both tables, there are a lot of nuances to this pregame which take a long time to learn, Certainly I am still learning. A critical part of this in the pregame sequence is picking your supports after you see the terrain and the JOPs have been placed. Your choice of supports is based on where you are going to deploy and where your opponent might deploy. The terrain is a big deal here, as it is your cover as you advance or defend.
I believe the mechanics are pretty simple and all you really need to play the game is the 6 page QRS and with a games-master there is really no need to refer to the rulebook. The biggest weakness as I saw was an understanding of the shooting rules but more so how it is applied to a target in respect to shock. This game is all about shock and how it contributes to Force Morale, when checking for successes in respect to hits, this has to be done by teams (except in cases of platoons where there are no teams-Soviets). In this manner you can kill a team while applying shock to a whole section/squad; kills are not shared but shock is, a somewhat difficult concept to appreciate when you start playing.
Both games had a lot of entrenched firing back and forth, which is a little boring to play but this is perfectly normal when first learning the game.
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