One advantage of returning to Leeds is that I’m actually close to several of my friends who also happen to be wargamers (or wargamers who are my friends depending on who you ask). Since we finished lockdowns, we have tried to get together a reasonable amount to play some larger games, such as February’s Raiders of Tobruk game, which let’s be fair is mostly an excuse to catch up and hang out.
As you can see from all the reports I’ve done in the past, we have pretty often ended up playing Too Far Lardy rules be it Chain of Command or Sharp Practise. Because of this, my Dastardly Regular Opponent decided we’d run a special day to introduce a few players to some of the games, playing some Chain of Command and Sharp Practise. We got a few people ready to come along, planned out some games
Then Murphy stuck his nose in, the organisation struggled and we ended up with fewer people than planned. Ah well.
Before we go into what I was up to, let’s start off with the other table. Turns out it was a clash of the Regular opponents, with the Creative and the Dastardly up against each other playing Sharp Practise. British Engineers, under the control of the Dastardly opponent, were trying to defend a bridge from the French advance. Ideally, it would be left intact for a future advance… right up until someone dropped a lit match somewhere they shouldn’t have and the entire thing went up in a catastrophic explosion.
The Dastardly Regular opponent posted an update you can reach here but safe to say those guys had a good time, complete with frequent requests to roll random dice as they seemed to have a constant barrage of special events. It was also a good excuse for the Creative Regular opponent to get his Genovians on the board, a unit I continue to love.
Meanwhile, on the other table, I was running Chain of Command. And I must admit, I think I let a little bit of the Murphy that affected the event get to me too. I hadn’t played Chain of Command in almost 9 months before the day, and a lot of the intricate parts had dropped out the back of my memory leading to some bad calls and having to ask the other table what was going on. Not great when you’re supposed to be teaching the game to two people who had played once before earlier in the year! I had assumed I knew the rules better than I did.
However, everyone involved had a good time taking a step back into the desert. This time, the Germans were on the offensive, attempting to outflank the British positions. Luckily, the British had set up in a small settlement on the edge of the oil fields, ready to defend. As you can see by the markers above, the patrol phase ended up how you’d expect – the British defending their citadel position while the Germans used their position advantage to get Jumping Off Points from three different directions.
One important point is that apparently, this encounter didn’t matter much to high command of either side – the Germans ended up with only 3 Support Points (spent on a Adjutant and a 5cm mortar team) while the Brits spent their 4 Support Points on a mortar barrage (although until we double checked the rules which limited their number, the concept of ringing the defensive corner in minefields did come up).
After the first couple of phases, the British had deployed an infantry section, platoon NCO and Boys AT rifle into the main building with the 2″ mortar behind in the crops. Across from them, the germans were advancing from the oil derricks and (just off camera) from behind the isolated compound. The open ground in front of the building would provide a challenge to cross, especially with the Brits in the heavy cover on the roof.
The Brits were also very quick to break out some off-map support, with the forward observer dropping a ranging round directly onto the Germans massing by the sandbags. Which of course led to…
The next activation of the observer brings a mortar barrage crashing down on the squad, dropping a pile of shock and kills on them. Mortars in Chain of Command continue to be an absolute nightmare to deal with – dropping a square that causes movement problems, ignores cover and deals out shock on a monumental level. It’s becoming increasingly rare for us to not take a mortar barrage if we have enough points, seeing as it’s such a useful supporting element.
In an attempt to stop the Brits from being attacked from three angles, the 8th Army commander decided to bring on an additional section right on the table edge. His intention was to cross the road and threaten the German JOP, intending to hit the morale tracker hard.
At which point the German player saw allied troops in the open and brought up two MG34s in a zug into position in the house overlooking their arrival zone. This is what is politely known as “a very bad time”.
The German player rolled incredibly well for the shots – they only caused two points of shock but cut the section down to only six men from its starting ten. They very quickly bounced into the nearby field to get themselves some cover, before getting into a two-way shooting range with the germans
The battle then turned into a little bit of a spitting match. Due to some dice roll issues, the Germans were unable to activate their sections enough to keep moving (most dice rolls were being used to stabilise the squad getting bombarded or keeping the British in the two fields suppressed with the other squad), while the Senior Leader was getting multiple activations per turn to spend them popping off with a 5cm mortar (who was tossing small shells at their opposite number). In contrast, the Brits were trying to handle the pasting from the pair of MGs while also popping off shots from their defensive position. They did manage to break out the suppressing fire which did at least stop the bleeding, but were unable to them move up forces to cross the gap and take the assault forward.
With time running out, however, the Germans did attempt one final push with the relatively unmolested squad, crossing over the open ground to close assault the building. With the number of double turns the German player was getting, it might have potentially gone okay, and any close assault would have been catastrophic to both sides in terms of morale. As you can see from the blue tokens, this assault was (if we had slightly more time) about to get pummelled by the 3″ mortar barrage.
As we ran out of time before either side was kicked off the board, we called the game a British victory, having defended their position. If this was a campaign, I’d probably say the next mission would be a full-on assault on this position, with the target building in the centre rather than in one corner.
So with that over, I definitely had some thoughts on the game. The first is that all the players involved had a good time which is always the number one goal.
That said, one of them did mention that the Chain of Command has (for the last few games he’s played) turned into a game of both sides firing MGs at each other, lots of fire and not much movement. Now, I think some of this comes down to the fact we have been playing a lot of Western Desert games (that is what the Dastardly Regular Opponent has in his toybox) which are very easy to end up with terrain that makes it tactically unwise to attempt forward assaults. There just isn’t the same level of simple terrain (such as hedges, woods, etc) as much of the variation in the western desert is down to contour changes (something that can be hard to do on a basic table).
I think I also did some bad advice to the players. The German player took the 5cm mortar and then had a Senior Leader babysitting it the entire game. It then also had a spitting match with the 2″ mortar. What I should have advised is putting the 5cm mortar and senior leader with the ambushing squad in the top left of the board. That way, the senior leader could keep up the indirect fire (although I would have recommended hitting the top of the building with the suppression rather than merely having a battle of the tiny mortars) while also commanding the ambushing squad and keeping the MGs going. The other option would have been to drop the 5cm mortar and replace it with a second senior leader to give you more flexibility.
For the Brits, defending the position was achieved but they failed to really cause much in terms of morale damage. I do wonder if the Brits (having managed to hold off the Germans with one section and a mortar observer) could have used their 2″ mortar to lay smoke and then fire/move into the buildings on the far side and overrun a JOP. It would definitely be a risk, but it could have been potentially done. This is something I’d like to try and game at some point, see just how effective it might have been.
The final takeaway though? I need to play more Chain of Command, keep the game fresh in my mind and get more WW2 games under the belt. Heck, I should probably go back and finish off Ultramodern Chain of Command once I actually have free time to do it. The core systems still really get my brain, with the command dice bringing that level of friction and thinking on your feet that gets me into the game and thinking at that level.