29, Let's Go! A Campaign Game Report

[Lardy Rich]

Thus far we have played four games in our campaign at the club.  I've been loathe to post about them in public as I didn't want to spoil the enjoyment of anyone getting into the campaign supplement.  However, we are now far enough in that I think we can go public without spoiling the front end games, and that's where most of the unexpected stuff comes in. 

Thus far we have seen the US players win at La Cambe, get delayed for one game at Arthenay which they had to attack twice before it fell.  Last night we played the attack on St Germain du Port which is really fun as it is a flank attack.  That is, I think, one of the most challenging and fun patrol phases to play.  As it was the lads took about ten minutes on this and neither side got the best position in the world but that made for an interesting game. 

You can read all about it here:
 http://toofatlardies.co.uk/blog/?p=3256

And here's a couple of snaps of the action.




I should note that since we got back from Crisis the office is still full of the game we did there in boxes, so we used the patrol markers as Jump-off points as the nice resin ones we have are still in hiding! 

Cheers

Rich

[pocoloco]

Beautiful looking set-up, terrain and minis look great.

And AAR was interesting to read with the your afterthoughts about what went wrong for the Germans.

[Lardy Rich]

Pocoloco

I must admit that the game has led me to begin writing a piece on basic tactics for platoon level games.  The US player also really put himself in danger by completely over-estimating what was achievable in his patrol phase.  He should have been satisfied with gaining the hedgeline to the East of the village.  It was a practical and obtainable objective for his patrols to secure in order to provide an attacking platform.  He went way beyond that and SHOULD have lost the game as a result.  As it was, he got away with it.  The German player was handed a win on a plate, but for some reason chose not to take it. 

The big imperative with Chain of Command is to combine both fire and movement.  So many players simply line up their men and get stuck in a firefight.  At best that will provide you with an even chance of winning, more normally one side has an advantage in which case one presumes that their opponent is simply relying on luck to win against the odds.  In either situation the winner is likely to come out with losses which are unacceptably high as a firepower duel tends to result in high casualties all round. 

Maybe I'll post something soon on that, if people are interested.

Rich



 

[huevans]

Hi Rich

I for one would be very interested indeed in any insights you could offer into basic platoon tactics, either in general or on a nation-by-nation basis. CoC gives a couple of tantalizing hints, but they serve only to whet my appetite for a more in depth study.

[Kane]

Pocoloco

I must admit that the game has led me to begin writing a piece on basic tactics for platoon level games.  The US player also really put himself in danger by completely over-estimating what was achievable in his patrol phase.  He should have been satisfied with gaining the hedgeline to the East of the village.  It was a practical and obtainable objective for his patrols to secure in order to provide an attacking platform.  He went way beyond that and SHOULD have lost the game as a result.  As it was, he got away with it.  The German player was handed a win on a plate, but for some reason chose not to take it. 

The big imperative with Chain of Command is to combine both fire and movement.  So many players simply line up their men and get stuck in a firefight.  At best that will provide you with an even chance of winning, more normally one side has an advantage in which case one presumes that their opponent is simply relying on luck to win against the odds.  In either situation the winner is likely to come out with losses which are unacceptably high as a firepower duel tends to result in high casualties all round. 

Maybe I'll post something soon on that, if people are interested.

Rich



 

I'm interested as well Richard. For what it's worth, I agree completely with your opinion. I won at Keren (at Crisis) with my 3 bren gun teams laying down covering fire, my mortar laying down smoke and my squads advancing up the mountain. The Brens were deadly accurate and luckily for me my opponent targeted a closeby friendly squad on the other part of the mountain. But having a decent firebase seems to be really important in the game...

Beautiful and adequately pulpy (Holy mascarpone  ) report! Enjoyed reading it.

[pocoloco]

I happily vote also for CoC tactics analysis