Only rolling a one on my morale roll, meant I was starting with a slightly lower force morale. Rolling ones was to become a familiar if unwelcome theme for me....
This game, once we had the obligatory gassing out of the way, lasted for a very intense five hours. I can not even begin to give you a blow by blow AAR because the phases changed hands so often to be untrue. The first game turn lasted all of literally three minutes as I rolled three sixes on my command dice - good job I didn’t take a barrage!
The rest of the game...all 4 hours and 57 minutes took place during turn 2!
All accumulated CoC dice being used to interrupt the opponent and wring out whatever additional shots we could!
The basis of my attack was to penetrate forward as quickly as I could into the cluster of buildings in the bottom right.
Unusually for Jamie thus far, he had decided this time to deploy some units early, placing a section in the walled garden and his platoon sergeant in the building to its left as we look up the table. This section was to take up overwatch and as I moved into buildings, I was conscious of not appearing at the windows until I had enough support ready - a reversal of where we were in the first games.
I had taken a second leader, an HMG, another assault squad and because I had two pretty wasted points, a wire cutting team that didn’t see the table and a mine clearing team.
The units pushed on
The mine clearers did get on, and made their way to the placed field, had one attempt at clearing it before a mortar round sent them scurrying back!
Mortar team in action
Jamie deployed another section on the left of the buildings, maybe to cover the wayward jump off point, but certainly to cover the section that had taken up positions in the building up by the top left of the minefield, the furthest I was to push.
I can’t quite recall the sequence of what happened suffice to say, all hell let loose!
I don’t think I’ve played a game with quite so many shots pouring out both ways! My lmg section, occupying the top of the house in my bottom right, was about the only section unit I had relatively unmolested the whole game, and it was able to pour out a fantastic amount of firepower at the section in the walled garden for hours!
Likewise, my HMG team, manouvered into the top of the grey stone barn, also firing constantly at the section in the walled garden for most of the game...
My plan was simple.....I knew I couldn’t rush in, I’d be cut down in seconds, and I had concentrated my force, mostly because I had no choice in this back corner.....concentrate my fire on one unit and try and break them.
Early on I did kill their nco and reduced Jamie’s morale by one. But this did not really effect them too much.
This is because, the command dice we were rolling all night, really started to favour the fact that all fire was pretty much under the direct control of the senior leaders.
Much to Jamie’s amusement, I threw an unbelievable number of double fours with mine, time after time and Jamie was able to add his dice almost every time to keep his nicely placed commanders able to direct or remove shock when necessary.
The section in the walled garden took a very high number on incoming rounds, phase after phase!
The problem was....somewhere in the last week or so, I must have greatly offended the dice gods!
For hours, every time I shot, I was not getting many hits, and most that did find a target, were deflected by that damned wall!
Meanwhile, Jamie deployed an dug in .30 cal to support the walled section, and his third section, with the section on the left, with the express intention of pressing a flanking counter attack along the hedges.
By now, I was taking a lot of damage! Firstly, at least three of my junior leaders had been wounded, reducing their capacity to lead somewhat. My furthest section on the right, then got chewed up, the final two guys breaking and hitting my morale. I had however moved another section up near the house which ended up replacing them. It too however ended up being hit by some serious fire, and was wiped out! More morale loss!
Meanwhile my support section, in the minefield corner building, close enough to use the additional firepower of their assault rifles, was alternating between firing at the two sections on the left of the table. My luck held a bit with these guys. They walled building turned out to be very well constructed! The original american section had kept up a lot of covering fire to allow the flanking section to move forward.
American squads, with their re rolling of ones, and extra BAR’s are actually a hard until to trade shots with. For the best part of the game, I was being chewed up and I was hurting. With two sections gone, I was down to three command dice but I was still rolling fours and able to direct at least two if not three elements every phase.
We both could see the end coming, Jamie’s aggressive stance and flanking action was going to pretty much wipe me from the table. By now, he had about double my manpower
as it was getting late, we were pushing hard to get the game wrapped up.....
....and then, just as I was praying for a miracle (out loud) the dice gods, having played with me all night like a worm on a hook, decided to take pity on me and removed their curse!
The support section, with its three dice per gun, despite being down to four men, broke the flanking section!
Jamie’s morale started to take a hit.
The support section though got slaughtered with only the nco surviving to run away, though he was steadied by my second leader who only had a solitary figure to command now!
All I had left was the lmg section and an HMG.
The HMG was attracting a lot of fire now and ended up at two men only, though I was able to keep the shock down.
However, like I said, the dice gods now seemed to a four me and in very rapid succession, the walled garden section finally broke (to be fair, they received more fire than any other unit all night) and Jamie was now on the same low morale (two) as me, with us both only having three command dice.
Up until this point, I had concentrated all my right hand firepower on the walled section and totally ignored, ( perhaps foolishly as at times I did consider putting covering fire on it but kept deciding not) but now I was free to fire on it......and with my best dice of the night, killed a few of the team and broke them in one volley, sending them scurrying!
This final loss sealed the loss for the Americans. A complete and unexpected reversal of the battle. Winning this table regained me the initiative but my original platoon, down to only 10 survivors, was effectively wiped out doing so!
That was brutal! The action kept up for hours with a phenomenal amount of traded firepower. The changes in fortunes were for me obviously welcome, but I do feel for Jamie here.....he did everything right I think and I couldn’t second guess any of his decisions. His move to outflank me should have worked and it was absolutely the right thing to do. His very well placed officers were able to command nearly every element each phase and it really end up coming down to a couple of (finally) extraordinary rolls at the end of the battle.
We both learned a lot from this game and things are speeding up for us.
Thanks to Jamie for hosting, table looked great and thanks to Kato, (Cooper) the collie for keeping me amused all the time I was these too!