Well…it’s been a little while but we finally kicked off our next campaign.
I had ordered the latest version of CoC but Sod’s Law meant it arrived on my mat whilst we were in play! Luckily Jamie has played a few games already and had sent me through Tactical Painters list of version changes which I had a brief look at last night and again before setting off this am!
Can’t say I’d absorbed it all and despite Jamie being a fair stand up kinda bloke, I was none the less expecting to get handed my backside on this one.
Now unfortunately, my phone camera is on the blink and Jamie only managed to capture a small number of shots (in hindsight sight…I had my iPad with me but completely forgot that it takes pictures too! 🥴)
We promise future reports will be a bit more colourful.
In simple terms the campaign from my perspective is that I have two Kamfgrüppe (Frey and Weidinger) fighting to join up over a small stretch of French countryside. The Brits of course are trying to stop that from happening.
In this first game, the Leibstandarte Pzr grenadiers of KG Frey are attempting to break through The British lines at Bas de Mouen. This is a probe attack and I was concerned as the rules have changed a bit. I now had to get a Section off the far end of the table, whilst simultaneously capturing one of their jump off points. Further more, once the first two game turns had elapsed, a phase count down wound put added pressure on my to get a wiggle on!
If Jamie am asked enough CoC points for a full dice he would end a turn. These rule changes certainly mean there is no hope of sitting and slogging it out….you have to get a shift on!
At this point…I don’t have a full table picture 😢. I can report that as a typical Jamie table, it looked top drawer as usual. In brief….looking up the table from my side…to my left a collection of farm houses….looking to me like a menacing position from which he could inflict
a lot of damage and a large open ground in front of it which I would need to run across if that was my avenue of escape. A road divided the table and on my left, there was a house closer to me surrounded by a trio of orchards.
Jamie rolled a force morale score of 11 and I gained 10. The patrol phase ended up with Jamie having two JOP’s near the farm ( one either side of it with the left hand one on the ground floor of house with dual aspect window that could cover my approach as well as an attempt by me to skirt right and up through the orchards. He placed his third JOP into the orchid behind the left hand house as I looked up table. He was instructed that no JOP could sit in the rear foot of his table.
For my support choices I received a grand 16 points. We used the points as laid out in the campaign rather than the new book, with the additional choices of a red dice for my pzr grenadiers and a replen point.
I opted to take the red dice, a second senior leader (essential I think for these chaps), a tripod MG42 (c/w entrenchment)and a pzrIV G plus an adjutant.
I can not speak for Jamie’s thought process and as usual can only tell you my own.
I don’t think Jamie makes many tactical errors. He’s played the game a lot more than I have and he’s pretty shrewd. However….he will I’m sure be the first to agree with me, but I think he screwed the pooch here. Having told him not to place any JOP’s in his back foot, the rules suggested siting a JOP so far back would make it near impossible for me to both capture the point AND exit the table. From my point of view…..capturing the closest JOP, in my left field, would make it tricky for him to respond and give me my escape route off the table. I just had to put pressure on the farm collective with covering fire and overwatch to try and keep heads down.
My tac dice were all pretty well luckily thrown each time I had to. The red dice proving more often than not to be useful. In the first phase I quickly set up a section and the MG42 team in between hedges that gave me a clear view of the farm. I put down covering fire to make it trickier for him to activate and I put my pzr IV on overwatch.
I also dropped a section behind the house in my left field.
Jamie opted to nothing with his first phase and then I rolled a double six on my next go. Ok, I had to give him a pip on his CoC dice but now I was able activate my second senior leader to support the lone section and get them shifting rapidly towards Jamie’s JOP….rendering it unusable as I was close to it.
Realising he now had a problem, Jamie deployed an HMG team behind hedge cover (top left of this picture) along with a section in the farm house….placing the Bren team upstairs to fire out over the forward panzer grenadiers. I couldn’t do too much about the HMG as my fire base couldn't see them….but I could keep firing at the top window of the house where I knew the Tommies had their Bren. I was able to get a second section to move up to try and take some heat off the depleted running section….though they proved less helpful.
It simply became a race to get off the table with as many men as possible in the section.
Ultimately, I did gain enough pips for a complete CoC dice and kept that up my sleeve in case my final dash left me stranded and I needed an interrupt / move but to be fair, my leader kept them jogging along quite well.
I ended up loosing five men. Jamie lost four I think. Every time he hit me, men died, but no shock was put on so the guys never really slowed down. Dice rolls are peculiar things.
Interestingly enough…and this shows how quick this went…..Jamie only ever amassed two points on his CoC dice….and I “gave” him one of those!
Bloody hell…I’d won the first engament of the campaign and kept my initiative. Hadn’t anticipated that when I got up this morning!
My CO was happy and my officers approval went up a point. Despite my leader running every step of the way with them and bringing the engagement to a swift end…the ungrateful sods decided to lower their opinion of him! Ok, so two of the casualties wont be coming back at all but damn it could have been a lot worse…..bloody ingrates!
At least Jamie’s CO scowled and dropped his opinion by a point. But then, Jamie will get a new p,a toon every game we play……I have to carry this platoon once again….
Sorry there aren’t more pics. The next battle should be a very stand up affair….we are both patrolling into the same village and both have a lot of support points to play with!
Thanks for hosting Jamie, lovely table and patience as I try to come to terms with new rules! 😉
April 14, 2016, 06:25:41 PM
