CoC battle report

[EvilGinger]

 

OK – quick battle report from Saturday night - our first game. We set a table up with a lot of terrain, which looked nice.



We decided to try and keep things as uncomplicated as possible, so both chose standard British and German infantry platoons, and agreed that as both had the same support value (ie none) not to bother with additional supports. As there were no tanks we both agreed to keep our PIAT and Panzershrek teams in the box too, again to keep things simple.





We also chose the "Patrol" mission scenario as that seemed the least complicated. Both players rolled low on Force Morale, leaving them with 8 morale points. Clearly this morning' s patrol was not worth dying over…..



Patrol phase
It's a bit more complicated than it looks –do you push forward in the hope of quickly defining the front line, grabbing useful terrain, or do you try and get a flank? More through luck than judgement the Brits managed to pin two German patrol markers in a wood, which restricted the German deployment area, and also gave the Brits a flank position.



We then converted our patrol markers to jump off points, and got stuck in. (Although the pic doesn't show it well, there is a Brit Jump off point in the field to the left of the farm)



Brits got first turn, and the dice were awful! Two 1s, a 2 and two 5s. Combining the 1s allowed them to deploy two sections, one around the stone farmhouse, the second behind a wall on their far left, but neither squad could do anything. So far so good, phase passed to the Germans. Their dice were better,



the magic 3 allowing them not only to deploy, but to actually shoot. Luckily they only managed 2 shock results on the Bren team in the farmyard because they were in hard cover. Note – the ranges are LOOOONG! None of this rifle firing 12" stuff, pretty much if you can see it, you can reach it. The amount of fire put down by the MG42 was also err.. something of a wake up for the Brits.





Phase passed to the Brits who deployed their Platoon Sergeant to the farm to shore things up. He quickly steadied the Bren team and got them firing back, initially with little result. On the far flank the other British Squad opened up with their Bren and managed to kill a German behind a hedge – first blood!





There was then a phase of "more of the same", with both sides having problems with command dice meaning a fairly harmless exchange of fire took place – harmless that is, except for the Bren team in the farm who lost a man to a burst from an MG42. Neither player could get their third squad deployed because they failed to roll the right dice, or rather they needed the dice they rolled on the table. This was an interesting difference in the force structures. The Germans don't have a Senior NCO in their platoon – at this point in the war he is probably the Platoon leader. The Germans had the option of deploying their platoon leader but if they did so the lack of a senior leader off table would mean the third squad would possibly be delayed. The Brits had a Platoon Sergeant and a Junior Officer, so they in theory could leave one off table to assist the troops to deploy – only problem was they couldn't get the right dice to allow it. They did manage to get the 2" mortar team on table though.
Next phase the Germans did get the dice, and reacted by deploying their platoon leader into the wood, and their last squad opposite the farm. The German CO moved one of his MG teams up to support the riflemen on the edge of the orchard. The Brits were looking a bit outnumbered 3-2, and their dice still wouldn't allow the last squad to deploy. Given the superior firepower the Germans had this was starting to look "sticky" . Time to fall back on the time honoured Battle Drill, so the platoon commander deployed, leaving one squad off table to catch up, and shouted "Bags of Smoke, Flank Left!" The 2" mortar obliged, putting down smoke that blocked the line of sight of the MG42, which pulled back. Critically, although no one knew it at the time, the Brits had also accumulated enough points to get a Chain of Command dice.





Next phase was critical. The Germans were worried by the smoke and the British trying to flank their position in the orchard, but the Bren team had managed to inflict some shock on the rifle team there, and the MG42 was too far into the orchard to interfere. To make matters worse, the Brits in the farm managed to pin down the MG42 team opposite them and wound their NCO, and a well-aimed burst pinned the Germans in the orchard. Seeing this was the moment, the British Lieutenant shouted "Follow me!" and with a shower of grenades he lead the riflemen in an assault across the open road towards the orchard – sadly the grenades fell short and then he rolled 4 for movement, leaving the squad and himself dangerously exposed half way across the road. The initiative passed to the Germans, but before they could act the British player used his "Chain of Command" dice to interrupt, restarting the stalled assault. The assault went in but the Germans were at a great disadvantage, being pinned and shocked, and they never really stood a chance.



After a brief but bloody exchange three Germans and one Tommy were killed, the sole surviving German routed through his MG42 team, who also decided discretion was the better part of valour and fell back too.



With 2 teams broken and an NCO wounded German Force morale dropped to 5, anything more and the platoon would be in trouble. With losses mounting and his position flanked the German CO decided enough was enough and ordered a withdrawal.



Overall much fun was had and there was certainly some food for thought.

Reposted from the Lardie Yahoo group


 Ginger