Chain of Command - A Delaying Action

This afternoon, I had a few friends over for a game of Chain of Command, my first in many months.  This was the first game of CoC for Sam, a new member of the Trumpeter wargaming club.  Gord and Doug also participated. Of the gaming theatres I was able to offer, Sam chose Op Husky, so I set up the board accordingly.

The scenario was the Delaying Action from the basic rulebook.  Sam took German infantry, and the dice dictated that he would be the defender, to Doug's Canadian infantry attackers.  Based on my own frustration taking on German Panzergrendiers in my own games, I downgraded them to ordinary infantry with just one LMG per squad.  Plenty of time in future games to bring in the challenge of battling against the overwhelming firepower the Germans get with 2 LMG per squad!  

The Canadians, as attackers, had the objective of capturing the rearmost of the German jump-off points, on the right side of the photo below.  The Germans would win by preventing this.

At the end of the Patrol Phase, the two sides had met more or less in the centre of the board.  The Germans placed one of their JoP in the orchard, a second up against the farm building on the right, and the third (the objective of the scenario) just behind the small grain storage tower at the rear of the farm.  The Canadians had one JoP at the board edge where the road crossed off the board, and two more within the small farmyard on the left.

Although he was nominally the defender, Sam determined that the best defence was a good offence, and moved his forces forward to take the prime terrain in the centre of the board.  He deployed a squad in the orchard and left them on overwatch, so that anyone who entered the orchard would receive fire at full effect, but were well placed far enough back that they could not be targetted by anyone outside the orchard.  On his right, he moved squads out of the farmyard to occupy the treeline across the paved road.

Superior German firepower pushed the Canadians back into the left farmyard, despite the effort to use smoke to block the German line of sight.

Germans advancing across the road. Sam was fortunate to roll a number of double phases (two sixes on the command roll) which made this crossing easier as it limited his exposure to flanking fire from Doug's section up the road!

Canadians had set up a good base in their own farmyard, but could not easily move past the stone wall without being exposed to heavy fire from the German MG42s.  

Sam brought up his SdKfz 221 armoured car.  This AC had replaced the MG with a Panzerbusch anti-tank rifle, which was a threat to Doug's universal carriers, but only posed a limited threat to the infantry.

With his infantry bottled up in the farmyard, Doug brought his carriers out to flank the German infantry.  Sam was able to damage one of the carriers, but did not take it out of action, so it was able to continue the advance.

Carrier busts through the rough ground to threaten the German infantry behind!  The Germans managed to throw a grenade into the carrier, but it did not cause any significant damage.

The first carrier charges to the German JoP behind the tower.  Anti-tank rifle tries to take it out, but the small, low profile carrier behind the cover of the wall ends up being a difficult target!

There was actually a bit of back and forth before the next photo.  The carrier was hit but not destroyed, and forced to fall back.  The carrier opened fire on the German 5cm mortar team and drove them off, then dismounted and captured the JoP.  Doug then played a Chain of Command die to end the turn, and thus the game as he had uncontested control of the JoP!

Overall, it was a fun game and a good introduction to CoC for Sam.  For most of the game, it looked like the Canadians were on the back foot, but the flanking move by the carriers ended up turning the tables and gave a surprise win to the Canucks.

I still feel that the carriers are not quite represented correctly in Chain of Command - their invulnerability to infantry fire feels a bit wrong.  The carriers were open-topped, so should be more susceptible to fire.  We are all looking forward to trying another game soon!