Another busy gaming weekend! After the big Jhamjar game on Friday, Craig came by today for a second try at Chain of Command second edition. This time we played the Attack and Defend scenario, which allows for much more support. Craig's French chose to be the attackers with 12 points of support, and my Germans downgraded to a second wave platoon, which meant that I was allowed 8 points of support (base of 6 which is half of Craig's 12, plus 2 more for the difference in force rating). We rolled for table orientation and again found ourselves playing lengthwise, adding to the challenge for the attacker, giving him further to go on a narrower front.
Here is the table Arthur set up for us. The French attackers enter from the top of the photo. Designated objectives for the attackers are the ruined building on the left and the lone tree on the right, both circled in red.
The patrol phase ended up with patrol markers locked down on either side of the cemetery. The French had 4 markers (the red ones with the maple leaves - originally intended for the 1st Canadian Division in Sicily but we made do with what we have!) but Craig ended up stacking them in pairs to shut down the maneuvering, to prevent the rightmost white marker (Hermann Goering Division, also for Sicily) from swinging further right.
Jump off points are a bit boring today! We used the brown hex markers circled in red. I have fancier JOPs but I was a bit too disorganised to pull them out. Note that the French markers as on the wrong side of the stream, which was rated as a minor obstacle and broken ground, a nuisance for the French but not too much!
I purchased two sections of barbed wire (6" each), and Craig generously pointed out that in V2, there is a three for two deal, so I ended up with a total of 18" of barbed wire :) I used it to block the left side of the German defences.
More troops deployed on the board, including the French heavy tank, a Char B2 bis.
And then the gun crew are driven off!
Germans are successful in pushing back the French past the cemetery wall.
French officer struggles to rally his forces. This photo is a bit deceptive, as only the French infantry on the left side of the creek are still in the game, the others are the casualties' pile! But still, there is a lot of shock that the officer needs to rally. This was when we called the game as a stalemate. Unusually, the French were still at their initial force morale level of 10, in part due to Craig's use of Chain of Command dice to avoid FM checks, but also due to many units getting hurt, and combat effectiveness reduced, but not actually breaking.
Early deployments with French and German sections on either side of the cemetery. French are already taking shock as shown by the white counters on the 'tree' beside them.
The Germans deployed a 'shabby Nazi trick' in the form of a collaborator, who redirected French troops away from the last jump off point.
More troops deployed on the board, including the French heavy tank, a Char B2 bis.
In response to the French tank, the German infantry gun (7.5 cm le.IG) deployed.
Cemetery firefight continues. French manage to kill the German feldwebel. It's a Bad Thing to lose a senior leader and German force morale takes a hit!
Then the Char crossed the wall and dispersed the German squad. The rifle team hid in the small building, but the MG team was broken and fled the table.
The German section by the wall was getting shredded so they fell back to the ruins across the road, with the MG team moving to the upper floor to put fire onto the attackers.
Iggy the infantry gun is feeling a bit outnumbered.
But then the Germans bring another section. They cannot crew the gun, but they can lay down fire on the French!
German officer moves up to direct the fire of the MG. His guidance allows the use of the German special trait, maschinengewehr which adds firepower dice as well as the storm of steel effect, where each '6' rolled adds another firepower die to be added, with the potential to increase firepower indefinitely as long as the firer keeps rolling 6's.
French char attempts another overrun of German infantry.
This time, however, the Germans had no shock on them and were easily able to avoid the tank, allowing them to move against the French infantry following behind the Char.
French and Germans passed tactical status back and forth.
Here is a result of a maschinengewehr roll - 10 dice initially turn into a total of 14 hits!
Germans are successful in pushing back the French past the cemetery wall.
And the French Char struggles to turn to face the German infantry in its rear.
French officer struggles to rally his forces. This photo is a bit deceptive, as only the French infantry on the left side of the creek are still in the game, the others are the casualties' pile! But still, there is a lot of shock that the officer needs to rally. This was when we called the game as a stalemate. Unusually, the French were still at their initial force morale level of 10, in part due to Craig's use of Chain of Command dice to avoid FM checks, but also due to many units getting hurt, and combat effectiveness reduced, but not actually breaking.
German force morale at this point was 6, and the remaining troops were barely holding on, and they had a heavy tank in their rear. Although the Germans had no way to hurt the tank, the tank was not able to capture the objective. The Germans stopped the French advance by beating all the infantry and working around the tank. If we would have played on, it's likely the French would finally have forced the German force morale to break but would not have a combat effective force left to take advantage of the result.
The game allowed us to explore more aspects of the V2 changes. Mostly we are pleased but there are a couple of things we want to look at more closely. Storm of Steel is a nice bonus, and we remembered to use it this time. We talked about introducing a house rule to limit the bonus to a single extra roll for each initial 6, but to not allow indefinite stacking as we had a few cascading results that seemed excessive. We'll look at this more as we play on with these rules.
The Red Die is very powerful. I used it last week, and Craig had it this week. It really gives a great benefit. We aren't sure if we should limit it, in a similar way to how we limited Green and Elite troops in V1, or possibly to rate it to be more expensive than a 2 point cost. Perhaps we'll come up with a house rule to limit the use of the red die. The 1940 sourcebook requirement that you need a minimum of three support units before you can pick a red die is a good start point; we may want to clarify that further - for example, maybe require that the three supports should be a minimum of 2 points each, so that a medic or wire cutting team don't count, only supports that can take offensive action. Another thing for us to discuss further!
A thing that has irked me for a while, not new to V2, is that roadblocks, minefields and barbed wire have the same value, even though minefields are more difficult to deal with as they take up a bigger piece of ground and are harder and more dangerous to clear. On the other hand, I have less experience in dealing with either, so I should play more games where they are involved before taking too strong of a stance. Barbed wire worked to my advantage in this game since it pushed Craig to concentrate on the other side of the table.
