We kicked off turn 5 of our late war with Ian's 1st Platoon Americans attacking my 1st PLatoon just North of Ophove. We had both decided to retire the platoons that have been fighting here to give them a chance to recoup their wounded. IN addition to this Ian had called in his once per campaign reinforcements, putting his Platoon back to full strength. I had only suffered 1 casualty in my previous game and the other platoons had suffered light casualties so had decided to save my reinforcements for later on in the campaign.
The scenario was Attack and Defend, with the Yanks attacking. This was a straight fight until one side breaks so was going to be messy.
Ian rolled for support and got a mighty 4, so at least there was going to be no armour present. I got half that value +1 for the difference in platoon values so ended up with 3 points. Ian opted for a 4th squad, while I requisitioned a sniper from company command.
The terrain was pretty basic, with this area of the campaign having no buildings, so we added so fields and hedgerows to make it a bit more interesting.
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| the view up the board from the German end. |
Force moral saw Ian start with 10 (he rolled a 6 but was at -1 due to the GI's not being very happy as the amount of men they were losing) and the Germans started with 8 (obviously not very keen at coming from their cosy reserve position and get shot at).
The patrol phase saw each side grab whatever cover was available, with almost symmetrical jump off points for each side (one in the centre plus one in each flank, although my centre one was quite far back to give a secondary position to fall back on).
Early game saw the Yanks deploy in force, with Ian loading his force towards the German left flank. I deployed a squad on each flank, both in decent cover and decided to hold my third squad in reserve.
Initial exchanges of fire were inconclusive, with the Germans probably coming out slightly on top thanks to the extra dice that they were throwing out. I was very jammy at one point and managed ot get 4 phases in a row, which allowed me to do a fair amount of damage.
On my right flank I had a good position behind a stone wall and was using the squad deployed there to add their firepower to help protect the squad on the other side of the table as they were facing the firepower of three American squads and starting to suffer for it. I was forced to withdraw my left flank to a more secure position as the weight of firepower was too much.
Late game and the Yanks were starting to lose their officers, with one junior officer killed and another couple wounded, while the Germans were starting to run out of men. American force morale dropped to 3 all of a sudden when I deployed my reserve squad and senior commander to relieve the left flank and opened fire on an American squad at point blank range over two phases. This broke the squad and as they were on the edge of the board they immediately routed off the table, carrying a senior officer with them. This reduced Ian's force moral down to 2, and left him with only 2 command dice. After a couple of phases where he was not able to move his troops at all he decided to withdraw.
The final tally of dead were 7 German and 11 Americans, but as the Germans had won the game they got to reduce their casualties by the difference in force moral at the end of the game. Ian was 2 and I was 7, reducing the German casualties by 5.
In a campaign game you count half your end game casualties a dead (permanent casualties), a quarter as wounded (miss the next campaign turn) and the remaining quarter return to duty (minor wounds).
This meant that the Americans suffered 5 casualties, 3 wounded and 3 returned to duty. The Germans suffered 1 casualty and 1 wounded.
Also at the end of the game you have to check to see what happens to the men's opinion and the CO's opinion. This can have an effect on the amount of support you receive and your force morale for future games. Win lots of games and your CO will give you more support. Keep your men alive and your force moral will be better. On the other hand lose games and you potential support will drop, and gets lots of your men killed and your force moral will also start to be negatively affected.
At the end of this the Americans suffered a -1 to the CO opinion (bringing it down to -2) and -5 to the men's opinion ( bringing it down to -10!).
The patrol phase saw each side grab whatever cover was available, with almost symmetrical jump off points for each side (one in the centre plus one in each flank, although my centre one was quite far back to give a secondary position to fall back on).
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| Yanks mass for the assault. |
Early game saw the Yanks deploy in force, with Ian loading his force towards the German left flank. I deployed a squad on each flank, both in decent cover and decided to hold my third squad in reserve.
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| Sniper on the lookout for something to miss! |
Initial exchanges of fire were inconclusive, with the Germans probably coming out slightly on top thanks to the extra dice that they were throwing out. I was very jammy at one point and managed ot get 4 phases in a row, which allowed me to do a fair amount of damage.
On my right flank I had a good position behind a stone wall and was using the squad deployed there to add their firepower to help protect the squad on the other side of the table as they were facing the firepower of three American squads and starting to suffer for it. I was forced to withdraw my left flank to a more secure position as the weight of firepower was too much.
Late game and the Yanks were starting to lose their officers, with one junior officer killed and another couple wounded, while the Germans were starting to run out of men. American force morale dropped to 3 all of a sudden when I deployed my reserve squad and senior commander to relieve the left flank and opened fire on an American squad at point blank range over two phases. This broke the squad and as they were on the edge of the board they immediately routed off the table, carrying a senior officer with them. This reduced Ian's force moral down to 2, and left him with only 2 command dice. After a couple of phases where he was not able to move his troops at all he decided to withdraw.
The final tally of dead were 7 German and 11 Americans, but as the Germans had won the game they got to reduce their casualties by the difference in force moral at the end of the game. Ian was 2 and I was 7, reducing the German casualties by 5.
In a campaign game you count half your end game casualties a dead (permanent casualties), a quarter as wounded (miss the next campaign turn) and the remaining quarter return to duty (minor wounds).
This meant that the Americans suffered 5 casualties, 3 wounded and 3 returned to duty. The Germans suffered 1 casualty and 1 wounded.
Also at the end of the game you have to check to see what happens to the men's opinion and the CO's opinion. This can have an effect on the amount of support you receive and your force morale for future games. Win lots of games and your CO will give you more support. Keep your men alive and your force moral will be better. On the other hand lose games and you potential support will drop, and gets lots of your men killed and your force moral will also start to be negatively affected.
At the end of this the Americans suffered a -1 to the CO opinion (bringing it down to -2) and -5 to the men's opinion ( bringing it down to -10!).
The Germans gained a +1 to the CO opinion (bring it up to +2) and +2 to the men's opinion (bringing it up to +4).
So all in all a good nights work for the Germans, and a costly one for the Americans, although I was very jammy. Sniper was useless though, only managing to inflict some shock and kill a couple of grunts all game.
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