Rommel 1940 British v German Scenario 4 "Evacuation"

Almost immediately after being painted the 10mm British 1940 force for Rommel rolled into action. My opponent again was Andy, this time using 1940 Germans. Feeling it was most appropriate we went for the 'Evacuation' scenario which sees the British defending five objectives that they need to hold for a number of turns. The Germans need to capture three of the five objectives before they are evacuated or night falls:

The Germans have a substantial points advantage (102 to 82) though actual numbers will be closer as many of the German units are elite. I think when I have  played this scenario before as the defender I've gone for defending the three objectives furthest back while committing only delaying forces to the front two objectives.

This time I thought I'd try a different plan and go for a solid defensive line as far forward as possible. The advantage of this approach is that firstly it would be harder for Andy to achieve the devastating flanking attacks he has become very adept at and secondly if all went well I'd only have to survive ten turns (five of Andy's and five of mine). The downside was that to hold the entire line would use up almost all my forces with nothing left in reserve and only single bases holding the other objectives. If Andy broke through the line the game could be over very quickly as well.

My force consisted of an Infantry Brigade supported by the 'Tiger of the early war' Matilda tanks and an Armoured Brigade. I ended up with only 11 terrain choices but still managed to make a decent defensive position and cover the 10 turn objective with a river. The Infantry Brigade deployed on the left, the Armoured Brigade on the right. Andy had a Panzer KG on his right, an Infantry KG in the centre and a Fallschirmjäger KG on his left:

The Germans move up their infantry and Fallschirmjäger while the Panzer KG makes an immediate attack in the open ground to my left which is thrown back by the mighty Matilda's:

A second attack by the Panzer KG is repelled as well:

The German attack is repulsed all along the line:

Another attack on the right of my line fails:

Things are going no better for the Germans in the centre with only one small gain and heavy losses:

With the first objective successfully evacuated, the German units largely spent and the next two objectives unlikely to fall in time the Germans withdraw to reconsider their plans:

I thought it was probably going to be a short but brutal game and that certainly was the case, after a few turns Andy's Germans had taken a pasting not helped by some poor combat dice on his part which made many of his attacks ineffective. On reflection I suspect that if Andy had massed against one part of the line that might have worked better, by matching my line he ended up with few reserves as well so had nothing to follow up on the damage his initial attacks did. All in all a good start for the new army, maybe next time I will use them as Late War British.