Friday 21 April 2023

Chain of Command Case Yellow Campaign Game 1 'Probe' German v British

Having discovered that, surprisingly, there is another club which meets in a café near where I live and play CoC campaigns I thought I'd join in one.

The campaign is a little different to our usual Pint Sized Campaigns in that there are several participants on each side and you can play as many games in each campaign phase as you wish given the time limit. This also means you (probably) won't play the same person every game. It's an interesting concept and should work well with a lot of enthusiastic participants.

The campaign is based on the German invasion of France in 1940. As they were short of German players I joined the German side using a 1st Wave Platoon which is strong in numbers but gives 4 extra support points to the opposition every game.

My first game was against Alex who used the British Regulation 1940 Platoon. With only 3 support points I chose an Adjutant, Jean Claude the sniper and a 5th Columnist. Alex had a small French tank (an R35 I think), a couple of minefields and some wire.

The scenario was 'Probe' where the attacking Germans have to get a team off the opposing table edge. The French countryside is initially peaceful:


The patrol phase sees both forces advancing towards the farm. The minefields and wire block (to some extent) the Germans on the right:

The Germans are pleased to get jump off points fairly far forward:

Two German sections deploy, both on overwatch:

The British respond with an allied French R35 tank. With only 3 support the Germans couldn't choose anything to damage a tank so it is almost invulnerable:

The German section by the barn moves along the edge of the minefields and wire:

While one German squad makes it's way around the minefield to the stone wall a third squad and the mortar team deploy to replace them in front of the barn:

The R35 fires HE at them and the first casualty of the attack takes a hit:

The Germans push on reaching the fields beyond the minefield with Feldwebel Beckenbauer urging them on:

Further HE fire from the Renault puts another German Landser down:

Rather surprisingly no British forces have deployed yet. Where are they?! The German section on the right continues forward into the fields:

The British appear to have left it too late to deploy, the Germans close down the only British jump off point on the right of the table. They do have the Renault to fire at any emerging Germans but will it be enough?

To keep up the pressure on the (still non-existent) British the 4th German section deploys on the left:

Led by Obergefrieter Mueller the rifle team make a dash for the table edge! The Renault fires it's MG but only manages to put one German down and wound Obergefrieter Mueller:

With a double turn and a CoC dice to use the German rifle squad makes it off the table to complete the mission:

Total losses for the Germans were three men, one of whom was killed with the remaining two missing the next game. As no British troops deployed at all and the Germans had nothing to hurt the tank not a single shot was fired by the Germans!

One of the more unusual games of CoC I've had, Alex felt he didn't have a suitable opportunity to deploy his British and relied on the Renault to stop the German advance. However, early war tanks are not that powerful at all (for example with few crew the Renault can't fire it's machine gun and main gun at the same time) so the Germans could just ignore it and accept the losses from it's occasional fire while crossing the table, admittedly with some nice movement rolls which helped.

My next game will be a Blitzkreig scenario against Rory's British in which I'll have a mighty 18 support points with Rory getting 15 so we should see plenty of kit on the table!

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