Chain of Command Pt. I (It's better than sausages)

As I might have mentioned, I not only dug out some old Airfix Desert Rats from my Uncle's and my collections, I also found a victim opponent who had no previous experience in wargmaing. I'm not sure if Chain of Command is the ideal introduction to the hobby, as it is markedly different to other games I've played, but there we go.

The battlefield at the game start, complete with 'jump-off points', from which troops are deployed. You can only see one of mine, the others are in the nearest ploughed field and  wood next to the junction.

The scenario was the first one in the rulebook as both of us are new to the game, and neither platoon had any support available for the purposes of simplicity. The narrative was as follows: On the 7th of June 1944, British forces (in suitable beach attire) are probing towards Caen, while German elements (debilitated by a mix-up in the battalion laundry) are scouting out the Allied positions to prepare for a counter-attack to hurl them back across the channel. This is why my 8th army appear to be fighting the Afrika Korps in Normandy.

Conveniently for me, Suzanne chose to play the more aesthetically pleasing Germans. During preparations my subconscious national pride had driven me to investigate the manifold possibilities of the British 2" mortar or 'smoke machine' rather than how to best exploit the awesome power of the German MGs.

Unlike most games which begin with the placing of troops on the table, Chain of Command begins with a mini-game which decides where troops can be deployed to the table. The 'patrol phase' is a very abstracted way of determined where the enemy and are where they are likely to pop out from (jump-off points). 

The battle develops, and a shoot-out begins between the two woods with my initial probe into the field caught out of position.

I struck lucky with the roll for force morale, getting 11 points to Suzanne's 9. This advantage was immediately squandered when I deployed my platoon sergeant alone into the wood with the nearest support section in a field 9" away. Suzanne mercilessly punished this folly and opened up with an entire squad. Miraculously, my sergeant survived with only a flesh wound, but the morale damage had been done. 

The struggle continued as we committed further forces, and I ended up in an uneven firefight in the wood: the British platoon has less firepower than the Germans and needs to use cunning and smoke to isolate the German squads. My sergeant was down to one wound, I had two squads in the field unable to support him and my command dice hadn't allowed me to deploy my 2" mortar to block line of sight from the murderous MG 34 fire. Things were looking so desperate that I used my Chain of Command Dice (during play one builds up points towards a dice that can be spent to do various fun things) to bring on the mortar as an ambush. This was not the most exciting thing to do with such a valuable asset, but I did end up plonking a smoke round slightly beyond it's aiming point and right on top of Suzanne's left-most squad, blocking their view of the beleaguered Tommies in the woods.

Close of play: The Germans have closed down the British jump-off point on the left, but their attack on the right has been utterly routed...

Seeing that we were running out of time, Suzanne decided to get dangerous. On her left, the obscured squad came round the hill and closed off the British jump-off point, while on the right, the squad in the ruins launched a daring charge against the field under a hail of hand-grenades. Suzanne was disappointed to discover that her troops were not 'cold-blooded murdering' Nazis and merely 'honourable and patriotic' Nazis, and thus were not Agressive Troops receiving bonus dice in combat. The combat proved disastrous, charging an un-pinned section in cover with a light machine gun pointing their way resulted in a heavy defeat and the squad breaking after being reduced to one man and a corporal.

On that dramatic note we had to leave it. Based on the photos we have, there will be an attempt to finish off the battle at a later date. I think things are pretty evenly balanced, with all the effective members of both platoons deployed, and with the Germans threatening the British jump-off point balanced by the almost complete destruction of their squad in the ruins. Over all though, I think the Brits have the advantage by way of their higher force morale, but only just...