So, I went through my notes and put a lot of thought into the my new micro armor rules after the last game and decided I needed to do a few things. I was troubled by the amount of damage/suppression at long range against troops. I wanted more variation in recovery based on troop quality. I needed to adjust indirect artillery to improve its suppressive affect. Finally, I needed some overall simplification in calculating fire die and dealing with mixed company effects. So, I came up with the approaches and adjusted my quick reference guides and formation card stats.
Theorizing is one part, testing is another. Sooo, I was looking forward to the next game, so I could try everything out and see the interactions by players. WWII Tuesday was back up on the monthly calendar, so I had my chance.
I sent out the message to the group and went to my FLGS to set up the terrain and await my players. I then started getting cancellations. I quickly lost my American players, so thought it was going to be a bust night. Then the texts started coming in for other players that do not normally show up and I had enough for the game after all. The only issue was I had planned on a US vs SS scenario, but those players cancelled. I had brought some of my Wehrmacht and British troops, so I had to organize with what I had. Fortunately, I had infantry forces for both sides, with more than enough support!
I decided to represent some of the fighting in southern holland, along the German boarder. I adjusted the terrain to fit the area and organized forces for each side.
The German player would have a Grenadier Regiment of three battalions. Two battalions were full strength and the third (which was a fusilier battalion) was understrength. The fusiliers had a company of Hetzers attached. The formation was supported by a battalion of 105mm guns off table. The Germans would be the defenders and would start entrenched and have registered artillery.
The British would be represented by and Infantry brigade of three battalions. This formation was supported by an Infantry Tank battalion of Churchills and two regiments of 25lb artillery.
The Germans could deploy anywhere on the table. The British would enter from the west board edge or at twelve inches from the closest German troops, which ever was closer. The victory conditions was to contain the most town squares. There were a total of fourteen on the board, with the largest cluster being Tilburg.
The Germans decided to deploy forward and grab twelve of the towns and have one other in range of counter attack, if the British ignored it. This meant that the bulk of the British forces would arrive from the board edge.
The German plan was to deploy their three battalions in line across the front and shift sideways if they needed to. They placed the regimental assets behind Tilburg to weight their firepower on that flank.
The British plan was to concentrate on Tilburg with all but one of their battalions. The remaining battalion would attack on their left flank. The remaining formations would concentrate on two sides of Tilburg and drive the Germans back and continue through to the village behind for the victory.
The British attack ran into a few challenges early, as their battalions were slow off the mark and got in each others way in their forward movement. This allowed the Germans to concentrate their fire on each battalion as it moved forward. At the same time, the pinning British flank battalion decided to go into all out attack against the defending Germans.
All the attacks moved forward with gusto and Into a hail of fire. The pinning flank battalion tried to push forward, but was spent in its attempt. The facing Germans gathered their remaining forces and went into counter attack to drive them back and take the town to their front. At this point, the Germans here decided to stop their advance and consolidate on their hard fought terrain, while the British fell back to reorganize.
The assault on Tilburg went in a similar fashion. The British kept pressing and feeding more units into the fight. Each taking it on the chin in turn. However, the weight of attackers was too much and the Germans were forced to fall back outside of Tilburg.
Realizing they were not hurt so bad and that the British were on the verge of giving up, the Germans launched a counter attack to take back the town before the British could occupy their hard fought objective. The Germans were faster (rolled better on their initiative and got into position first. The British tried one more assault to finish off the Grenadiers. The Grenadiers managed to hold on by their finger nails. The British however ended up falling back with two of their battalions spent.
This left the British with one battalion to attack with. At this point, the Fusiliers holding the center started to shift and the British conceded they had nothing left to go forward with and called off the attack. The Germans had taken losses, but held their ground and gave the British a very bloody nose. In the end, it was a clear German victory.
Everything played well. I had mostly new players, so it was a good test to see if the simplification helped and it did. The players were running their own combats on turn two. The other changes seemed to work well also, as the defender was not just blown out of their holes at range and had to be assaulted (with carnage on both sides). The assaults ended up being the mechanism for forcing battalions back, which is what I wanted.
Now I just need to go through my notes and see if there is anything else. If not, it is time for me to incorporate some of the more advance rules into the next game!
- Manteuffel