We used my existing late war German Heer platoon (Phil) and British motor platoon (Andy). We played the basic patrol scenario but I didn't roll for reinforcements - I just gave Andy an Adjutant and a Medical Orderly to try and balance things up.
We played a Patrol Phase with option of trying again if we didn't like the results first time around but we decided to stick with the Jump Off Points we'd selected (British in purple and Germans in Red/Black above).
Looking at the Jump off points, it was fairly obvious that there would be a race for the pair of semi-detached cottages near the road junction.
Sadly I was a bit too busy running the game to take photographs regularly.
The Germans advanced past the water tower with a single squad whilst another squad (just visible behind the hedge at the top of the picture below) advanced towards the cottages.
Meanwhile British sections appeared in the ruined cottage and behind the rock outcrop.
Phil set up a strong base of fire behind the hedge across the road junction from the cottages...
... whilst the British Platoon Sergeant led a rifle team into one of the cottages.
Soon, each half of the semi was occupied; Germans in one half and Brits in the other.
Early in the action, long range Bren fire caused some German casualties including wounding an NCO. As a result German Force morale dropped to to just six before their superior firepower, mainly as a result of the MG42s began to tell.
Casualties and shock began to mount on the one and a half British sections in the garden of the ruined cottage. A close assault by the Germans was very bloody but eventually saw them just about holding both of the cottages.
The remnants of a German section were forced to take cover in a small clump of trees.
A British section had been planning a flanking move, protected by the garden wall but with most of the rest of the platoon casualties and their corporal wounded, Andy decided to withdraw and concede the game. At the time the British Force Morale was 2 and that of the Germans was 4.
In retrospect, the British motor platoon is probably not an easy unit for a novice player to handle. Andy didn't make any use of the 2" mortar team that could have made a considerable difference with its smoke-laying capability. Mind you, Andy did roll a considerable shortage of ones with his command dice.
Comments afterwards were that Chain of Command was very different to the WW2 games we had played previously. With 20mm figures, the ground scale is far closer to the figure scale than, say, Arc of Fire or Disposable Heroes. As a result the game is actually less abstract - what you see is closer to what you get. Clearly COC was a game that we'd have to play several time to get the hang of. The encouraging thought was what all of us were keen to have another go. In fact Phil went home and bought himself a copy!
2 comments:
I think a failure to deploy and/or use the 2" mortars and their smoke contributed to my demise as the British in a CoC game on Thursday. That and the strangely abstract terrain :)
OK, been and had a look. See what you mean.
The interesting thing about the CoC ground scale is that a typical Normandy bocage country field is about the size of a 6'x4' table!
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