On the road to St Omer

Last night I braved the wind and rain on the southern edge of a yellow weather warning zone to pay a first visit to The Steel City Irregulars. This is a small gaming community that Dex McHenry and Alex Sotheran  are building at The Outpost in Sheffield.

I took along Calais - The Road to St Omer to have a first test of its new dedicated game mat. This is the game I'll be running at Joy of Six in the summer.  I was keen to try it out in its current form. 

I originally designed the scenario back in 2000 for the Blitzkrieg 1940 scenario book. Research was more challenging back in those early-Internet days and the modern version of the scenario is more realistic as a result. 

The group was down a couple of regular players as a result of illness and family emergencies but I was able to meet Dean and we quickly got down to playing. Dean chose to command 3RTR and I ran the recon battalion of 10th Panzer Division.

After a brief outline of how the TacWWII rules work, we got down to action. Dean quickly had the British tanks moving aggressively toward the enemy.

This is a challenging scenario for the British as their TAC rating of 7 makes it difficult for them to get properly organised for the attack. Dean quickly grasped that he needed to get to close quarters if the heavy machine-gun-armed Light Tanks Mk VI were going to make a significant contribution.

3RTR Squadrons advance past the station

Air support would be available to both sides subject to a roll of 1 or 2 on a d10 at the start of the turn. This makes the RAF and Luftwaffe way more present than they were in reality. I excuse myself on the grounds that people like to see aircraft models over the table. In addition, part of the aim is to showcase the TacWWII rules and I like how they handle aircraft. 

On the second (or third?) game turn both sides received air support with flights of Hurricanes and Bf-109s appearing. 

As both were rated "Good Fighter", it was a straight dice-off to see who got the jump on the other. My roll of 7 was beaten by Dean's 9. Given the choice to engage my fighters or get in first with a strafing attack, he chose the latter.

The Hurricanes destroyed an SdKfz 231 but the Messerschmitts then evened the score by taking out an A Squadron Cruiser tank.

In true historical fashion the battle became a confusing melee of close-range tank-on-armoured car action.  Both sides' morale is rated Good and this helped keep the action going despite frequent morale tests caused by losses.  The firepower of the German armoured car companies was much reduced by losses but their six-model starting strength makes them quite resilient in morale terms.

At one point a flight of Me-110s chanced an attack on the 3RTR's Headquarters Squadron but to no effect.

Throughout the battle the Germans continued to receive reinforcements.  Unlucky card draws formed a traffic jam of truck-mounted infantry on the hill to the southeast.

The cards weren't entirely cruel to 10th Panzer, though. A light Panzer company (with a mix of Panzers II and III) swept into action on the flank of 3RTR's leading squadron and caused losses at the crucial moment.

At the end of turn five (of eight allowed for in the scenario) 3RTR was forced to take a battalion morale test. Having lost a squadron and with two temporarily withdrawing in the face of the enemy, the result was "Halt". The British formation would no longer advance without express orders from superior command. Quite reasonably Dean elected to concede victory to the Germans. We can assume that, like his historical counterpart, he would pull back into the Calais perimeter.

With only a single previous run-through of the scenario in a quarter of a century, I was pleased with how this updated version went. 

I decided to remove the "sunken road" as although this is mentioned in passing in historical accounts, it doesn't seem to have played a significant role in the action and would just have served to cramp the British player's freedom of manoeuvre.

I thought the table looked okay but I'll probably lay down more fields at Joy of Six and work on fixing down the railway lines.  I'll probably also move the point at which the lead companies clash further back towards Cocquelles to prevent the whole action occurring at one end of the table.

I have to express my thanks to Dean for being a willing and sporting partner in this exploration of history and to Dex and Alex for setting up the session. I'm sorry I didn't get the chance to pay more attention to their neighbouring game of Chain of Command.