For my second game of Chain of Command at the Lenton club, I played Mike in a one off Desert Battle, ostensibly set somewhere in Libya during the arrival of the Afrika Corps and pitting Mikes Germans against my resiliant British forces.
We decided to roll for the mission and the support once the table was set up, and I'd settled on an openish table with a couple of rocky outcrops to represent the kind of terrain the protaganists would have been fighting over.
I'd covered pretty much most of the supports vailable for the brits, and when we rolled for a 'flanking attack' mission and worked out I would be the defender, we played the patrol phase.
The Germans (with the benefit of the attacking edges) get two sets of three patrol markers working independently, the brits start all their 3 patrol markers in their quarter. This is tough, I knew I'd have to get out early to keep Jerry as far away as possible, but I had to either sacrifice an edge to get out early or stay in the middle and hope for the best. Three patrol markers can't cover two directions, but I held in the middle and hoped Mike would roll low for free moves. He didn't!
Before we'd even started I had 4 Jerry Patrol markers within 24" of my position. this was going to be tough.
I knew I'd be facing 6 LMG's and probably a Panzer III, but the mission required a stout defence so I'd decided to just try and hold up the germans until they ran out of time. However, if I could stall them enough I could hope for a draw.
Mike popped up 3 JOPS on my left flank and one in front, and I had two of my JOPS around the rocky outcrop on the right, one slightly forward to hold off the right side and one nearly in the left corner. That one was close to two of Mikes JOPS, but I wanted to try and capture them both quickly and I figured that was where the fight was going to come from.
Although it's only my second game of CoC, I've watched a few others and there seems to be a very quick 'close to contact' effect which usually ends up with a couple of sections battling away in a small area of the board, and this happened again in between these two rocky outcrops.
I'd selected as my support a Matilda II (because I'd just painted it and wanted to get it on the table), an extra 2" mortar and a set of entrenchments. Mike had (unbeknown to me) selected an extra Senior Leader, a Panzer III and a SdKfz 221, but I think he was mostly hoping for a brief period of firepower superiority with his 6 LMG teams.
As a defensive battle unfolded, I struggled to get my teams on and use smoke to blind the Axis LMG's, and this resulted in an isolated section getting heavily shocked, taking casualties and eventually being pinned.
One section I'd placed in hard cover were ignored, and their fire was relatively ineffective as well.
I ended up deploying a senior leader to try and deal with the shocked section, and he ended up getting killed, and although at this point I'd managed to blind a couple of LMGs with smoke and keep Mikes Panzer III busy with my Matilda, eventually he used his CoC dice to end the turn, take two JOPs, rout one section and force the 2" mortar to surrender. This, inevitably, lead to a total collapse of morale and a withdrawal by the British.
An interesting game and one full of lessons. A 3" mortar observer would have been a better choice as would a Vickers MMG, but that would have meant no Matilda. I would have been able to use the 2" mortar to smoke the axis LMG's, use overwatch on the sections and MMG to protect the lines of advance and then the 3" mortar to pound the enemy JOPs. Also I didn't need the 4th JOP really, however I felt I needed a forward JOP to threaten Mikes JOPs, otherwise it would have just been a case of sitting back and taking it on the chin.
Hopefully there will be more CoC, in the Desert or in the Fields of Normandy soon!
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