Battle Report - 24-Jun-2013 - Chain of Command

Another Chain of Command play test with Gary and Carl. This time I got to play, co-commanding the British with Carl. As before, British platoon + Firefly vs German platoon + PzIV + Panzershreck.

The patrol phase was interesting: the Germans (approaching from the west/left) wound up with jump off points at A, B and C. I got over interested in making sure I denied Gary a patrol marker in the field top dead centre of the picture, and having done so, continued to remain too interested in it and placed a jump off point at Z, which what pretty useless. Why? Because my jump off points at X and Y were pretty much isolated from each other by the buildings between, and the one at Z (on the edge of the table because there was no cover behind the patrol marker) got me pretty much nothing useful that I couldn't reach from Y.

As an aside, the letter of the rules makes Y a legit jump off point - it's in cover from the nearest two German patrol markers, which were in the open field just north of the middle of the road. It prompted some discussion on the list as to whether that was really meant to be, and the rules will probably be clarified such that it's not in future, and I should have moved it back to the hedge on the road. (Aside, before anyone accuses me of being a rules lawyer: I have found in the past that the Lardies' rules do tend to be written such that the letter and the spirit are usually very close together. :) )

So, in short, I made a right pig's ear of the patrol phase. It didn't help that the two buildings Gary could deploy in had windows overlooking the fields and .... well, the other two in my half of the table didn't.

I held off deploying much until Gary had committed pretty much everything: the Firefly came on top right, and I deployed a section at X and then promptly hid it behind the house. What I really wanted deployed was the 2" mortar, to try and lay smoke - unfortunately, it got the living daylights machinegunned out of it the first phase it showed up, and that was... pretty much that, really.

On the good side, the first a German rifle team from C saw of any of my troops was when a full section deployed behind the hedge from Y and close-combatted the bejaysus out of them! But that was pretty much the only good. We were excessively cautious with the Firefly, trying to avoid getting shot at by the PzIV and the 'Shreck, and ... all in all? This fire and movement thing needs work.

Having said that? Still loving it :D

Start saving your pennies/Paypal balance, because Chain of Command is not far away - it's entering final proofing/typesetting right now.