29 Let’s Go – a Chain of Command campaign - first game

Thursday evening we had a great game of the Chain of Command campaign 29 Let’s Go by Too Fat Lardies. It’s one of their pint sized campaigns – for the price of a pint (£3.50) you’ll get a 32 page campaign set in D-day +1 when the US 175^th Infantry Regiment (played by Thomas) pushed in-land to try to link the beach-heads Omaha and Utah. Against them I played the 352^nd Infantry Division, tasked with delaying the aggression of the overseas imperialists against the unified Europe.

Spoiler Alert!

If you want to play this campaign the following might spoil your fun, so don’t read further than this. I think it is safe for Thomas to read, though. (I am withholding some information for his sake J)

The board from my side. There's an orchard on the left side of the road this side of the hedge. We had no more trees left, though.

We played the first scenario – Probe at la Cambe. Unfortunately our terrain was spread in different locations so it was a bit improvised and I forgot to take pictures most of the time.

My mission was to hold the line and not let any enemies exit the board on my side. My problem is that I have to conserve my forces as I only got one infantry platoon and losses from that will spill over into later games in the campaign. So if I put on an all or nothing defence and lose a lot of soldiers they might be lost permanently or temporarily. I got very limited support and no AFV:s in this scenario. 

Against me I have an enemy that will pump in a fresh platoon every new game and also have a lot more support than I have.

I started really scared of the US firepower that can really punish you and I was anxious not to lose any men this early in the campaign.

Oh, no! An unpainted gun. It will surely die.

Anyway it started very well for me as I deployed my PaK 40 the first round and knocked out one of Thomas’ Shermans immediately. 

My unpainted gun killed his unpainted Sherman. Poetic justice.

The tin-foil tank exploded. Really satisfied with that. 

A painted tank this time. Unpainted ammo can't do nothing against that.

I damaged and shocked the other tank before my heroic gunners were killed or routed. 

Stangely enough everything from Thomas' side of the board targeted my poor gun.

Anyway that destroyed half the enemy armour and had the other half covering and hanging back for a long time.

Coward!

Then I didn’t do much other than collect Chain of Command dice for a long time as Thomas advanced slowly over open fields with his infantry. I had no men on the board and was just waiting for the right moment to unleash hell on him.

Finally he moved his remaining tank forward and I sprung my second surprise on him – an off-board 88 (the real thing, hehehe) from the flank. At that point I had four Chain of Command dice and I had to use one for every shot with this gun. Three misses on three turns but with the forth I got him. 11 dice penetrated and he saved one. Extra nice explosion as he was close to his own infantry giving losses and shock.

Kaboom!

At this time I deployed another support weapon, an MG 42 on tripod mount. Deadly against infantry in the open. Also one of my squads behind a hedge and another one in a house. The combined firepower was horrible against the men in the open and a few rounds later they had sustained very heavy casualties and some units routed off-board. Thomas called it a day and the Americans ran for their lives (or made an orderly withdrawal, depending on whom your talking to)

My losses were one man down from my platoon (I think). A victory to be proud of.

Thomas looked shell-shocked.

As you can see from the pictures Thomas used more unpainted figures than me – an obvious receipt for disaster and lost games.

Next game will be worse. Much worse. Same scenario, even more Americans this time as they really want to break through and this time they will know what they are up against.

Thank you Laffe for umpiring this!