Wednesday Night 15mm WWII Game

A nice end to "hump day" was another 15mm WWII game using Andrews rules, chez l'auteur!

Dropped in after work, had a couple of beers plus half hour break for Chinese take away dinner and the game was done and dusted by 2030 and I was home by 2100 - can't get much better than that! 

Andrew had set up a scenario around the American break out of the Normandy beachhead - Operation Cobra I believe. I commanded the German defensive force, trying to hold back the advancing Americans. Much of my force started the game concealed.

The battlefield - Americans attacking from the top and victory conditions were for them to end up with more units below the road that bisects the table than the Germans had remaining. German infantry at the bottom is not "there" that's just the holding location for when they have to be revealed! White markers indicate their location.

My force with their tactical factor values ie what you add to the 2 D6 to try to score 9 or greater.

My HQ vehicles - Command Decision metal Kubelwagons

An infantry unit - again Command Decision but these are Andrews figures.

First generation FoW resin and metal models - these are all mine.

Having seen me deploy to cover most of the line of the road, the Americans sneakily concentrated all their forces at one end of the table!

PzKfw IV H deploys in cover on the German left flank.

Situation early in the game - Americans in top left whilst the Germans are spread right along the road - time to redeploy to the left - which I was able to do quite successfully having got 3 of the first 5 activations. 

The lone Panther moved forward on the German right flank and advanced into the American half of the table.

US infantry and armour advance together on the German left. A shot rings out, and one Sherman is knocked out by the 75mm round from a Panzer IV!

A second PzKfw IV waits in cover to contest the bocage with the Ami's!

The Panther slinks forward on the German right.

General view of the battlefield with the Americans still clustered in the top left corner, concentrating on taking one of the two road junctions.

The third Panzer IV advances over the road and takes up a position in the bocage-lined field.

The US infantry has dismounted from their carriers and advanced on foot to occupy the buildings around the road junction. Two of the four Shermans are in the field to the left, exchanging fire with a lone Panzer IV.

Having survived a close assault by the US infantry supported by a Sherman, the Panzer IV in the field has driven the infantry back with loss and then knocked out a second Sherman with its 75mm gun!

The Germans are not having everything their own way, however, as an American "event" card brought an artillery stonk that destroyed the Panther - scheisse!

German infantry revealed themselves as they opened fire on the Amis in the house across the road. At the same time, the mortars went into action, and several hits appeared on the two US infantry units.

The German mortar platoon caused a lot of damage to the US infantry!

A view up the table from the German right flank - most of the fighting was concentrated around the crossroads at the top of this picture. The knocked-out Panther is to the right of the field in the centre right of the image (just below the tape measure!)

The scene at the three quarters point from the American perspective.

The two Shermans continued to trade shots with the single PzKfw IV until it pulled back to consolidate the German defence with the second tank.

An aerial shot of the contested crossroads.

The US Infantry went into close combat a second time with the most forward of the German tanks - the US units all had attached bazooka teams which gave a +2 in close combat with vehicles - this time, the Mark IV was knocked out!

The remaining two German tanks repositioned to the rear of the contested crossroads.

Three of the four US infantry units have sustained casualties - the unit that had been in the timber framed building suffered four hits, forcing them to retire 2 D6 inches (it happened to be 11) - then they failed to rally twice and had to retire another 5 inches! The unit that defeated the German tank is teetering on the brink with 3 hits.....

At this stage, Andrew did a quick count and realised he only had seven units left and with only 6 turns to go, he felt it wasn't possible for the Americans to get more units on the German side of the road than the Germans had left - so he called the game a German victory! We lost two tanks each but I had no hits on anything else and still had a full infantry unit and a Pak 40 AT gun concealed on the battlefield, whereas Andrew had one of his remaining Shermans carrying a hit, three of his four infantry with hits including one that was quite likely to retreat off the table and he had used up all his commanders rally tokens (I still had all 4 of mine).

A fun little game with just the right number of troops for a couple of hours in the middle of the working week! Thanks to Andrew for hosting and giving me another chance to get to know these rules.

Hope you enjoyed the report and pictures - please let me know by leaving your comments!