And now we come to the CoC part.
After the excellent day of Lion Rampant, Sunday was spent round at Simon’s house for a game of Chain of Command with LT (Levied Troop, John F). Simon has an excellent little games room where we played some excellent Sharp Practice earlier in the year. I’ve owned CoC since it came out but not had chance to try them yet, despite seeing several demo games at shows and reading many good things about them.
Yet again, Simon had set up an excellent table, with all the nice little touches that really make it look the part.
Now, as this was well over a week ago my memory is getting a little hazy! But, I took the Germans with 3 teams (rifle section, MG42, junior leader with panzerfaust), panzerschreck section, sniper section, unarmed halftrack, senior leader. I was defending a target location which I placed at the far left of the table between the two buildings. Facing me were 4 British teams (rifle, bren and junior officer), mortar section, two senior leaders, a bren carrier (I hate them!) and a Churchill tank.
The patrol phase was a proper cat and mouse affair as I pushed forward taking control of the central buildings and the hedge line north of them (I’m assuming up is north!). This gave me a very forward defence but I hoped to catch the Brits in the open ground and then fall back on the western buildings for a last stand! This was the view from behind my lines.
First chance I brought on a full team in the central (grey) building and set up on the first floor. And as the Brits began to cross the fields and open ground my MG42 and rifle teams started to take their toll.
I finally managed to bring another team into play to the north to cover a flanking move across the open ground. The hedges did not block line of site and only provided soft cover.
The team crossing to their front was to take terrible losses as they failed to cross the open ground quickly enough!
Despite running from back to front of the building several times my main team in the centre allowed the enemy to cross the ground and take up position in their blind spot.
With support this allowed them to bring fire on my other team holding the road/hedge forcing them to retire
Meanwhile the Brits brought the mortar team into play to lay smoke.
As the British carrier and Churchill arrived on table my central strongpoint came under threat I tried to drive off the infantry threatening them.
As the tank brought the building under fire my team was forced to withdraw as well and despite my best efforts withdrawing back to the last line of defence just wasn’t happening! It was now that the bren carrier made a dash for the victory location!
I had three junior leaders with sight along the road and two MG42s and NOTHING I did hit or stopped the carrier! I even used my CoC dice to bring the ‘schreck team on and they missed as well!
It eventually got close to the victory location and an MG42 forced one minor pull back but it pushed forward again!
Things were getting desperate. With no troops able to get near I brought on the half track and rammed the thing!
But it was not enough. The carrier team dismounted and victory was theirs!
It was an excellent game and great fun playing LT. The writeup may seem a little vague in CoC terms but the flow felt right. You had to plan properly and time things. I left my troops too vulnerable at the time they needed to pull back and the fast and low carrier was just way too hard to hit!
I really enjoyed it and thanks to Simon for putting on such a great little game and to LT for being a fine opponent.
Now, will CoC work in 6mm…. 🙂
GM has a really nice setup, he’s put a lot of effort into his terrain.
It was an excellent game of cat and mouse and the table looked the business. Great fun all round. The Bren carrier was a desperate gamble on my part as I really wasn’t making enough progress against sturdy boche opposition – the driver used up 8 lives at least!
The Bren carrier was a lucky sod! Well played though!