"Shortest game of Chain and Command?" Topic

Using Scenario 2 – Probe

Objective – Attacker (British) to get 1 team on defenders base line.

Patrol phase.

Attackers roll- 3 moves

British have higher Force Morale so go first. They are trying to work the patrol markers round the right of the German line. Sacrifice a Marker early on to pin 2 Germans. Patrol ends with Germans refused left flank, and the Brits with a jump off marker on extreme right flank half way across table.

Turn 1 Phase 1- British
Command Roll 6, 6, 6, 6, 2
Bring on a section.
Turn ends. Gain CoC die, Random event Mortars on far end of table
Retain Initiative

Turn 2 Phase 1 – British
Command Roll 6, 6, 3, x, x,
Run section on the table towards enemy base line
Retain Initiative

Turn 2 Phase 2
Roll includes a 3
Run towards enemy base line. Bren team reaches it. Victory condition
completed.

Total time Approx 30 mins.
Total toys on table 10 men.

Sounds like plenty of time left to run a few more then, e.g. can they successfully get back to their own lines with the intel on the weakpoint in the enemy's defenses; straight up follow-on attack; etc.

That was the second game of the evening. We continued to play to see if what the Germans could do, but it made us laugh.

"Ok Chaps. We need you to find a path through the German lines"

" 'ere Chalky- there's no Krauts 'ere. RUN!"

I suspect the (ex-)feldwebel in charge of that section of the line overslept…

Some days the dice run hot.

Beware, since just when things seem to be going too easy, you find out something bad, like discovering you're in the middle of a minefield, or an ambush, etc.

We had opposite, first turn went on and on and on. We could not roll 2 or more 6s to save our lives. I finally used a command die to just to end the turn even though we didn't need to, I just wanted the first turn to end.

Patrol ends with Germans refused left flank, and the Brits with a jump off marker on extreme right flank half way across table.

If the Germans had nothing to counter this position then I'm not surprised. The game was won in the patrol phase. Why refuse a flank if you are trying to defend the base line?

I basically outflanked him, and he couldn't get the patrol markers across to stop me advancing my one on the right. This was compounded with the fact that he didn't get a turn, so it made no difference, he had no one to stop me with!

Turns out we missed

Where one side is defending, that player will select which is his friendly table edge, be that a long or short edge.

Also, the patrol phase ends when one side has all of their patrol markers fixed, regardless of whether the other side still has free markers.

A cunning player might deliberately try to fix his markers early to limit the amount of flanking happening.

Mind you, from the sounds of it, the German player made the mistake of getting two of his markers fixed early. The game was more than 1/2 way won at that point…

Too Fat games are often heavily dependant on working the game mechanics – I had hoped this would be less of a factor in this new game.

Just a design style I guess.

TomT