The temperature was in the low 20's but the sun was shining, so I ventured up the great white north and traveled to Yonkers. Serious boots and long johns proved to be unnecessary since Dennis lives very close to the Metro North station. I didn't have to walk in snow or slush.
He set up a game of Chain of Command on his dining room table. It being the first game for both of us, we decided to keep everything as simple as possible, no elite troops, no vehicles. Dice gave me command of a British platoon on the defense and he got a Wermacht platoon trying to probe past my lines. Dennis rolled a 2 for support. As attacker, he chose an additional senior leader (a sergeant?). I chose an adjutant to move my reserves along smoothly. I ended up not using him at all. German force morale was 11, British was 9. We went through the patrol phase and determined jump-off points. That took 15 or 20 minutes.
Dennis went first and deployed the LMG team from his 1st squad on his left. I deployed my first section in the sunken road in front of them and fired on them, causing some shock.
On his next phase he deployed his second squad on his left and returned fire with the LMG team. I wasn't keeping track of how many phases we played, but there were a quite a few. The rest of the German 1st squad joined their LMG team along with the platoon CO.
I deployed my third section in the road near the church, along with the platoon mortar. This fired on the 2nd German squad.
I could not roll a 4 for activation and both my platoon CO and sergeant stayed in reserve, probably having a cup of tea with the adjutant. I had passed up an earlier chance to deploy one of them.
The 2nd British section wounded the German platoon sergeant who was with the 2nd squad. German morale dropped to 9. They fired back and killed the NCO leading my 2nd section. My morale dropped to 7.
Now I was really jumpy, as the 2nd section was losing men, picking up shock and had no leader to rally them or move them. They did continue to fire. But shock was affecting their firepower.
The 3rd section ran into the church ruins at the double, aiming the Bren gun to the right with a couple riles, and the other 4 rifles aimed to the left at the 1st Squad and their LMG in the gulley.
Then Dennis' activation roll turned up a pair of 6's and he knew the next phase was his. The 3rd German squad had been waiting behind a hill.
They ran out on the double, two phases in a row, heading for the British table edge. That would be the game. I knew we couldn't let him see our tea service, handed down from the Duke of Earl. The 2nd section on my right opened up at close range with the Bren gun, losing some dice due to shock. The 3rd section in the church also fired at effective range. No hits were scored but the shock piled up. Dennis had 10 men in the squad and 6 points of shock. His next activation saw another pair of sixes – he had two back-to-back phases again. Within 4 inches of so of the table edge his dice deserted him. Moving at the double, he rolled 3 dice for a total of 6. 6 was subtracted for shock and gave him no movement. They must have tripped over each other. Moving at the double gives 1 shock, so he was up to 7 for the squad. My next activation saw me roll a pair of 4's. The platoon sergeant deployed with 2nd section, rallied off two shock points and ordered the Bren to fire on the squad in the open. No hits, but more shock piled up.
The platoon CO deployed near the Church. He ordered the mortar to fire on the same target.
Then he rallied one shock point off the section in the ruined church and had them fire on the German squad off our right. The score was two hit and one shock. One of the hits wounded the squad NCO. The other dropped an enlisted man. When the dust settled, the German 3rd squad had 9 surviving members and 9 points of shock. They were pinned, unable to move within a short distance of their objective. My last activation roll had included 3 6's, so the first turn was finally over and the next would start with my phase.
But we'd played about two hours and the train home beckoned. We ould not leave the game set up on the dinner table. Dennis' wife would not approve, so we called the game a tie. We enjoyed the game. It would go faster next time if we printed out the QRS available on the TFL site and had proper shock markers. We had about 5 casualties per side, though that number would have gone up if we got into a prolonged firefight. A most interesting game.
goes beyond the straight line.
