A brisk patrol action in No Mans Land

As regular readers will be aware I'be been quite busy painting up the WWI French and Germans for our Chain of Command games. Chum Lee had also acquired some Great War Miniatures British and was keen to join in the fun.

Last week he completed the paint job, and despite a bit of a problem with the matt varnish 'frosting' he was ready for his introductory game.

Lee has played a few games of Chain of Command before, but we though that a good introduction to WWI would be to start with a Patrol scenario pitting his 1917 British against my Germans.

We rolled a '1' for Force Supports so I took an Adjutant and Lee with his bonus point from the difference in Force Ratings took an off-table Stokes Mortar.

Lee fielded:

• Platoon HQ: Lieutenant, Senior Leader, with pistol, Sergeant, Senior Leader, with rifle
• Rifle Section: Corporal, Junior Leader, with rifle, Eight riflemen
• Bomber Section: Corporal, Junior Leader, with rifle, Three bombers, Five riflemen
• Rifle-bomber Section: Corporal, Junior Leader, with rifle, Four rifle grenade launchers with two crew each
• Lewis-gun Section: Corporal, Junior Leader, with rifle, One Lewis gun with two crew, Six Riflemen
• Support: Stokes Mortar

I fielded:

• Platoon HQ: Leutnant, Senior Leader, with pistol
• Two Rifle Gruppe each: Gefreiter, Junior Leader, with rifle, Eight riflemen, Two bombers
• Two Light Machine-gun Gruppe each: Gefreiter, Junior Leader, with rifle, One MG08/15 or Lewis Gun with two crew, Eight riflemen
• Support: Adjutant

The terrain was laid out and we both rolled for Force Morale, my Germans would start on an 11 and the British on a 9.

We kicked off a very vanilla patrol phase and ended up pretty much with two rows of jump-off points shown in the photo. It's not immediately obvious from the photos, but the terrain was quite rolling with several low hills.

The British were first to the table deploying their Lewis gun section in the central destroyed wood on overwatch and it soon started a firefight with my own MG15/08 gruppe. I moved, under cover of a low rise to take the wood in the top right of the overhead shot, but the Bomber Section countered my advance and a brisk fight with rifles and grenades ensued.

The Gefreiter leading the advance went down so I had to bolster that flank with my Leutnant.

 My light machine-gun gruppe was getting shot up pretty badly by the Lewis-gun section so I deployed my other light machine-gun gruppe to bolster the line and the second rifle gruppe moved to reinforce the first, the Germans were now fully committed.

The British soon deployed their rifle-bomber section and my central light machine-gun gruppe panicked and fled under the barrage. However, as they concentrated on that gruppe, my other light machine-gun gruppe redeployed at very close range to them and were soon pouring fire into the rifle-bombers.

However on my right things were going badly, having dispatched the bomber section I reinforced with my second rifle gruppe, and pushed on into the blasted woodland. However Lees reinforcing rifle section laid down a deadly fire.

My Leutenant fell, the section broke and the German Force Morale collapsed. Bugger!

Lee really enjoyed his first game of CoCing Up Mud & Blood and we'll get a few more games organised over the next few weeks.

Here are a load more images from the game.