More Chain of Command on the Western Front

On Tuesday I had another chance to play against Lees cracking WWI British using Chain of Command with the 'CoCing Up Mud and Blood' supplement for Late First World War battles.

I set the table up for an 'Attack and Defend' scenario and when Lee arrived we rolled off for who would be attacker and defender. My Germans would be attacking.

We both rolled for Force Morale and would both start at eleven, this would be a blood-thirsty engagement!

After playing out the Patrol Phase we rolled for Force Support, with five points Lee took two Stokes Mortars and 18" of barbed wire that he deployed in a 12" and 6" section in front of two of his positions. I had eleven point sand spent it on Pre-game barrage with Feurwaltz and Gas, an Adjutant, a Sniper, a MG08 machine gun, I added another Lewis gun to one of my machine-gun sections and a off-table Granatewerfer.

Under cover of the barrage, the Germans commenced their attack, on the left two Rifle-grenadier sections pushed through and around a section of destroyed woodland while on my right the enhanced Light machine-gun section and Maxim MG/08 deployed to pour fire into any positions that the British were able to occupy.

However, despite being down to four Command Dice and and needing fives to deploy any troops the British were soon occupying their firing positions and subjecting my supporting troops on the right flank to a barrage of rifle grenades, Stokes mortar bombs and small arms fire. The first to fall in the enhanced Light machine-gun section was the Gefreiter so the despite the main attack going in on my left the Leutnant had to rush to bolster on the right. With a certain degree of inevitability he was my second casualty. 

With all the British fire directed at my supporting sections, my two Rifle-grenadier sections were able to push up on the left and were soon occupying the British trench on that flank. The fire from the Maxim along with the remnants of the Light machine-gun section were also able to break the British Rifle-grenadiers, wounding their Corporal as they went, and they bolted to the rear.

I ended the turn with a Chain of Command die, capturing a Jump-off point and causing the British Rifle-grenadiers to flee taking their Corporal with them, things were not looking too bad.

Pushing on from their consolidated position the German Rifle grenadiers pushed onto the central objective, brushing aside a British Bomber section who had been pushed into the line to consolidate that flank, however, under a barrage of Stokes mortar rounds my Light machine-gun section first broke and then were cut down to a man ending ant German hopes of a breakthrough.

A great game again and quite close in the end.  

Both sets of figures are from Great War Miniatures supplied by Northstar. I painted the Germans while Lee did the British. The terrain is from my collection.