After finishing the first two of a three-set of scenarios on Crete from For King and Country (and originally from ASL Annual ’89), Tracey and I went for the third, after swapping sides. So this time I’m the invading Germans, and I need to take the bridge from the first scenario, and take out the AA guns from the second one.
This version gives me some interesting extra decisions. It’s a nine-turn scenario (longer than either of the originals), and the Germans arrive in two waves of gliders, on turns 1 and 4. It’s fairly obvious that the first wave came in on the guns, and the second on the bridge ‘historically’, but there is nothing that demands that here, as the gliders can come in anywhere you want in the three-board play area. The British on the other hand, are limited to setting up in accordance to their original areas in the first two scenarios.
His setup around the bridge was not dissimilar to mine (though definitely different), while the AA Guns were parked at the ends of the runways and facing outward, with everyone else in nice easy reach of them. (That kind of invites just landing on the runways as the AA has to change CA to fire on them at all, but the Germans will probably take some point-blank -1 shots as they get out, which certainly scared me off.)
After some debate, I opted for going after the guns first, and possibly bringing on the second wave to help with that, and then everyone can rush the bridge in the extended time at the end (our play of “Tavonritis Bridge” showed just how fast that defense can collapse). So I concentrated on the southmost gun, with a few landings on the long board-11 hill to keep the NW busy. The AA fire was completely ineffective (common, and helped by the same beginning-of-game dust as “Bofors Bashing”), just leaving me a couple of landing DRs for my more ‘daring’ placements. Naturally, I rolled 6-6 for the main one, causing it to go long, and land past the woods it was supposed to land in front of (and on top of a British unit!). Another one in that set landed one hex short, putting it in a sunken road, but both did well on the crash drs. In the other main group, a couple went a bit long, putting one in brush, and one on top of another glider, and one was a hex short, but all of those landed fine as well.
Tracey’s only DFPh fire was at the glider that landed on top of him, and even TPBF was unable to harm the glider. Similarly, my only fire was in the same hex, and couldn’t do anything to him. An old Gamesquad thread wonders if there’s a CC counter immediately placed from my guys emerging on top of his, but it never came to a solid conclusion. We played it as ‘no’, which allowed me to advance out of the hex (the British were still concealed from me having no units on board when they fired, and I didn’t want to accept a likely Ambush).
Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left. I need to clear the British from between the blue lines on board 8, and destroy the three AA guns. There is Moderate Dust for the first two turns, and Light Dust for the third. As most of the action was on board 14, any time I don’t give a board with a hex number, that’s where it is.
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As ever, Osprey has produced another good book looking outside of the usual Anglophone center of western Europe.
Lord Cochrane is one of the primary inspirations for the various literary Age-of-Sail sea captains, that have been a tradition since the early Nineteenth Century. As such, you’d expect that he’d be well known. But at the same time he was getting a good reputation amongst authors, he was getting a bad reputation amongst historians.