After finishing up To the Square, Martin proposed a scenario from Journal #8. It features board 12, and more notably, the marketplace there is not only not SSRed out of existence, but is likely to be a central part of the climax of the scenario.
The evacuation of Dunkirk is underway, and the Germans are starting forward again. The British are holding Wormhoudt as part of the perimeter, with twelve squads (mostly 1st Line), a HMG, MMG, a pair of light MTRs, a pair of ATR, and a 40mm AT Gun. A pair of A10s show up on turn 2, and then a pair of Matilda IIs on turn 4. The main defense is of the board 12 village, while the tanks have to cross board 16 to get there, and the Germans start in a small corner of board 19. They have fourteen squads (mostly 4-6-8 SS with a couple assault engineer 548 SS), with good leadership, the usual MGs and MTRs, as well as two DCs and and two ATRs. Two each Pz IIIs and IVs enter on turn 1, followed by a pair of unarmored halftracks towing 150mm INF on turn 2.
The Germans have 7.5 turns to get more VPs than the British, with each building on board 14 giving as many VPs as it has locations, with a bonus for the Marketplace, added to the CVP totals. The Germans also have a CVP cap of 45, which mostly means don’t lose the tanks and a bunch of infantry.
The Germans also get one free Smoke FFE at the start of the game, which he put in 19L8, and errored to N7. I hadn’t properly thought about that part, and it pretty well closed down my plan to keep him to a slow pace across the open areas of the board. I had set up concentrated on the woods line near the edge of board 19, with a Dummy off in the X6 farmhouse, and an ATR and MTR on my left flank, where they could cause some interference, and then presumably fall back… with little to no cover, but at long range. Naturally, the main line would need to fall back after a couple turns, and then the fight for the town would begin, with my ATG in 12P5, the HMG and 9-2 in O4h2 (the type of thing I’ve found to be too vulnerable, but at the opening ranges…), and the MMG over in U5. He opened up with his MTRs on the flanks of my main line, but missed.
His first move was a HS who was pinned as I set up a fire lane, but after that, he moved in his tanks, and used smoke dispensers (succeeding three out of four times) to create another barrier of smoke behind the FFE, and then the assault engineers put down another hex. This left me with little to do, as most of the shots were poor, if not outright blocked. Worse, shortly after the tanks drove CE through the FL with no result other than his sniper pinning a backfield squad, the LMG malfunctioned, shutting down the FL.
Situation, German Turn 1, showing the full board. North is to the left, the victory area is between the blue dashed lines, and many buildings have been redefined as two-story buildings instead of multi-story. There should be a bunch of shellholes scattered around board 19, but both of us missed them during setup.
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