Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 104 – Go For Broke

It’s been three years.

Three years since I watched a bunch of videos about this wargmaming tournament with monthly games against different opponents each month, each featuring a scenario from various expansions and battle packs which will keep the variety going.

Yes, it’s been exactly three years (May 2021) since I joined the Combat Commander ladder, playing every month except June 2021 (due to personal issues, and what a way to start!) and doing much better than I ever thought I would.

Not only that, but I’ve met a bunch of great people, gamed with them, chatted with them, and gotten to know some of them.

The ladder, administered by the astounding Patrick Pence of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame, is exactly what I described above: a monthly chance to play one of my favourite games with people from all over the world (though with so many members, I’m thankfully pitted against people in the North American time zones for convenience sake).

Not to mention many pickup games, some of which I’ve accounted for on here and some which were fun to play but not very interesting to read about after the fact.

The May scenario is from the C3i Magazine #20, a really interesting scenario with some cool special rules.

Saturday mornings are becoming my gaming mornings, and my opponent Ben T and I matched up last weekend to see who would prevail!

(as usual, you can click on the picture to enlarge it)

The cool thing about this scenario is that the American forces are a regimental combat team (RCT) made up of 2nd-generation Japanese Americans who are fighting through the German lines to rescue a trapped and beleaguered American unit behind those lines.

As you can see from the setup above, the Americans had to fight through minefields, boobytraps, woods and fog to bring them home.

The Americans (me – green) set up first 3 hexes from the left side of the board. Then the Germans (Ben – grey) set up 12 hexes from the right side of the board.

With a ton of mines.

Exit points are doubled (the only Objective counter out) but one of the special rules is that the Germans are worth no points!

That’s both exiting and eliminating, which means it’s pointless for the Germans to try and exit the map unless they are going for a “all Germans have exited, they win!” victory (which thankfully Ben didn’t try, but the Americans set up nearer the bottom were set up to prevent that).

A few other special rules.

The US player can use “Artillery Denied” cards as Recover cards. So they’re no longer useless! (The Germans don’t have artillery…yet).

Moving from left to right (direction 2 or 3) costs an extra 1/2 movement point per hex (you’re running up the slope of the hill).

There’s a -3 Fog hindrance in all hexes. This will reduce by 1 for each Breeze event that comes out.

This isn’t a special rule, but the American forces do have a nice radio with Smoke and everything.

That might come in handy.

Finally, the Railway going from one side of the board to the other doesn’t exist, so those hexes are just open ground.

Would I be able to charge to the other side of the board, getting through all of those mines and withering fire?

Let’s take a look.

One wouldn’t think I could do that given my opening hand.

A lot of firepower, which isn’t the greatest with the fog, and a Recover card which is pointless without being able to move!

And two Ambushes, which don’t matter when you’re not next to anybody.

Since that’s what I had, I opened up by firing both in the north and the south.

I broke a squad and also the German leader Lauerbach up north, but nothing much else.

With Lauerbach broken, however, and having drawn one Move card, it was time to head out in the north through the mines!

On the first minefield attack (for those of you who don’t know the game, when you enter and when you leave a minefield hex, you suffer a 6-firepower attack and you don’t get any cover benefit), I promptly drew a 12 Time trigger on my first morale check.

Sudden Death is at the 7th Time segment and we start at 1 (not 0), so there isn’t a lot of time unless you get lucky with the Sudden Death rolls.

But I couldn’t afford to give up the Initiative this early, so I kept it.

Only one American unit broke, but I still had to use the Recover card because I couldn’t afford to have them broken for long.

Lauerbach (even broken, he can command the units in his hex) then opened fire on the one American unit in his LOS…and I promptly drew the Hero event that brought Lucas on the board!

Let’s see if I would learn to love him as a comrade as much as I hate him as an enemy.

After finally discarding enough and drawing a Recover card, rallying his broken guys, Ben then shifted Lauerbach to block my path around the northern woods.

This could get annoying.

That wouldn’t stop me, though, as I had another Move card!

Captain Sitner and his men moved next to the Germans, firing at them as they went (and breaking the squad they ended up next to).

So Ben quickly got them out of there with an Advance order, where they could still cover the open ground but also be away from the nasty Americans…with guns!

Then Lucas opened up with the artillery bringing it down on Lauerbach’s head…and promptly drew another 12 Time trigger.

Incredibly powerful artillery attack, but another Time meant I needed to get moving.

One German morale check also resulted in a Breeze, bringing the Fog down to a 2-hindrance.

With everybody broken, Sitner went on the move again. They did get fired on but nothing much happened there. A couple units moved back to be with Lucas and broke coming out of the minefields. Another Breeze came out of that one.

Ben had drawn a Recover card, so most rallied. But not all!

And a German sniper broke the American unit still in the mines with the MMG as well.

Dietel (the German Hero) also showed up, rallying the unit that failed to recover. But Lauerbach’s squad didn’t recover, so that wasn’t good for Ben.

Sitner’s men fired, and a German morale check brought out another Sniper that killed the American squad in the mines.

It just was not their day.

But they promptly came back because of a Walking Wounded event…and behind German lines!

Without their MMG, but still.

I had a Recover card, so they quickly rallied too.

The German deck ran out, bringing us closer to Sudden Death, but nothing much else happened other than some US consolidation up north with an Advance order.

I once again had a 5 Fire card, 1 Recover card hand and couldn’t do much other than keep pouring fire in, knowing that I wouldn’t get any points for it and there was no way I was getting Ben to the Surrender level.

But maybe I could open my path?

On one of those Fire attempts, a German morale check Time trigger finally made me give up Initiative. No way I could let Time advance so soon after the German deck had run out.

Then came my one potentially huge mistake, except that I did have a Recover card.

I used Sgt White to call down an artillery strike, knowing that it was risky because even the slightest drift in the wrong direction would be explosive for me.

And it happened.

A Shell Shock event broke a unit that wasn’t even hit by the artillery, and everybody who was hit by it broke.

Though a US sniper also broke a German squad (I was hoping for somebody up north, but alas…)

During the Recover, one of the US squads didn’t rally because I drew a 12 Time trigger! I didn’t have the initiative any more, so one more round done.

Thankfully everybody else did recover.

Ben advanced his broken units in the north away from all of the US firepower facing them, but they were still facing a formidable force.

Which promptly fired, rolling really high and forcing Ben to give me the initiative to get…one point lower.

They all died.

Just in time for Ben to have drawn a Recover card finally!

With only two Time segments left, I knew it was time for Sitner and company to get the hell out of Dodge, so they moved toward the German board edge.

White fired some smoke artillery to hopefully cover things up, and a sniper broke Sgt. Esser down south!

But the smoke went really down south and didn’t help at all.

Ben had started to move one of the southern German squads to see if they could do anything about Sitner leaving, but lack of range and a little bit of smoke kept that from happening.

White was broken by a sniper and then Esser’s people firing ended up killing him.

The Americans in the south were now leaderless.

Not that it really mattered. Nothing was happening down there.

Except White’s squad that he abandoned by, you know, dying…ended up dying itself.

Unfortunately for Ben, Esser had been broken by a sniper and then an American KIA event ended up killing him, leaving the Germans down there leaderless as well.

I was finally able to get everybody off the board edge, giving me a 7 VP edge after being down by 9 (double exit points with three squads and a 2-leader adds up!).

Nothing else happened except some artillery breaking the rest of the northern German units.

Both of our decks ran out in quick succession, so even though my exited troops came back, they didn’t do anything before the second Time trigger.

A “3” draw ended the game, giving me an 8 point victory (there was an event that gave me more points).

Here’s the final board.

Ultimately Lucas didn’t do anything for me really, except some artillery fire. It was fun doing two artillery barrages in the same turn, as heroes can activate multiple times.

This was an interesting scenario. The way it started, I was wondering if I would make it off the board edge in time because of my lack of Move cards and the German interdicting force.

The Americans can’t win by killing Germans, as they get no points for them and you have to annihilate almost the entire force to get a Surrender victory.

Possible, but not something to aim for.

So you have to move move move!

Thankfully I was able to do that eventually, and some fortuitous high rolls on my attacks broke the Germans enough for me to get past them without too much trouble.

Bountiful Recover cards helped to, when I was able to move, especially through the minefields.

That’s another thing. You can’t be afraid of mines! You have to run through them. Just be ready to Recover.

This scenario was also a quick one, clocking in at under 2 hours.

Of course, that’s because of the early Sudden Death. Rolling less than 7 isn’t that common.

It could have lasted a lot longer.

Anyway, this was an enjoyable way to spend a Saturday morning. Ben was a great opponent and he was doomed a bit by bad luck.

The number of times he had to discard to try and find a Recover card (or some other card) was something to see.

I hope he does well in future games and hope to meet up again!

This win puts me at 20-16 in my ladder career.

A buffer zone for my inevitable losses!

If you enjoyed this write-up, or it sounded intriguing, why not join us on the ladder to be able to play a wonderful game at least once a month!

Could be even more, considering there are always people looking for a pickup game.

My tip for the month?

Don’t be afraid to run through mines if they’re in your way!

As long as you’re ready with a Recover card.

See you next month!

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

To see all of my Ladder After Action Reports since May 2021, go here!