Combat Commander After Action Report Supplemental No. 2 – Scenario #92 – Let England Shake

This is almost becoming a regular thing.

Which is great!

My May opponent for the Combat Commander ladder, Ted W, was so fun to play against that we played once again in June.

That was so fun that when I had some free time last week, I asked Ted if he’d be up for another game, this time his choice.

He chose Scenario #92, Let England Shake, from the Combat Commander: Sea Lion battle pack of scenarios.

This battle pack has a series of scenarios during a hypothetical German invasion of Great Britain.

In this scenario, a British counterattack hits a German HQ at Highclere Castle. The Germans (me, grey) run into the wooded hills above the castle instead. The British (Ted, tan) pursue them. With dusk settling in, the Scots Guards took up positions and began exchanging fire with the Germans in the woods.

Don’t forget that you can click on a picture to enlarge it.

The Germans have to set up in a hill hex but otherwise can set up anywhere. The British then must set up in the bottom two rows.

The Germans only have two leaders and a lot of ground to cover. The British have three.

Ted picked this scenario because it doesn’t have a lot of special rules, but the two in question are interesting.

First, dusk is encroaching. For firing, there is an inherent hindrance equal to either the time marker or the hindrance of the hex. So if you’re firing through Brush (hindrance 3) at time marker 2, the hindrance would be 3. However, if it was time marker 5, the hindrance would be 5 (reduction in firepower or added difficulty to hit for a weapon).

This rule really hurt Ted’s mortars in this game.

But it made defending hard too!

The second rule, which we didn’t use at all (I’ll explain why later) states that in response to a Fire Order, the non-active player can play a Fire Action only focused on at least one of the units that fired. This action can ignore the dusk hindrance (they’re responding to the muzzle flashes).

I honestly don’t know why Ted didn’t use this in response to me, but I didn’t use it because I was worried that he would be moving after firing, and me using the Opportunity Fire on these firing units would mean I couldn’t use it for any moving units.

The threat of moving units kept me from taking advantage of it.

With all of that, let’s begin the report!

Ted opened by discarding, so I opened by firing and hoping to take out at least one of his mortars. I knew that they would be attempting to lay smoke in front of my Heavy Machine Gun on the hill crest in the middle of the board (which can command the entire map).

While a massive 23 attack break Lyndhurst and the mortar squad, the first British card draw resulted in a Hero event!

Smythe (my nemesis) appeared. Thankfully there were no broken units to rally.

I hate Smythe.

Anyway, not much happened with that. Unfortunately the British seemed to have forgotten to bring ammunition to this battle, as Ted rarely saw a Fire card in the first part of this game.

He did have a Move for Smythe and a Recover, so those broken troops weren’t broken long.

Smythe took Objective 1, which didn’t matter during the game but did give him a point at the end of the game.

This was one of the rare times that I didn’t have a Fire card, but I may not have wasted it on Smythe anyway. Knowing he probably had a Recover, it wouldn’t be very effective.

I did have horror visions of Smythe single-handedly eliminating all of my troops on the right side, though.

Combat Commander PTSD is real.

I kept firing on the mortars and they did eventually break again. But they rallied before I could do anything.

In the meantime, though, Ted started his assault on the right with one squad, and they were quickly broken.

And just as quickly, they rallied.

Ted’s first attempt at smoking my HMG (he finally got a Fire card!) resulted in three dismal misses…even without the dusk!

Ted baited me again with the squad on the right, and once again he broke.

He kept activating everybody and then, when the squad broke, he didn’t move again.

But now he was out of Hawes’ activation range.

The next time…while I waited until Hawes moved.

I dropped Wire on him and then fired away!

This meant most of the British squads on that side were out of Command radius (especially while Hawes was broken).

Except he didn’t break! His squad did, though.

And he couldn’t keep moving, meaning that the Command radius issue was still there.

Ted’s second Fire card finally got some smoke on the HMG, a 10-hindrance smoke! That would seriously inhibit things.

And the second mortar actually hit to put a 7 smoke in front of them!

That was not cool.

The squad’s fired as well, breaking the German squad next to Wehling as well.

And of course Ted had a Recover card and everybody was back to normal.

I once again didn’t have a Fire card when Hawes and friends moved…

but I had a Wire card.

Hawes found more Wire!

But subsequent fire killed the one German squad even as Ted’s deck ran out, dissipating the 7 smoke (leaving the 10 in Wehrling’s hex).

Ted then started working on the left with his mortars and squads (he was suddenly finding Fire cards!).

While the first “round” was dominated with British mortar misses, this round was dominated with not only hits, but even with low firepower, he was managing to break my units right and left!

Lauerbach and his men swiftly broke.

A second attack killed the squad.

Lauerbach’s second squad quickly moved into his hex to support him (he was crying and everything!)

One turn later, Ted fired again. Lauerbach only needed a 3 to remain alive!

And drew a 2.

Bye bye Lauerbach.

The mortars fired more smoke and drew a Time trigger! The 10 smoke dissipated but a new 8 smoke appeared.

Ted kept concentrating fire on the only remaining squad on the left, but they were resilient and wouldn’t break.

A breeze had blown away the 8 smoke, but Ted managed to get a 6 smoke in front of the HMG.

That was really getting annoying.

At this point Hawes moved again, getting steadily closer to the German board edge.

Unfortunately, a breeze had just blown away the 6 smoke!

Thus Hawes and his squad broke.

Of course, you know what came next.

They swiftly recovered.

During some more ineffective fire, I finally got a benefit from not being able to actually kill a British unit; Ted drew a Walking Wounded event!

And the only casualties thus far were two German squads.

One appeared right near the British board edge.

Ready to exit!

Ted was finally able to rally Corporal Nettles (he had been broken by a Sniper a long time ago) so the assault on the left began!

With just one German squad to stop them.

Unfortunately, Nettles had the same problem as Hawes when it comes to stumbling into Wire.

The other squad left him behind to get up close to my lone remaining squad.

Ted had to discard yet again, and I finally had the Hidden Unit card!

Another German HMG suddenly appeared!

Since the left was almost empty, they situated themselves in a place to cover all of it.

A few turns later, I was able to get the Walking Wounded squad off the board (took two Move orders since I couldn’t rally them) for 2 points!

And they would come back as reinforcements.

Even better, I was able to Rout one of Ted’s squads all the way to the edge of the map!

Nettles then tried to get up with his other squad (and Ted moved him separately, unfortunately), sharpening his Wire-finding skills (yes, he stumbled into more Wire).

Poor guy.

Time was advancing and I still had a 10-point lead.

The one squad on the left was holding onto a 4-point swing (it’s worth 2 points, so if the British take it, they will get 4 points).

Ted tried to rally the team that was on his board edge, and he ended up suppressing them instead.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t rout them off the board.

It took many Move cards but Ted finally got his men on the left into position.

I was waiting. I had two Ambush cards, waiting for him to Advance.

Instead, he used his Advance to get his broken squad into foxholes to enable them to rally.

He fired point blank at the left squad, though, suppressing and then breaking it.

I fired at Hawes and broke him and his squad. Instead of Advancing into melee, he Advanced Hawes into the Woods to get him some cover.

With only having a 4-card hand, it’s pretty hard to hold on to two Ambushes, but I had to do it!

Meanwhile, I was still firing at Hawes and friends.

I managed to break another unit, and then routed him to the edge of the board!

But not off, sadly.

I could really have used those 4 points (two units).

Ted kept firing at the German left unit, and they kept not dying.

I’m sure he was getting frustrated.

And then finally, on two British morale checks while moving, not only is one of my squads broken by a sniper, but the German left squad is killed by a sniper.

How anti-climactic!

We won’t talk about the fact that just before all of that, I had mentioned that the snipers hadn’t really been all that effective this game (only one broken leader).

That’ll teach me.

With that, Hawes and friends made a run for the board edge. One squad broke and my deck ran out, meaning that Ted couldn’t get them off the board and back onto the board as reinforcements.

I was waiting for them to run off the board, but they decided first to advance and kill off the squad next to them.

That was unfortunate.

While I did ambush him twice, he used an ambush to kill my squad and not risk a great German roll.

The German deck ran out before Ted could move his guys off the board again.

One more until Sudden Death!

On the next move, Ted got the 6 points for moving them off the board.

The Germans were now ahead only by 2 points!

Ted moved his men onto Objective 4 and now the British were ahead by 2 points.

Nothing much happened after that, other than another Walking Wounded event (which again benefited me because I was the only one with a destroyed unit).

Sadly, he didn’t appear on the board edge and I was never able to move him off.

And Nettles stumbled into yet more Wire.

Finally, the British drew another Time trigger on a fire attack and the Sudden Death roll ended the game.

Ted’s hidden objective was that all objectives were worth 1 point, giving him a net 1-point gain.

Ted ended up winning by 3 points!

This was a great scenario, with lots of swings. We thought Ted wasn’t doing that well at the beginning, then things turned and I couldn’t get any breaks.

Then they kind of evened out.

The fact that I didn’t kill a single British unit (though Ted did do a Light Wounds action to break one squad down to a team when it was going to be eliminated) was not good.

Almost routing two squads off the board with “11” routs (meaning they moved 4 spaces) was a lot of fun, but sadly I couldn’t rout them again before they rallied.

The Dusk hindrance became a factor on both sides (though many of Ted’s missed mortar shots would have missed even without Dusk) but it really made it hard as a defender to inhibit British movement.

If the German HMG would break down, there’s no way to stop the British. With the HMG, I was still able to get some good firepower on the British even with the Dusk. But it was still a big hindrance.

I really enjoyed this scenario, and hopefully this will be next year’s Ladder Sea Lion scenario.

It’s a corker!

I’ll be playing my July opponent on Wednesday night, so look for that AAR next week.

I don’t expect good things.

Meanwhile, I’m 1-2 against Ted, but all three scenarios have been very close.

I’m looking forward to playing him again, maybe in a couple of weeks!

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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