Combat Commander After Action Report – Scenario #20 – A March in December

Wow, this is really late.

I mean, really late.

Yes, this is my report for July’s ladder game.

Almost a week into August!

Not only that, but I am probably playing my August game next weekend.

I’d better get on this!

Anyway, welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder.

July marked 2 years of continuous play for me (I joined in May 2021 but had to take June off for personal reasons. I’ve had 2 years since July 2021).

The ladder is run by the delightful Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics and Tutorials fame.

This lets me play one of my favourite games at least once a month! (And recently, more than once a month).

My opponent this (last?) month was Brice F, somebody who I’ve never played before.

The July scenario was scenario #20 from the Mediterranean expansion, called A March in December.

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

It has a line of Russians (brown, me) marching through the forest, suddenly attacked by a bunch of Finnish Sissi elite units (light blue, Brice).

Yes, the Russians are pretty much surrounded.

This is bad!

The scenario is interesting because of a couple of special rules.

The Russians set up first in a road hex (no more than 9 hexes from the north edge of the map). The Finnish then set up in a forest hex that doesn’t have a road (no more than 9 hexes from the south edge of the map).

After the Finns set up, the Russians then place their machine guns.

The Finnish use the Italian deck and discard rules (2 discard maximum) but they can discard one card even if they do an order.

Brice used that a lot.

Finally, the Finnish cannot exit units from the map unless the Russians have no machine guns on the board. If they are able to exit, they can exit off any map edge with a number 6 or less.

Needless to say, the Russians want to keep at least one gun safe at all times.

This was going to be a massacre, wasn’t it?

Let’s take a look.

Brice started out with at least one Advance card, so he was able to jump on some of the Russians on the forward end of the line prior to me being able to run them off the board.

One thing Brice did many times in this scenario was overstack his melees so that he would guarantee a victory even at the cost of 1 VP for a Finnish team.

Would that come back to bite him?

Yes, I like leaving you in suspense. Why do you ask?

Anyway, both of us had one Ambush action, so a Finnish squad broke but so did the Russian leader, Krylov.

Oh, did I forget to mention the elimination VP were doubled in this scenario?

I started at +4 VP but after that first melee, it was Finnish +3.

Brice then opened fire on other parts of the line, successfully breaking a Russian squad but getting a Russian Battlefield Integrity event which gave me 3 points!

Sadly, my opening hand consisted of two Fire cards and a Rout, along with an Advance. With the Russians strung along the road, the Advance wouldn’t be very useful (those Sissi units are terrors in melee).

Some Russian fire broke Lt. Pani, and I used the Advance to move a unit into LOS of another Finnish unit. Trying to Rout Pani just burned the card, which I needed.

Another Sissi Advance resulted in another dead Russian (and a deployed Finnish squad and eliminated team due to overstacking).

Brice systematically picked off the Russians who may have been able to run off the board at the beginning for points.

But he did draw a Time trigger in the melee!

Considering he was getting points like crazy, that was not a bad thing for him.

More Russian fire at Pani and other squads resulted in another broken Finn but Pani survived, sadly. And then Brice finally got a Recover card, so it was moot.

Brice charged the broken Russian squad in the road and Assault Fired at it, but the Russians drew a Commisar event, which affects one broken Russian unit. Since it was going to die anyway, I decided to use that squad. It failed the morale check meaning the Commisar executed them before the Finnish fire could.

The first break for the Russians happened when I played a Rout on the Finns and the broken Team in the road routed off the board with an 11 Russian roll!

That’s 2 points for me.

Subsequently, Brice did another overstacked melee to take out one Russian unit.

While my unit died, a Russian sniper took out the broken Sissi squad! The points almost evened out.

At this point, the front of the Russian line was gone.

Exit VP would not come easily.

And then came another Finnish overstacked melee.

Which resulted in another successful Russian sniper! Though this one just broke a unit, not eliminating it.

Not a lot happened for a while. Another Russian squad succumbed to fire then a Molotov Cocktail, and the Finns backed away from the road to keep away from the heavy Russian fire.

Instead of attacking, I moved Kovalev and his men onto the hill and hoped to be able to run off the board.

The Finns moved to block it.

They had so many units and the Russians were really lacking on cohesion and Move cards (always had just one, not two).

I later moved the other Russian MMG to see if I could do something, but Brice moved to block again.

They were really getting annoying.

Here’s where it gets a bit insane.

I had 3 Ambush cards and a Recover card.

So Kovalev charged the Finns on the side of the hill.

One of Brice’s rolls resulted in an Infiltration event, and the squad appeared on top of my Russian squad in the swamp in the north!

While Brice had an Ambush, I used two of mine to kill the squad outright.

Which did mean that Kovalev and friends weren’t really ready if Brice decided to advance on them.

They then recovered (needing a 5 or less!) to finalize their heroics.

Brice did end up killing the Russian with the Light Machine Gun with Kovalev with subsequent fire.

The bastard.

The Finns then got close to Cpl. Gordov and friends, unleashing withering fire and then a Molotov Cocktail to kill them outright.

One Russian leader left, and one Russian MG left to prevent Finnish exit.

Not good.

Kovalev did unleash some harsh fire that broke Pani and his stack. While Pani and the squad rallied, the team didn’t. Brice chose this moment to retreat them away from Kovalev, fearing an Advance and Ambush.

This allowed Kovalev and friends to exit with no problems. The MMG, of course, had to stay on the board to prevent Finnish exits.

That got me a few points and made it closer.

Brice tried to recover the Team and drew another Time!

Time was friendly to him, though, so he didn’t mind that (other than the team not rallying).

Kovalev did get to come back on the board again, though.

And see if he could make a difference.

But the Finns quickly moved to block that, of course.

And then the 2nd successful Russian Rout happened!

The broken team got left behind in the Woods, and I rolled another 11 to Rout it off the board.

As the game went on, we were laughing at my horrible luck.

Brice drew a Cower event, suppressing every unit not in command radius.

He put Suppression markers on multiple units, just prior to playing his Recover card to remove them all.

What a joker, Brice is!

Then I had another successful Rout, having a squad exit for 4 VP!

The Finnish lead was down to 6, and Kovalev had advanced to the Finnish lines.

Another Time trigger had happened, meaning we were 1 round away from Sudden Death.

I had 2 Ambush cards and was just waiting to use them.

But I couldn’t draw an Advance card.

In the meantime, Brice had moved to block me again.

And then the worst happened.

I was desperately trying to draw that Advance, but Brice drew a Fire card (I could have Fired, but then I’d have one less Ambush!).

Blistering fire broke Kovalev and friends, but they survived the Molotov Cocktail!

And then, with no Russian Recover card in evidence, another fire killed them all.

With no Russian leaders left and hardly any units, and only one casualty away from Surrender, I conceded.

This is a hard scenario for the Russians, especially if the Finns draw Advance cards early.

The Russians have to weather the storm and hope they can salvage something from everything.

I knew I was a goner pretty early, but I was able to actually make it somewhat close. If I had had an Advance card for Kovalev, I might have been able to do something.

But it didn’t happen.

Brice is a great opponent and I hope to play him again sometime.

Meanwhile, that makes me 13-13 in my ladder career. I don’t think I’ve gone below .500 since I started, but I am playing our illustrious leader, Patrick, in the August scenario.

We’ll see whose bad dice rolls come out on top.

Until then, if you enjoyed this after action report, how about joining us on the ladder?

The camaraderie is great and you’ll never lack for a game if you want it.

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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