Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 69 – Compagnie Scamaroni II

Some days it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed and play one of your favourite games of all time.

Ok, sure, it’s always fun, especially when you have a cool and entertaining opponent.

But as for the results?

Well…let’s get the preliminaries out of the way first.

Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander Ladder.

The Ladder, run by the inestimable Patrick Pence (he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame, a Youtube channel you should really check out!), is a monthly game of Combat Commander where you get to play the game online with an awesome person once a month (and a different person each month, at that!).

Ok, out of 100+ people, I guess the odds say there must be somebody who is terrible…but not that I’ve experienced!

The January scenario is out of the Resistance expansion and pits members of the French Resistance against an assaulting German force in Caen, France, in mid-July 1944.

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

My opponent was David P, a fellow Canadian and really good player (we were No 13 and No 14 on the ladder…until this one, anyway).

The Germans (grey, David) set up on the left side of the board. Then the Partisans (Yellow, me) set up 12 hexes deep from the right side of the board.

For the Germans, exit VP off the right side of the board are doubled, while for the Partisans, elimination VPs are doubled.

Guess which one came into more prominence! Or was used at all!

A few special rules.

First, it’s a Night action, so the German discard ability is only one card. That can be punishing!

Not today…but it can be!

Secondly, for fire attacks, the range between the two units is subtracted from the final attack strength.

This is supposed to make it easier for the Partisans to close to melee range, where they excel.

I wonder if I took advantage of that?

The other major special rule is where the huge number of German reinforcements come in after the first Time trigger.

You draw a Smoke counter.

On a 1-3 strength counter, they come in at the top.

On a 4-6 counter, on the bottom.

On a 7-10, the German gets to choose.

So the Partisans kind of need to be ready for both sides.

Needless to say, I wasn’t (look at that terrible setup!)

If not for completion’s sake, I was considering not even writing this up.

I may not be as detailed as usual, just giving more of the highlights.

We’ll see!

(Ok, after writing this, I can see that I lied here!)

With that caveat, let’s get started!

First, before I really get into the game, I know I’m complaining a lot about how badly I played in this one.

That in no way is meant to denigrate David’s play. Not only did he play masterfully, he took advantage of every mistake I made and pounded me over the head with it, as good players do.

I don’t think I made a mistake that he didn’t exploit.

That’s what you have to do when you’re good!

He also made some great plays that caused me to do desperate things to try and stop him.

And when I got desperate and was counting on luck to bail me out…well, you’ll see.

The game started with some ineffective fire followed by a German advance in the north.

Have I said yet that the sightlines on this map really suck for firing?

Close to melee, Dave!

Instead, I wasted a Move card to get it out of my hand.

And then did it again!

I have no idea what I was thinking.

I also started using Infiltrate orders to bring more troops in, maybe to cover the flank that I realized I didn’t cover?

I wonder what I could have used instead to do that without actually giving David victory points (depending on the Infiltrate card you use, you have to give up a certain number of VPs to get the units)

Oh yeah, the Move cards I was wasting!

And then I wasted another Move card!

(Wow, replaying this log so that I can remember how the game went and write this post is just making me realize how badly I truly played).

At one point, David had to draw a new Secret Objective, and this one turned into the open “if at Sudden Death, you control all objectives, you win!”

Probably the only thing that kept this game interesting.

The Partisan deck ran out and it was time to bring out the reinforcements.

Needless to say, David drew an 8 smoke, letting him decide where to put them.

And he put them where they would be almost unhindered.

Lo and behold, David had been saving a Move card (or just happened to draw one) so he was able to have them head for the board edge!

I finally decided that I’d better do something and moved Nadia to intercept them, drawing some fire

and a German Time trigger!

Except I didn’t want that to happen too quickly (not on a 12 attack dice roll on my guys moving in the open!) so I gave up Initiative to get a reroll.

Still broke a section, so rather than move into range of yet more fire, I retreated back to where I came from.

And then yet another German Move card!

David moved steadily closer to a shit-ton of exit VP.

After that I thought “hey, maybe actually trying to advance into melee might be a good thing?” so decided to Advance my guys in the north toward the Germans.

Notice all of those Germans in the bottom right?

Yeah, they’re getting off the board shortly.

Yep, that’s 26 German VPs in one Move order.

Some more general stuff happened, and then the first fateful event happened that could have turned this whole game around!

I had exited a Section and also infiltrated a Band that were ready to come out on the next Time trigger.

On a Partisan die roll, a sniper had broken Sgt. Biermann on the heights above the city on the left side of the board.

That meant that a Partisan Spotting marker moved there as well. Partisan reinforcements come onto the board on a Sighting marker.

Sadly, Biermann had recovered a long time ago.

I had an Ambush card and two No Quarter actions (if the Partisan wins a melee, they get 2 more VP).

My deck ran out.

Time to drop the Band on Biermann!

It was a long shot. But I figured with an ambush (probably breaking Biermann), it would be a 6-5 Partisan advantage.

Oh yeah. All of those exited Germans also came back onto the board, as you can see in the picture.

Unfortunately, David also had an Ambush (not unexpected, but unfortunate).

Now it was a 5-2 German advantage.

I rolled an 8, making it a 10 strength for me.

David rolled a 9, and my reinforcement Band died before they could even do anything.

My fantasy was shattered.

And then all of these Germans started moving!

I was getting desperate now, so figured I should continue advancing at the top to see if I can pick off some Germans.

And of course Advanced the wrong direction (afraid of the massive firepower that would have been in front of me, but actually out of position to actually do anything).

I was holding on to 2 Ambush cards…but now wasn’t in position to actually Advance into a German hex!

And then I got another Advance card…and still didn’t Advance in front of Sgt. Grein!

What the hell was I doing?

I think I decided to see if I could pick off the squad at the end of the German formation.

So of course David took advantage of having a wide open street and moved everybody down it.

Like I said, David took advantage of every one of my mistakes, like good players do.

This is also when I realized that the two Partisan units in the building at the top by the Sewer Entrance didn’t actually have a leader that could activate them both…and didn’t even before I moved Josef since Josef couldn’t see them!

Another huge mistake.

Which became prominent when David then kept moving Grein past everybody and I couldn’t activate them all.

I did fire on them, but the only thing that happened was a German Time trigger!

Oh, and a German reinforcement Radio, but thankfully I was able to fully break it after two ineffective attempts to fire it.

Some of Grein’s men exited shortly after that, but Grein himself went to take control of Objective 2 (bottom right building, the VASSAL map we were using was in error) in order to keep me from the Sudden Death objective win.

My crew that was down there was going to get out of Dodge while still staying in the building, maintaining my control of it.

Grein tried to follow but stumbled into a Minefield! Well, boobytrapped doorways, anyway.

Which turned out to be a dud.

Didn’t stop Grein from firing!

Which broke the crew.

And then a Time trigger on David’s Rout order not only advanced Time but also routed my crew off the board.

So I sent Nadia and her men to try and take out Grein.

I had spent 2 VP to infiltrate Dmitri onto the board, using my last Sighting marker. That took possession of Objective 1.

Josef finally found some courage and actually advanced next to a big German stack, but with only one Ambush, I’m not sure what I was trying to accomplish there.

However, David didn’t care about killing my guys.

He wanted to make sure he held an objective!

So he moved away and swarmed two of my lonely units.

At this point, I’m not sure why I kept going, other than the fact that anything can happen in Combat Commander and the fact that we hadn’t actually been playing that long.

Oh, on top of everything else, the German Hero (Dietel) came out!

Could it get any worse?

Poor Dmitri got swarmed by a bunch of Germans (even though I did have two Ambushes!) and quickly died, giving Objective 1 to David.

It was still a 9-2 strength advantage to the Germans, but I rolled a 9! If David pulled a 2 (twice, since he had Initiative), it would be mutual annihilation!

Not only did he not draw a 2, but he drew a 12 Time trigger instead.

My deck ran out shortly after, leaving us one Time away from Sudden Death and no way for me to win.

But I soldiered on anyway.

However, I’m not going to make you soldier on anymore.

Other than Nadia and her men throwing smoke and moving next to Grein, then rolling really badly on the subsequent morale checks and breaking, nothing much happened the last round.

And Josef charged across the street towards Biermann’s men, but I could hear the laughter from Vancouver from his men as they couldn’t get there before the deck ran out.

The game ended with an 8 Sudden Death roll.

Wow, this was a terrible game by me and a tour de force in how to not only play brilliantly, but also to take advantage of your opponent’s mistakes, and then force him to make even more mistakes out of desperation by David.

Throughout the 2.25 hour run time of the game (I laughed at David because when setting up our Saturday morning meeting, he had said that it could take up to 4 hours), David was witty, very kind, and a great opponent.

He was a lot of fun to play against, and would have been even more fun if I hadn’t sucked so much!

I learned a lot about how to play this game from him, though. Hopefully I can translate that into future success.

This puts me at 17-15 in my ladder career.

Not what I had hoped for, but still above .500!

Next month’s scenario is out of the Fall of the West battle pack.

Let’s hope it doesn’t have tanks.

Why not join our robust group of guys (hoping we can recruit some wargaming women soon!) and play a wonderful game on a monthly basis by joining the ladder?

You can almost always get a pickup game going as well.

My tip for this month?

If you’re going to play on a Saturday morning, make sure that your brain is at least half awake.

See you next month!

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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