Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 93 – Foxtrot Uniform

After a really bad (and late!) February episode of Tales from the Combat Commander ladder, we’re getting to March’s almost as soon as I’m done playing it!

This was a much more satisfying game, and that’s whether or not I won (I’m not giving you any spoilers). The scenario was clean and it was just an amazingly fun time!

What’s the ladder?

It’s a tournament setting run by the beyond compare Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials Youtube fame.

Yes, I do mean fame. He’s got more followers than I do!

(Editor: “That’s not saying much”)

The March scenario is from the Sea Lion battle pack, a bunch of scenarios that portray action that might have happened if the Germans went ahead with their Operation Sea Lion plans to invade England.

Just adding to the “what if” nature of the scenarios, this month’s scenario pits the German invaders facing a counterattack on an airfield from…the Americans?

That’s right, apparently in this hypothetical invasion, the Americans either decided to join the war in 1940, or sent a contingent of troops to England even as they tried to remain neutral.

My opponent was Doug L, another guy in my time zone! So scheduling a play was pretty easy.

We did it on Saturday morning.

(As usual, you can click on a picture to enlarge it)

A joint task force of Americans and British troops are counterattacking, and the Americans (me: green) are tasked with recapturing the Upper Heyford RAF base from the Germans (Doug: grey).

As per the description, “Allied Commanders were reluctant to authorise air support from the tattered remnants of the RAF and as a result the Allied attack commenced without it.”

I have a question about that sentence, which I will address during the AAR below.

Anyway, there are a few special rules in this scenario, which actually make it quite tense.

First, those two tan heavy machine guns up there? Those represent anti-aircraft guns that were repurposed to fire at ground units. They start on a hill, and the Germans control them.

However, no matter what happens to the units possessing them, they stay in the hex. So technically anybody else can run into the hex and take possession of them, using them at will.

Even the Americans!

I thought about it…

Secondly, no fortifications can go on any of the hills. So the Germans can’t drop Wire into one of the HMG hexes when an American unit goes to capture one of them. And nobody can dig foxholes.

The multitude of grey hexes are airport tarmac, and they count as roads. Meaning that units on them might be in a lot of trouble.

Finally (and this didn’t come into play in our scenario), an American reinforcement event just brings in an American Line squad. No rolling, and no chance for a radio!

Damn it.

Anyway, how did I do after a losing streak in previous months?

Let’s take a look.

As the Americans, I realized that there is a LOT of open ground between my guys and the Germans.

However, I had Lt. Wray and a Heavy Machine Gun that I could put up in my own hill to try and dominate the battlefield.

Little did I know just how good Wray would be.

In a couple of turns, he took out both German AA gunners without even giving them a chance to fire.

First I fired on the team in the north, breaking it easily (it was an 11 firepower even before the dice roll, which was a 10, making a 21 firepower attack).

They died when Doug drew a KIA event, killing a broken unit and his was the only one.

Then I moved in the South.

Doug fired on them with the other AA gun (ok, I lied, they did get to fire once).

First, I drew a Walking Wounded event, which brought that weapons team right back onto the board, and the random hex was right next to a bunch of other Germans! (Circled blue).

Then one of my morale checks, I drew a Time event, moving Time forward already.

In this scenario, Time goes from 5 to 12 (Sudden Death), meaning you really only have 7 rounds to complete the attack (unless you draw a 12 on the Sudden Death roll), so an early Time is not good!

But I wanted to keep Initiative, so I let it go.

One of my squads broke, so Sgt White and his men remained on the tarmac in the open.

Of course, I try not to move without a Recover card, so all of those broken squads rallied immediately.

On my next turn, I fired the HMG and Wray at the other AA gun squad…breaking it as well.

Next turn, I killed it with more HMG fire.

Early in the scenario, things were not going Doug’s way. I was rolling high on all of my Fire attacks and I always seemed to have at least one Fire card!

In addition to that, I moved my southern guys into the safety of a building and fired my northern guys at the Germans up there.

And rolled really high, breaking both the leader and the squad.

I was on fire!

One of the problems was that Doug was having a lot of trouble drawing Recover cards. I would break his units, and then kill them before they could rally.

Wray then fired again, in support of the southern guys.

And promptly broke and then killed (in two separate attacks) the Germans who were in my way.

I was really beginning to feel bad, and this looked like it might be a quick scenario.

Especially when my northern guys proceeded to kill Lt. Pfeiffer and his men in another attack.

Things were not looking good for the Germans.

Doug finally had a Recover card, but one turn too late. He did manage to rally the Walking Wounded weapons team, though.

After some more fire, the first American Air Support event (I may break all units in the hex nearest a random hex) came out, but hit a hex behind US lines so that was a no.

This part wasn’t the most exciting, but I have to call this one out.

I moved the guys in the south and Doug fired at them. The resulting firepower was kind of low. But I said “if I roll a 2, then they’ll break.”

And sure enough, the squad rolled a 2.

Thankfully due to Sgt. White, they had one more movement point so were able to get out from the open.

Though a second attack caused another American Time trigger!

I wasn’t worried…yet.

On the German turn, more fire rained down on these guys (who were in newly-minted foxholes due to the Time event).

An American morale check resulted in…another Air Support event!

And this one was bad for the Germans.

An entire stack of broken units, just like that.

I thought the scenario description said that the Allies didn’t have any planes?

Anyway…

Wray tried to take advantage of that and kill them off (which would have ended the game with a German surrender) but only managed to kill the squad off.

With a 20 firepower attack!

The Germans were finding some guts.

Then things started to turn…

In trying to rally his broken men, Doug drew a Shell Shock event (break a unit in the closest hex to a random hex), which ended up breaking Cpl. Jensen in the north!

Not too bad. I’ve been getting a lot of Recover cards. But I didn’t have one!

And couldn’t draw one.

Subsequent German fire caused me to draw yet another Air Support event, though sadly this didn’t have any effect.

I thought those planes were grounded!

Wray kept up the fire on the central German position, but a German morale check caused yet another Time trigger.

Would I be like Patrick and run out of time when I really shouldn’t?

Maybe…

because the second German morale check from that fire caused a Sniper that killed Cpl Jensen!

Ouch. Now my north was leaderless, meaning I couldn’t activate all of those guys with one order.

I’d have to use individual orders for each unit.

I now had Lauerbach and his men in a crossfire, with Wray up on the hills with the HMG and White in the building to the south with a Medium Machine Gun. With the Germans only two units away from a Surrender loss, I made probably my only real mistake in the game.

With my hot firing hand, I decided not to push the objectives and go for the kill.

But Lauerbach and his weapons team refused to die!

Not only that, but Doug’s rally attempt brought the German hero Dietel onto the board and into his hex.

Then a German Walking Wounded event brought a dead German squad back onto the board, and into Lauerbach’s hex!

Thankfully, though Lauerbach and his weapons team were resilient, Wray was able to kill the squad again before they could rally.

I soon realized that going for a Surrender win was very risky with only 4 rounds left until Sudden Death, so moved (with 2 Move orders!) some squads in an attempt to take Objective 4 (and kill another German squad).

One squad blundered into Wire but the other one ended up just next to the building, and thankfully out of line of sight of any Germans.

Which was a good thing, because another American morale check resulted in another Time!

And then forgot to shuffle my deck, leaving me with 12 cards left.

Finally the weapons team with Dietel (Lauerbach had moved to the stack behind, as shown in the picture above) died, leaving me one kill away from a Surrender victory.

I moved the free northern squad into the Objective 4 building, and then something that delayed the game a few minutes happened.

We did a bunch of moves and stuff until my deck ran out, which reminded us that I never did reshuffle.

We were able to undo everything to that point and redo it, though, so the only thing lost was about 5 minutes.

In redoing things, though, the German weapons team didn’t die!

He was still two deaths away from Surrender.

Dietel died, but he doesn’t count.

I then proceeded to move my guys into Objective 4 again.

With only 3 rounds left, I had to take that objective.

Subsequent German fire caused an American Time trigger on the morale check, but I passed the Initiative card to Doug to reroll that.

Then Wray fired on the broken team, trying to kill it, and Doug drew his own Time trigger! Not only did they not die, but we were only two rounds away from basically ending the game.

And they kept rallying before I could kill them!

Now Doug was drawing Recovers when he needed them, sadly for me.

Firing on Sgt White’s men in the south, Doug managed to break White and a squad, and then when trying to Rout them, when White would only rout with a 12…he drew a 12!

Another Time trigger, White retreats one hex, and the game is only one round away from ending and I wasn’t close enough to his squad in the north to kill it and take the objective in one turn.

I did finally have an Advance, a Move, and an Ambush card, though.

Another minor mistake, since I was so worried about Time triggers, is that I shouldn’t have kept firing.

Thankfully, nothing happened (except the German weapons team panicking).

I did draw a Battlefield Integrity event that gave me 1 VP for each eliminated German unit, giving me 5 VP! That put the VP counter at 1 for my side.

However, I had drawn a secret objective that would give Doug 1 VP at the end of the game, so I couldn’t rest on my laurels.

No Time triggers, so it happened.

Melee!

Doug didn’t have any Ambushes, but he did have a Minefield.

The Mines didn’t actually do anything. Doug felt that he should have given me the Initiative on the mine roll, and maybe he should have? I think looking at the next cards for each of us, a reroll would have broken my squad.

But he was saving it for the melee, which is never a bad idea.

It’s just how Combat Commander can screw with you.

I did have an Ambush, making an 8-2 US firepower advantage.

Doug drew a 9 (which would have broken my squad on the mines), giving himself 11 firepower.

I drew an 8, killing the squad. Since this was make or break, though, Doug gave me initiative for a reroll.

I drew a 5, still killing it.

When looking at those numbers, if my squad was broken, I would still have had a 4-2 advantage on Doug. Him drawing a 9 and me drawing an 8 (and he wouldn’t have been able to make me reroll), his squad would still have died.

So ultimately, it made no difference.

After all that, rather as an anticlimax, I then proceeded to break his weapons team and then kill it before Time triggered, ending the game with a Surrender victory for me anyway.

Here’s the situation at the end of the game.

Wray and his HMG never moved from that hill, instead just raining death down on the Germans at the airport. Doug fired on him a few times, but nothing came of it.

This is a classic Combat Commander game. Things were looking bleak for Doug for a while, and then the luck changed a bit (killing Jensen without actually even firing on him was really harsh, making it so the guys in the north couldn’t coordinate at all). Close to surrender, I just couldn’t kill his last guys and Time was running out.

He had some fortuitous Time triggers that really made me sweat.

And then things blew up at the end, killing Doug’s chances.

But it was close. One more Time trigger too early (I only had 32 cards left in my deck anyway) and it was curtains for me.

Doug was a great and gracious opponent, and a joy to play against.

Hopefully we’ll meet again soon.

The win puts me at 18-16 in my ladder career, giving me a bit of breathing space allowing for a loss.

Next month’s scenario is from the Leader of Men battle pack, a bunch of tournament scenarios that are supposed to be really well-balanced.

If this write-up appealed to you, why not join us on the Combat Commander ladder?

We’re a great bunch of people and it will give you a chance to play at least once a month, if not more! There are always people wanting to play a pickup game.

My tip for this month?

Don’t let an American heavy machine gun sit up on the heights and just murder you.

It’s not very healthy.

(I kid, as I know Doug couldn’t do anything about it, really).

See you next month!

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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