Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario LoM #12 – Red Sector A

What’s this?

Two months in a row where I actually do my Combat Commander ladder game report early?

That’s unheard of!

There must be something in the water.

It’s time for another tale from the ladder! The ladder is a Combat Commander monthly tournament run by the unshakeable Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials Youtube fame.

You should really go and check that channel out! Especially if you like exciting VASSAL wargaming content.

And tutorials!

If you’re new to Combat Commander, definitely check out Patrick’s tutorials on it.

Before I go any further, allow me to welcome Kai Jensen to the ladder. Kai has been intimately involved with Combat Commander since it’s inception and is playing (or maybe already has played) her first ladder game this month!

It’s an honour to have you as part of our group, Kai.

This month’s scenario is from the Leader of Men battle pack of tournament scenarios.

Red Sector A has the American army trying to breach the Siegfried Line by taking the city of Aachen. The scenario has a group of Americans trying to break through German lines on the outskirts of the city.

My opponent this month was another rematch! Dave D and I last played a ladder game in December 2022, where he defeated me quite handily.

Would I get my vengeance?

Or get pummeled again?

(Don’t forget you can click on an image to enlarge it)

The German defenders (grey, me) are arrayed in the two objective buildings (circled), trying to prevent the Americans (green, Dave) from exiting off one of the three road hexes (red arrows).

Needless to say, all three road exits were mined.

However, one of the special rules in the scenario is that the Americans have two Engineer squads.

If they enter a Minefield hex, if the mine attack roll is doubles, then the roll is multiplied by 2 before being applied.

But if it’s not doubles, then the mines are gone and have no effect!

The other special rule is that the German satchel charges are actually panzerfausts (helpfully already showing as panzerfausts in VASSAL, but they didn’t actually adjust the range to 2 hexes). They can only target units in at least +1 cover.

Finally, the Americans can only exit through the road hexes, as mentioned, and the Germans can exit but get no points for them (as opposed to some scenarios that don’t allow exiting, where anybody leaving the map is just eliminated).

These scenarios are known for being light on the special rules, and that’s all we have!

So let’s begin and see what happened, shall we?

Dave set up to clearly make most of his run down the right side of the board, or maybe down the middle.

The Americans have a radio that can lay smoke, so it’s very common in this scenario for smoke to be the first thing done.

And it was this time too.

It was pretty good smoke!

Dave covered the road in between my two buildings with some high-quality smoke, meaning my guys couldn’t support each other and get the Americans in a crossfire.

And then he advanced all of the guys on the right!

Thankfully I did have some Fire cards (literally…I had 3 Fire cards and a Move card, and all three were Ambush cards…why couldn’t I get those later?)

I was able to lay down some fire on the Americans out in the open, but made one mistake that I wouldn’t repeat later on, but could have made my life a lot easier.

See those broken units on the right and the arrow going to them?

I fired the squad and the machine gun at them, really not expecting much.

What I should have done is fired them separately. The LMG only added +1 to the attack, while firing on its own would have been a 4-strength attack.

While American broken morale is a lot higher than their unbroken morale, I might have gotten lucky and actually killed them!

Instead, they were just all broken.

Also, as Defender, it’s sometimes better to take multiple shots to churn through cards.

It can come back and bite you (as may be shown later, where multiple snipers and bad events happened), but it moves the game along.

Time is the American enemy.

Anyway, the first fire was pretty successful, if I do say so myself.

Especially since I went through the VASSAL file before the game and removed all of the American Recover cards!

(actually, Dave just couldn’t draw any for a while, but who knows why that was…?)

More American smoke went a little off-target but did blanket the newly-broken Americans in smoke.

Not great smoke, but there was a 10-hindrance smoke just an Advance order away from them.

Which they promptly took advantage of.

Shortly after all that, Lt. Thomas and his men tried to move down the center of the board.

The first German attack was weathered, but drew an American Time trigger (a previous Time trigger had been negated by Dave giving me the Initiative).

The second hex…

was brutal.

Thomas and the MMG’s weapons team broke in the middle of the road.

That was with a 5-smoke hindrance!

Dave was really rolling low to start, and I was rolling high.

Once again, though, his broken units were right next to a 10-smoke, so they quickly ducked into that.

In trying to Rout all of them (which sadly was unsuccessful, stupid American high broken morale), the German Hero Dietel appeared!

And I had an idea…

I had a Move and Advance card in my hand.

Why not have Dietel charge those broken Americans on the right?

I had no Ambushes so I would be at a 2-strength deficit in the melee, but Dietel dying gets Dave no points and if I could pull it off, one Engineer squad is gone, one American leader, and his MMG.

It would be amazing!

Sadly, Dave had two Ambushes and Dietel died before I could even roll.

But it would have been epic!

Dave did discard and I managed to get a Hidden Unit out on the board!

A bad roll meant my only choices were a mortar and team or a leader.

I thought the leader was a bit superfluous right now so I took the mortar and placed him to cover the German rear if the Americans broke through.

I should have taken the leader. Spoilers.

The next time I tried to Rout all those broken Americans, I also failed…but drew a Sniper that killed Lt. Thomas!

Just before Dave was able to play the Recover card he had finally drawn.

Ain’t that always the way it is?

Along with his subsequent rallying, Dave drew a Reinforcement event that brought a leader onto the board!

How fitting.

To this point, the luck had largely favoured me, but starting with getting a new leader almost immediately after one died, luck started turning Dave’s way.

I was still firing to try and do something to one American unit that wasn’t hiding in the smoke (where is that breeze, anyway?).

And one fire, an American sniper broke Lt. von Karsties!

He was having that whole building activated, and now he wasn’t.

Even worse, an American Interrogation event on the same Fire order had me discard my only Recover card!

I did get Dave to draw a Time trigger during the attack as well.

Time marches on.

And my next turn’s Fire order brought a German Time trigger!

Two rounds away from Sudden Death.

Dave had finally drawn another Recover card and during that order, the US Hero, Lucas, appeared.

I hate Lucas.

Hate him with the heat of a thousand Hells.

This scenario made it worse.

Dave sent Devine and his men (after Devine finally rallied) toward the German building, using the Engineer squad to eliminate the mine field and then jump into the adjacent building.

I fired, but sadly nothing happened.

Then, Dave decided to take a page out of my playbook, but improve on it.

Have I said how much I hate Lucas?

Dave sent Lucas into the lion’s den with a Move and Advance.

He improved on it…by actually having two Ambush cards in his hand when he did it!

Poor von Karsties died an ignoble death, with the squad breaking as well.

And me without any Ambushes, just this Recover card that I finally had drawn.

Two of them in fact!

The CC gods were taunting me.

The melee was even, 2-2 strength.

I drew a 6…but that couldn’t stand and I had Initiative, so I gave it up.

And promptly drew a 5.

Lucas drew a 3! So Dave gave up Initiative.

And drew a 6.

I didn’t feel confident making him try to draw a 4 or less, so I let it stand.

Sadly, his next dice draw was a 4, so I should have done it!

But the odds were not in my favour and I knew I would need Initiative later.

More spoilers.

The squad died too, and Lucas was all alone in a building full of Germans.

Who didn’t have any bullets.

My hand was so bad, that I discarded all of it…without keeping one of those Recover cards.

I think I just felt desperate for a Fire card or something that I could use.

But I should have kept one of them.

Devine and his men started firing at the Germans in the building next to them with the LMG, breaking their own MMG and also bringing out a new open Objective.

Which made the building we were fighting for worth 7 points instead of just 3 (I drew a 4-VP objective chit).

This was getting worse.

But only two rounds left (hopefully)! And Dave’s deck was running low (at 25 while mine was still at 43).

Could I hold on?

At this point, I had 14 VP, but Dave taking the building would be a 14-point swing, so I had to keep it.

I had actually drawn a Recover…but was still desperate for something (I don’t even remember what) and discarded it (along with two other cards)!

Maybe Saturday mornings are too early for me to play this game.

Dave started moving his guys even closer, with the reinforcement leader moving to give some leadership to those Americans who had been cowering just off the road, not able to do anything.

In a fit of pique, my squad fired its panzerfaust at Lucas, and promptly succeeded in making all Germans not in command radius suppressed.

Without von Karsties, that meant them!

Talk about a bad rebound.

This is why I should have taken the leader with that Hidden Unit action.

Just in case.

I did gain a VP through a Battlefield Integrity event during all this firing, but a US sniper broke Sgt. Biermann in the other building!

Dave tried to take advantage of that by raining down artillery on them, but Biermann and friends survived.

Then Dave’s deck ran out.

One more round!

Hopefully.

Dave also drew another Interrogation event (why were my guys falling into his hands to be questioned anyway?) and saw all four of my Fire cards (yes, the Defender only has a 4-card hand), including two Ambushes. One of those went away quickly.

Thankfully an American Air Support event didn’t end up targeting Biermann’s hex, because that would have been catastrophic.

Then Devine and his men advanced into the hex where my plucky German squad had been taking potshots at him all day.

Dave knew I still had one Ambush, but with such a huge discrepancy in strength, I decided not to waste it (Dave would have broken the weapons team, which would lower his overall strength by…one)

They died quickly.

Back down to 14 German VP.

I had 23 cards left in my deck.

Here’s where I made my final mistake.

Withering US firepower had broken one of my squads in the Objective 4 building.

I should have left them in the building to possibly die but make it more difficult for Dave to take the building, but I decided to retreat out to preserve them, leaving one (suppressed) squad in the building to try and hold it.

That could have been deadly.

Dave fired some more artillery at Biermann’s building, getting it accurate enough to hit both hexes.

And on one of the German morale checks, with only 5 cards left in my deck anyway, I drew a Time trigger.

We advance to Sudden Death!

I drew a 10 (need a 7 or lower to end the game) but knew that I couldn’t survive another round.

Objective 4 was going to fall very quickly.

So I gave up Initiative and promptly drew a 7.

Dave had to give me the Initiative to keep the game going, and I drew a 5 to finally end it.

Dave showed me his cards and the next thing he was going to do was pummel my one remaining squad in the building, potentially killing it and taking the building.

So drawing the Time trigger even with 5 cards left really saved my ass.

Here’s the final disposition of the board.

This was a really exciting game where the luck swung back and forth.

Even though I had a 14-point advantage, that doesn’t indicate how close it was. Remember that the building falling would have given him 14 points.

One bit of bad luck for me is that I drew a total of 4 Defender-only actions during the entire game.

Two of them were Hidden Entrenchments! Which are useless when everybody is in a building.

And the Hidden Mines were in my hand at the end of the game (which I would have used on his proposed Move, but who knows if it would have done anything).

My poor choice on the Hidden Unit meant that I essentially didn’t have any Defender cards all game.

Not being able to draw Recovers late also hurt me, though again that was my own stupidity in discarding the one(s) that I had.

I am confident that I would not have survived another round, so that’s a bit of luck on my part that it ended when it did.

Dave and I are now 1-1 against each other, so it may be time for a rematch soon!

He’s a great and gracious opponent, and we had a lot of fun on a Saturday morning.

Even better, this game only took 2.5 hours instead of the 4-hour marathon in our previous game.

This leaves me at 19-16 in my ladder career (starting in May 2021 but missing a month).

That gives me space to lose a couple!

Next month will be my 3-year anniversary.

Next month’s scenario is from the C3i battle pack of scenarios, so who knows what we’re going to get?

If this write-up intrigued you at all, why not join us on the Combat Commander ladder?

We’re a great group of people and you can always pick up a game outside of the ladder.

Hell, Tony will play a game with you any time, day or night.

My tip for the month?

Don’t discard Recover cards unless you absolutely have to.

What the hell was I thinking?

See you next month!

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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