Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 62 – Bessarabian Nights II

If the sight of blood makes you feel squeamish, you can certainly continue reading this after action report.

I haven’t seen this much of a dearth of blood in a Combat Commander game since my first ladder game in 2021!

I’m getting ahead of myself, though.

Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder! The ladder is a monthly tournament of one of the best games out there, run by the unsurpassed Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.

Each month, you get to face off against a different opponent to see if you can manage to actually draw enough good cards to win the game!

Or, you know, maybe actually have superior tactics to defeat your opponent.

Some days it’s one, some days it’s another.

After losing last month, I really needed a win, because otherwise I would be at .500 in my Ladder career and next month would become way too important.

This month’s scenario is from the Resistance expansion for the game, where the Partisans (in this case, Russian partisans) face off against the Germans to see who can actually destroy as many units as possible.

Wait, you squeamish people! Pay attention to what I said at the beginning of this post. You’re fine.

The scenario is Bessarabian Nights II, a callback to the base game scenario where the Russian units are randomly placed, leading to a very chaotic scenario.

In this case, the Partisans are randomly placed, leading to…well, some chaos.

(Incidentally, I played this scenario in December against Noel, but since this month’s ladder scenario was this one, I’ll post that AAR later).

My opponent this month was Roger L, a recent returnee to the ladder and for the first time ever, somebody I’ve actually met and gamed with in person!

Yes, Roger played 6 Nimmt! with us at Bottoscon last November, so it was a pleasure to be playing a meaty wargame with him.

Here’s the setup for our game on Saturday.

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

This scenario is interesting for a couple of different special rules.

The Partisans (Me – Yellow) set up their Sighting markers anywhere on the board, and choose three crews and weapons (remember that Partisan weapons are randomly chosen) onto spaces 1, 2, and 3 on the Time track.

Then the Germans (Roger – Grey) set up, having to be in contiguous hexes.

Finally, the Partisans draw a random hex for every starting unit. They must set up in or adjacent to that hex.

There is no exiting the board. It’s a cage match, where the only object is eliminating enemy units!

I beat Noel in this scenario in December (sorry, I have to keep mentioning that because I’m still amazed), but would I be able to beat Roger?

Let’s find out.

The scenario started with the captivating action of both of us discarding a bunch of cards.

The problem was I drew a bunch of Fire cards but nobody was in my line of sight!

So discarding seemed best.

I was trying to not be afraid to discard my entire hand (Partisans can’t choose to discard a few cards; they have to discard all), like I mentioned in my last AAR.

I did Muster some guys (making a unit bigger but slower) and move around to consolidate a little bit, but my guys were so scattered that it was hard to really coalesce into a fighting machine.

I did draw an “Infiltrate – 0” card, which let me add a new leader (Katrina) to my reinforcements that were coming onto the board after the first Time trigger.

Roger did Advance his guys to the north and south, the south in order to threaten the lone Partisan leader Georgi.

Georgi quickly retreated and I tried to move my MMG into a better position.

Roger kept firing at the only target he could see, the Crew up in the north. And drew a sniper that ended up breaking a Partisan unit!

This game was rife with successful snipers, but don’t worry you queasy people. There was still not a lot of blood.

Anyway, while the Crew survived its morale check, I drew a Stealth event that let me move my MMG into LOS of the Germans.

Sadly, I had discarded all of my Fire cards earlier and I couldn’t draw another one!

I did Advance Maria and friends into a place where she could activate the MMG and maybe even join them.

But I’m not sure that would help.

Because Roger opened up on the MMG Troop and broke them.

Thankfully they rallied quickly. Partisan broken morale is shit, so that was good!

Roger moved Biermann and friends to get into better position to rain fire down on me (Roger always seemed to have a Fire card).

Don’t worry, squeamish people. Roger didn’t really pay for that.

Roger fired again, and a German sniper broke Georgi!

No, not Georgi!

Don’t worry, squeamish people…Georgi was fine.

He quickly rallied, and then moved with a Troop to advance on the German position.

The Partisan deck running out brought a Time trigger, which brought Katrina and the first Partisan reinforcements out.

A crew with a satchel charge!

Roger kept firing, and Partisans started breaking.

Have I mentioned that Partisan broken morale is shit?

Yeah, the broken unit with Katrina didn’t rally.

Schrader and his men moved against Georgi, and they let loose some lethal firepower that broke both German squads!

Don’t worry, squeamish people…it’s ok.

This would be a perfect place for the Partisans to advance into melee.

Except all the Germans rallied.

Not that I had an Advance anyway.

Roger let loose with some more Fire on Georgi, and his Band broke! Though a Partisan sniper broke a German squad in the background as well.

More German fire on the Partisan MMG broke its unit but another Partisan sniper broke another German squad!

Like I said, Snipers were really effective this game (though mine for some reason kept targeting my own units).

Don’t worry, squeamish people. The snipers didn’t do anything too terrible.

More German fire broke Katrina and her crew up north. The German abundance of Fire cards was really getting annoying.

With a broken unit under him, along with a reinforcement MMG that appeared right next to the Germans, it was time to Advance backwards for Georgi and his units.

Discretion is the better part of valor.

Maria also Moved to get into LOS of Biermann, but Roger had yet another Fire card and her unit broke.

And my deck ran out, bringing out my third reinforcement.

All the way in the back.

Both Maria and her unit panicked (Maria panicked after my Time trigger).

I moved Katrina out of the way of the German fire, because I couldn’t draw a Recover card to save my life.

My new Partisan MMG opened up, and the German morale check brought on another Time trigger!

Things were getting dicey. No VP gained yet on either side, but Roger held the Initiative so he would win the tie-break.

I hadn’t yet moved to capture Objective 3, my hidden objective. I had no idea what hidden objective Roger had.

More German fire (did Roger ever not have a Fire card?) caused a German Command & Control event, giving him 2 VP for the two objectives he held.

That’s not good.

And a German sniper broke the Partisans in the far north who hadn’t been doing anything except sipping vodka.

I was finally able to rally everybody except Katrina’s crew (that will become important, sorry you squeamish people).

Maria and friends finally let loose on Biermann with a Molotov Cocktail, but the only result was the German Hero (Dietel) coming out and rallying the only German broken unit.

More Partisan fire down south from the other MMG not only broke the MMG and didn’t do anything to the Germans, (squeamish people, avert your eyes for a line or two) but it resulted in the only casualty in this game! A sniper hitting the broken Crew under Katrina!

This was not good (though the sniper did fix the MMG almost as soon as it broke down).

Two points for Roger, giving him 4.

Dietel, being a Hero (so he can be activated multiple times) decided to make a dash for Objective 3. I let him go on the first Move order (I wanted to save my Fire card), but when he activated again, I had to do something because I knew what he was doing (and my Objective was 3!).

So I fired on him, breaking him.

That was the end of that.

I discarded, bringing up another Time event and the first Sudden Death, which passed with no incident.

I thought I’d better go capture 3 before the game ends!

Roger kept firing (seriously, did he ever run out of Fire cards?) and breaking Partisans.

I did finally draw a Recover, and one of my Recovers caused a Partisan sniper that broke a German.

Don’t worry, squeamish people. It’s ok.

I moved to get Objective 3 as soon as I could.

And then more Partisan Fire, trying to do something, caused a German morale check Time trigger.

Roger needed to draw a 5 or less…and managed to do so.

Both of our objectives gave us 2 points, resulting in a 4-point German victory.

This was a fun game and Roger is super-cool to play against.

That being said, as for an AAR to read about, my game with Noel might be more interesting, so I’ll post that next month.

In talking after the game, I discovered that Roger lives fairly close to me, so we might get some in-person wargaming in at some point, which would be very cool!

It was a fun Saturday morning and even though it was a very bloodless scenario, it was still a lot of fun.

Combat Commander is always fun.

This puts me at 22-22 in my ladder career.

I need a win next month to stay above .500!

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

Hopefully no tanks!

But we’ll see.

If this was enjoyable (and you squeamish people survived this long even though there was little blood), why not join us on the ladder?

You get to play an awesome game at least once a month, and there are always people wanting an extra game during…well, any time of the day. We have people from all over the world!

And Tony’s up 24 hours a day, I think.

Until next time, my advice to you is…try to keep from having snipers hit you?

I got nothing.

See you next month!

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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