Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 12 – Misty Mountain

I should have known after the run of good luck last month, this month’s Combat Commander game would be almost the exact opposite.

The gods can be fickle, even when you don’t say something to piss them off!

But I have no regrets, because this game is always fun.

Sorry, I should have started with this.

Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of the best wargames out there.

Or at least the most fun, even if realism isn’t necessarily its strongest suit.

Run by the awesome (how have I never used that word before?) Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame (really, I’ve heard good things about him in at least 25 different languages, or at least I think they were about him, though granted I didn’t actually hear his name mentioned), the ladder gives you a monthly opportunity to play at least one game each month, and probably many more if you’re up for it!

This month’s scenario was the last one from the Combat Commander: Europe base game (last as in the twelfth, not as in the last one that we are running on the ladder).

My opponent this month is another one I haven’t played before, Gary N. Yet another Eastern opponent, but Saturday mornings didn’t work this month since I was away for at least a couple.

Thankfully, we were able to set up a Monday night matchup of epic proportions!

Or at least in my fantasies it was epic.

The scenario takes place in 1944 in Italy, with a force of Brazilian troops (recently Brazil declared war on Germany and were outfitted with American weaponry) trying to crack the Gothic Line.

There’s a heavy fog blanketing the battlefield, which may make things difficult.

Or easier for the Brazilians!

Here’s the setup. (don’t forget that you can click on an image to blow it up)

The Americans (green – me) set up first, two hexes from the bottom of the map in Attack posture.

The Germans (grey – Gary) set up anywhere else on the map (only 8 hexes deep) and have a commanding advantage on all of the hills bordering the sleepy Italian village. They are in Defender posture.

Gary took advantage of all those hills, meaning the Americans were looking up at a lot of firepower.

However, one of the special rules is that there is a 3 hindrance all over the map due to fog, in addition to any other hindrance on the map.

That will slowly dissipate as Breeze events happen, with each Breeze lowering it by one.

Another special rule is that the American reinforcements (a bunch of Green squads with a leader) can actually set up anywhere adjacent to hex A9, on the lower left of the map, meaning they have a bit of an advantage.

Except they’re slow as fuck and can’t really go anywhere with any speed whatsoever.

The worst special rule (at least for me) was that due to “pinning fire from machine guns hidden in caves,” German snipers can hit a unit two hexes away from where the Sniper check puts it.

That didn’t bode well.

With all of that, how did I fare?

You can probably guess from my intro, but let’s see!

I set up hoping to maybe envelop some of the German forces or, if I could get smoke out and some units freed up, I’d run up one side of the board or the other for some quick exit points.

That didn’t exactly work out.

I did start with some Move and Advance cards, along with a couple of Fire cards.

First, I thought I would fire up the hill along with trying to smoke out the HMG, making it impossible for Gary to fire it.

Before doing that, though, why not fire up the hill and see if I can damage the lone squad there!

The Light Mortar fired first because the additional firepower from the Air Burst in the forest might do some damage.

How did I do?

Well, it definitely hit! Because it was a 12 Time trigger.

Yep, time was already advancing, ON MY FIRST FUCKING ROLL!

That Time trigger allowed Gary to put some foxholes in that target hex while I rolled my actual attack roll.

A 19 was pretty good, but sadly it only suppressed the squad because of the new foxholes.

More fire did nothing, but it was time for my Heavy Mortar to try and lay some smoke on the HMG.

Needing a 10 (the two dice are multiplied on to-hit rolls, so a 5 and a 3 is a 15, for example) to hit, I rolled a 2…not good enough!

I decided to Move anyway, throwing some smoke grenades up the hill and moving Hubbard up into the buildings on the smaller hill.

The non-smoked HMG fired. A really low attack roll, too bad for Gary.

But my first morale check was A FUCKING TIME TRIGGER!

I had drawn 5 cards so far, and two of them were Time triggers.

I decided not to move the other guys up into the other building.

Instead, I Advanced them on the next turn.

I also Advanced the other units on the hill, hoping to eventually overwhelm them.

Now it was time for the guys on the left to fire!

Especially the other medium mortar trying to smoke out the HMG.

And another 2 was drawn.

I also fired up the hill at Biermann and his men on the outcropping. Maybe I could do something?

I might have, except BIERMANN ROLLED A FUCKING TIME TRIGGER!

My reinforcements came out very early.

They shouldn’t come out that early.

In hindsight (meaning this occurred to me as I’m typing this), I should have brought them in on the right side of the board and just run them up the road.

The special rule says they can be set up adjacent to hex A9. They don’t have to be.

They would have been primed for racing up the road and maybe exiting for victory points.

The fog was still at maximum.

Oh well, lesson learned.

I did Advance the leader and a couple of squads northwards, taking Objective 1 and putting the in position to try and exit on the left side.

Except they’re slow as fuck moving through buildings, another reason to run up the road on the right instead of moving up through the buildings on the left.

That’s when Gary did what defenders are supposed to do, though when I try it, I almost always get bitten in the ass.

He fired everybody on the hill down on the Brazilians, one unit and one gun at a time.

Cards were cycled through like crazy.

So far, it was fine.

No effect on either of us, though both of our Heroes came out.

Then this scenario became the Saga of the Cross-Eyed Sniper.

Multiple American morale checks brought Sniper triggers.

And they all seemed to be in the same general area (other when they were targeting American units).

Yes, my sniper appeared to be looking through the wrong end of the scope!

They also brought a breeze that lowered the fog rating and battle hardened one of my units.

That should have been good! Except the breeze.

I fired and was actually able to put a 7 smoke on the HMG! I also battle-hardened another of my units on the hill, getting ready for the assault.

I moved Smith and some of the Green troops forward a little bit more.

Buildings were hard to navigate for them.

More piddly German attacks to wear me down happened, and my first Reinforcement Event happened.

A shiny new radio!

This should make laying smoke easy.

And then a shiny new Medium Machine Gun!

And more cross-eyed snipers.

This also resulted in my deck running out, causing another Time trigger.

Time was marching on and I was making no progress.

It was time for Jensen and company to fire and then assault the lone squad (and German hero) in the foxholes!

First the awesome firepower.

The “awesome” firepower rolled a 4, resulting in a 15 attack.

Thankfully Dietel isn’t that heroic, so he broke.

Nothing else happened, but now it was time for the awesome smoke power of my new artillery!

And I promptly rolled a 2, missing completely.

The major drift was…not kind.

I don’t need smoke up there yet!

I decided to move the Greenies further, with some smoke grenades (always reliable) and Gary elected not to fire (or couldn’t).

Some discarding ensued, and then it was time to jump on some Germans.

I used a couple of Ambushes to kill Dietel and break the squad. Even at a 9 firepower difference, the way my luck had been going, I didn’t want to chance it, so I used the second Ambush.

A previous event had doubled elimination points, so I got 4 points for eliminating that squad.

The German attack roll caused a Blaze to break out right behind my lines, and also eliminated my previously-broken MMG.

My roll resulted in another cross-eyed sniper.

More piddly German fire caused a US Air Power event that broke a German squad that would remain broken the rest of the game, another breeze that dissipated the fog further, and a couple of cross-eyed snipers!

And the first German sniper…which promptly broke one of my Green squads, though the random hex would have broken an American unit anyway.

The fire also broke Jensen!

It also brought an American Time trigger, though my deck didn’t have a lot of cards left in it anyway.

Still, very annoying.

Gary promptly played a Rout order, and while Jensen was fine, the newly-broken Green squad ran off the board in fear.

I was able to Recover Jensen and it was time to fire on the large German stack adjacent to him (led by Pfeiffer).

A massive American roll prompted an Initiative pass by Gary, and then a really low roll prompted me to send it right back.

And then he gave it back to me when I rolled high. But I rolled the exact same number, so he had to deal with it.

Were things starting to look up for me?

I thought I’d try to take out all those broken units and blow them up with some artillery.

But it drifted enough that it barely did anything.

More piddly German attacks ensued, bringing Dietel back out to momentarily rally one of the broken units in Pfeiffer’s stack and then get eliminated due to over-stacking.

Jensen panicked again, making me wonder about his stamina.

The German deck ran out, causing another Time trigger.

A low-odds shot from up high broke a Green squad, making me wonder about their morale too, even in a building!

Especially when they broke again, dying a useless death, also bringing on another breeze that ended the fog hindrance.

Then the capper happened, even though we continued for a little while.

More low firepower attacks (part of the same order as before, actually) rained down on the Brazilians, and the second German sniper of the game hit…killing Jensen.

Didn’t even need the “2 hex” special rule!

I had a Recover card all ready for the next turn, damn it.

And with an Advance card (if I had one), those juicy broken German units would have met their maker.

Yep, that’s about all you can say.

We were pretty close to the end and who knows what can happen in Combat Commander? So I carried on.

I was starting to get desperate, though, so I started calling down some artillery hoping for some drift.

I only needed a 5!

And I rolled a 4, causing a major drift away from hitting anybody at all.

My targeting rolls sucked this game.

There were some nice broken German units waiting to be fired on, though! Maybe that might help.

Hubbard and his men fired uphill…and promptly drew a Time trigger.

REALLY?????

Great firepower, will probably kill some Germans, but now we’re one away from Sudden Death.

I only had 21 cards left in my deck, so it was coming soon anyway, especially if Gary kept up the individual firing.

But still.

The squad did panic (should have died, but Dietel is an asshole) and Pfeiffer died, which was nice.

But it also caused the third German sniper of the game…which hit Hubbard dead on!

This was not my game.

Some German fire did cause a US event that brought out some White Phosphorous smoke next to any US squad.

That allowed me to kill that annoying squad in the Trench.

The German mortar firing brought on another German Time trigger, but I had the Initiative so I quickly nixed that.

To add insult to injury, a subsequent German event brought Dietel out for the third fucking time, rallying the team that was in the Trench and making melee a lot harder (if I could even manage to get an Advance card anyway).

Another low-odds attack broke Hubbard’s squad and eliminated it, adding even more injury to the insult.

I finally drew another Recover card and on my attempt to rally Hubbard…can you guess what happened?

Yes, a 12 Time trigger!

Not only didn’t he rally (that’s the only number that would make him fail to rally), but Time advanced and the game quickly ended.

This game was cursed from the beginning.

Other than getting the radio (which ultimately did nothing for me in 3 attempts), I don’t think I caught a break in this game.

But that’s not to take anything away from Gary’s play.

He played brilliantly, doing what defenders should do.

Run out the clock with a bunch of attacks.

Sometimes that bites you, but this time it didn’t.

Going 3 for 3 on snipers, only needing the 2-hex special rule once, certainly did help.

My sniper being cross-eyed and leaning to the right didn’t help me at all.

Another example of leaning right not being a good thing!

Anyway, I loved playing against Gary. Lots of laughs were had (some at my expense, but those were my jokes, not his. He was nothing but a gentleman).

The Exit Points are Doubled objective coming out in Time 11 also didn’t help much.

That was my feeling.

This loss puts my ladder career at 25-24, getting closer to that dreaded .500 level.

A win next month would be nice!

July will bring a scenario from the Mediterranean expansion.

Will I get stuck with the Italians?

Given my luck, probably!

If you enjoyed this, why not join us on the ladder and you might get a chance to play with a bunch of people who also really love this game.

Monthly, or even pickup matches against other players.

Heck, you might even play me!

Then you’d get an easy win.

Until next month, my advice to you is…hell, after this month, I don’t know.

Make better sacrifices to the Combat Commander gods?

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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