Combat Commander After Action Report – Scenario #72 – Thunderstorm

Do you know that feeling you get sometimes, when you reach near the end of the game and then you realize that you’ve been forgetting a rule that would have really helped you throughout the last two hours?

Yeah, that was me Friday night.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of the finest games out there (I guess that’s a spoiler for this coming Friday, though you probably already guessed it).

The ladder, administered by the inimitable Patrick Pence (he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame), is the chance to play one of my favourite games on a monthly (or even more!) basis with some great people. Really, I haven’t met anybody on there who is annoying (except it’s annoying that Noel is always right, but it’s also helpful!).

January’s scenario is from the Resistance expansion (which I now have!!!!!) and has a band of Croatian partisans facing off against some elite Germans, basically trying to control a small town at a crossroads.

My opponent this month was Bill S, somebody who I hadn’t played before!

This was new.

(You can click on a picture to blow it up)

The Germans (grey – Bill) set up within three hexes of the right side of the board.

The Partisans (yellow – me) set up within three hexes of the left side of the board.

The only special rule is that my Sighting markers set up within six hexes of the left side.

Of course, Partisan rules mean that my weapon draws are random. I drew a medium machine gun, a light machine gun, a molotov cocktail and a satchel charge.

Partisan leaders also don’t affect morale and firepower (except weapons), but they can activate any non-leader they can see. There’s no “command radius” for them.

Which is handy!

Each objective is worth 3 points.

I started with a really good hand of two Move cards, because you really have to rush the town to get established in those objective hexes.

Great opening hand, all things considered.

Bill also moved his big fire group to try to establish position.

And then I moved further into the town.

I took some fire and one Partisan was suppressed, but more importantly Bill drew a Time trigger already!

Bill advanced his guys further into the town, but Sgt. Grein and his men stumbled into some Wire, which would affect his ability to form a firegroup with that massive clutch of guys.

So he advanced Grein off of that Wire…and into some more Wire.

I also repositioned a little bit, to give Maria’s MMG a good path for shooting.

Here are the positions after all that.

Now it would mostly become a knockdown, drag out firefight.

Because Bill always seemed to have a Fire card!

And his snipers were mostly better than mine (there were a lot on both sides), with a sniper breaking Maria twice during the game (including on this initial fire round).

He was also able to successfully rout one of my units, though he did it drawing another Time trigger.

It looked like this might be a quick game!

Here are the positions on Time 2.

I advanced the routed unit a little further from the edge and opened fire as well, though sadly with Maria broken I couldn’t activate anybody but those in her hex.

The fire was terrible, but one funny thing (in a rather masochistic way, I guess), is I drew an Interrogation event and was able to have Bill discard one of the three (!!!!!!) Fire cards he had.

That fire depleted my deck, so it was on to Time 3.

Things were moving, and maybe I could hold on? I had 6 points currently.

More German fire and even my broken Partisans were holding up, because I couldn’t draw a @%@%! Recover card!

(In going through the game to write this post, I just discovered I did an illegal Stealth move on an event, moving a stack rather than a unit. Maybe the future was karmic retribution?)

I did finally draw a Recover, though, and everybody rallied, destroying all of Bill’s nice work with no consequence.

To maybe bring some more firepower out, I infiltrated another Troop (those Infiltrate 0 cards are pretty good because you can do it and it doesn’t cost any VP!).

We would see where the Sighting markers were at next Time trigger.

More German fire…and another sniper broke Maria!

Some discarding, some firing, and my deck ran out again.

Time 4 and my new Troop was coming out.

In a great spot.

(the Troop goes in the Sighting hex, I just took the picture before placing it so you could see where the Sighting marker was).

A juicy broken German target!

Though Bill did give him foxholes with a Dig In.

The fire continued, breaking another Partisan, and Bill couldn’t have this interloper in his backfield, so he played another Fire card and, even through the dense brush, broke my newly-arrived Troop.

Since I had an Advance card (and was going to kill that German with it), I just Advanced off the edge of the board for a point instead.

This Troop would come back, fully-healed, on the next Time trigger.

I also did what I thought would be a cool thing, since I had an Assault Fire card, though I didn’t have a Recover.

What was that?

The Section with the satchel charge ran forward to exact some vengeance…and promptly paid for it on a low-firepower attack, but Bill drew a 10 to make it a 17 firepower.

That was not smart.

Even worse, I drew an Inexperience event, making me discard the rest of my hand!

Not as devastating as it would be…later.

And here’s where that “forgetting a rule” thing happened.

The satchel charge Section faced adjacent fire and lived, but then Grein (even on the Wire!) took a shot, and killed it.

Except it shouldn’t have necessarily been killed!

Partisans, when they would break for a second time, are supposed to draw a “Force Draw” card.

If the “Disperse” unit is smaller than the unit that broke, then you replace it with that size unit (Crew, Team, whatever) instead of killing it.

No points for the firer!

But I forgot that, the Section died, Bill got a point, and…well, you’ll see.

Even so, the Partisan units were holding their own, even without a Recover card.

I had another Infiltrate – 0 card, so I brought a Crew out onto the Time track.

Maria’s stack (broken yet again, so could only affect her stack) fired, and Bill drew a Time trigger.

Look where my Troop was coming out on!

That’s 3 points for me, but they are stuck out in the open.

That part wasn’t good.

I was now at 9 points (should have been 10) and two Time away from Sudden Death.

Things weren’t looking too bad!

Especially because my deck ran out right at that point.

Sadly, there was only one Sighting marker left, and it was not in a good space for my Crew.

Yeah, Grein couldn’t have that, and he wanted to get off of that Wire anyway, so he quickly advanced into the Crew’s hex and killed it.

Melee doesn’t happen until the beginning of the German turn, but I had no Move or Advance cards to get him out of there.

One point for Bill (and this was legitimate, as there is no Force Reduction in melee).

I had drawn a Recover, though.

Everybody rallied, and once again all of that German firepower went for naught (except for the dead Partisan Section).

So of course Bill started firing again, though with Grein out of position, one German unit wasn’t in Command radius so couldn’t.

The Troop who took the objective quickly broke, out in the middle of the road and everything.

I was going to Advance them off of the road, but I knew that just opened up the objective for Bill to take and I had no Fire cards, so I discarded my hand (seriously, an Advance and three Muster cards?)

Of course, the Troop died the next turn (though it shouldn’t necessarily have!), so maybe I should have Advanced away?

In the German fire, he drew a Sappers event, letting him get rid of that Wire so Grein could move back in and put that squad back into command.

The Germans in the north finally moved forward, and Maria was unbroken with a Fire card!

Of course, the first fire on the first movement drew a Jammed trigger, breaking the MMG.

The German broke, but it’s still not good. Especially when a German sniper hit one of the Partisans in Objective 5!

A German squad moved into Objective 4 and took it, for 6 points. He broke, but who cared?

Bill had a Recover card and…well, nobody rallied. But I was out of bullets!

I tried to rout them, but just suppressed them instead.

Bill quickly advanced him back into the Forest.

Though my MMG had been repaired on one of my rout rolls.

Too bad I had no bullets.

Well, I did, but Bill broke the Section that was manning the MMG.

On Bill’s fire, my deck ran out and I drew a Stealth event as well.

Sudden Death passed with no problem for Bill.

We were continuing, with me having a 1-point lead (should have been 3!)

I did have a Move card, so I should have made a run for the objective since the Germans up north were mostly broken, but I didn’t think I would make it because I was sure Bill had a Fire card for his other guys and they’d break before getting there.

After that, it was moot because Bill had a Recover.

I discarded and drew two Recover cards!

In the process of recovering, a Partisan sniper shot Grein as well!

But Bill had another Recover card and that didn’t last long.

The Germans up north opened fire on Maria and her entire stack broke, though she was just suppressed.

That’s ok, I had a Recover card handy.

Until I drew another Inexperience event…and discarded all of my cards!

That sucked.

Especially because I had two Fire cards too.

But my deck ran out so we were now on Time 8 with Sudden Death.

I drew a 5 to end it, but Bill gave me the Initiative.

I drew an 8, so gave it back (I knew I needed to end it now).

But an 11 kept the game going!

So of course Bill opened fire again.

And he had two Fire cards, so everybody could fire (seriously, did he ever not have one?)

Maria and her group were steadfast (though the guys with the MMG had buggered off on an earlier Rout so weren’t actually taking fire anymore).

And Bill drew another Time trigger!

Massive firepower, but in danger of the game ending.

Time 9 Sudden Death…and Bill drew a 9.

We continue!

Here’s the situation at that point, since it’s been a while.

By all that’s holy, could this game please end soon, before Bill killed one more unit?

I did have another Move card and was contemplating making a run for Objective 4, but that same fear came in, where they wouldn’t make it due to being fired on in the middle of the road.

However, I had just drawn another Recover!

So if my broken units could hold out for one more fire attack, things would probably be good (of course, that shouldn’t have mattered as much because of the Force Reduction I was still forgetting).

Sadly, Maria succumbed to her bullet wounds (she wouldn’t be reduced, so that’s a legitimate 1 VP, though that means we should have been at 2, not 0!)

The Troop in the south died (though he shouldn’t have necessarily).

But I still had my Recover card for those who had survived…until I drew another Inexperience event.

Curses!

Bill drew a Shell Shock event that broke the unit nearest a random hex, which turned out to be my MMG Section.

And that’s when I remembered Force Reduction.

And I drew a Section, which means it was eliminated anyway!

My deck ran out, Time advanced to 10, Bill had a 2-VP lead, and I drew a 10! The game would continue and I’d have a chance to maybe make a run for Objective 4.

But Bill had the Initiative.

An 8 and a 3 finally ended the game.

Here’s the final map.

Once again, I went an entire scenario without killing an enemy unit.

That’s not a good way to win!

I was so mad at myself for forgetting the Force Reduction rule.

The one time I used it, it didn’t matter, but three other Partisans died who might not have died.

Even if they would have eventually died, it would have taken more time and I could have potentially rallied them and used them.

It was so annoying!

Even with that egregious error, though, if the game wouldn’t have run to Time 10, I would have won anyway, so that’s just bad luck.

Still, Bill played an excellent game, utilizing his forces to their utmost, keeping the rain of fire going (I’m not 100% sure he didn’t stack the deck somehow so he always had a Fire card, with the couple of times he discarded in there just to throw suspicion off).

I would love to know how the game would have ended if I hadn’t forgotten that rule, though.

It’s very possible the outcome would have been the same. But we’ll never know.

Bill was a great opponent and we had a lot of laughs while we were playing.

I look forward to playing him again someday, and wish him the best of luck in his ladder future!

This loss leaves me at 29-27 in my ladder career.

I’m moving dangerously close to .500, so it’s time to win one next month.

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

More tanks?

One can hope!

Yes, it was.

If you enjoyed this write-up, why not join us on the ladder?

It’s a great way to get a regular play in of a great game, and there are almost always pickup games available.

Tony’s got your back.

Until then, my advice to you is simple.

READ THE FUCKING RULEBOOK AHEAD OF TIME!

Yeah, that’s it.

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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