Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 108 – In My Time of Dying

In many tactical wargames, especially pitting small units like squads and stuff against each other, smoke becomes very important.

Even more so when there’s a lot of open ground to cover.

Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament run by the arresting Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame, that lets you play one of the greatest games of all time at least once a month.

Hey, I think I just figured out what “monthly” means!

Of course, you can play more than that, since there are always people looking for a game.

May’s scenario is one of the scenarios from the acclaimed C3i magazine, which takes place just after the Normandy landings and has a force of British troops attempting to advance on the city of Caen, and tasked with degrading a German strongpoint.

This month’s opponent was Doug T, a relative newbie to the ladder and somebody who hasn’t played the game for quite a while.

It was kind of nice being a tutor of sorts.

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

The Germans (grey – me) have a bunker set up with a heavy machine gun (HMG), which has to set up first, anywhere within ten hexes of the left side.

I set that up in the far forward position surrounded by hedges.

The British (tan – Doug) then set up on the last column on the right side of the board and have some reinforcement engineers with satchel charges coming out at the first Time trigger.

Finally, the Germans set up the rest of their forces within that same ten-hex field.

The only real special rule is that the HMG is stuck in the bunker. If it’s ever forced to leave (like the unit manning it having to retreat or something), it’s eliminated instead.

There’s also a bunch of German wire and mines blocking things, and two trenches for some of the other guys.

As you can see, I left a couple of gaps but with machine guns covering all of the approaches.

That HMG can see everything.

The only open objective is that if anybody owns all five objectives at a Sudden Death, they win!

Otherwise, only the British have a secret one.

Would Doug be able to advance across the open in front of my HMG at all?

Without smoke?

This game became very hot, in more ways than one (as you will see).

Let’s find out.

Doug and I talked about this after our game, but one thing he hadn’t really thought of (being relatively inexperienced at the game) was keeping the bunker covered in smoke, which the mortar can do handily as long as it can hit.

In fact, smoke is one of my basic tips for beginners in Wednesday’s post!

Thus, Doug started the game off firing the mortar at the bunker with HE instead of smoke.

All that ended up doing was bringing out an Interdiction event which made Doug decide to interdict the mortar crew.

Because everybody else was going to be moving.

It also brought on a secret German objective of all objective hexes being worth 1 point each.

Then the southern Brits started moving into the road, but the HMG opened up and swiftly broke the squad, causing the rest of them to stay right where they were.

He did use the opportunity of my other guys already being activated to move the northern guys, but being in the marsh, they could only move one hex.

And he swiftly recovered the one broken unit.

He must have read my post that hadn’t actually been posted yet!

Always have a Recover when you’re moving.

I disregarded one of my own rules by using my other Fire card to try and take out the mortar crew (figuring that it would be sending smoke my way soon).

I did break it (and the squad in the road that was previously broken), but I also got a British Air Support event that broke one of my inconsequential squads.

Doug then tried firing with his northern guys on the bunker, and brought out another open objective (Objective 3 is worth 3 points, which I owned) and didn’t do much to the Germans.

Then he moved in the south, and of course I hadn’t drawn a Fire card to replace the ones I had used.

Thankfully they couldn’t get far with the marsh.

And also thankfully, I drew a Fire card with my next draw after discarding, which I held on to until he moved because I had learned my lesson!

Doug tried moving in the south again, and swiftly got hammered to the point where nobody else moved.

I did tend to roll pretty high with my HMG shots. I just couldn’t roll high with my other shots sometimes.

He kept firing in the north on the bunker, and occasionally one of my units broke or was suppressed, but thankfully it never became too much of a problem.

I either had a Recover card, or Esser was suppressed (which doesn’t affect his leadership at all).

After this first fire, I was a bit nervous, though, because Esser broke and I didn’t have one. Doug fired again, and there was a chance he was going to die!

But thankfully he made his morale check.

After recovering, I had two Fire cards in my hand. So it was time to open up rather than wait for Doug to move.

I ended up breaking and then killing a squad.

Longtime readers of this blog know that this doesn’t happen very often.

Then, unbeknownst to either side, a young French teenager was sitting off to the south by the road, smoking, watching the bullets go back and forth, just relaxing.

When they got too close, however, he ran away, tossing his cigarette into the dry June brush, and starting a fire.

He was gone, but his effect on the battle would linger…

Anyway, the British Engineers in the south started moving forward, and also faced devastating HMG fire.

The first unit broke and the rest decided that moving was probably not a good idea.

The brush didn’t seem to be too much of a hindrance for these machine gunners.

At this point, I had three Fire cards in my hand, so it was time to actually dole out punishment on my own turn, killing the suppressed British squad in the south.

I also fired on the mortar team, since they were starting to try and shoot some smoke, and I ended up breaking them and Lt. Forbes with a sniper.

At this point I had two Recover cards and two Fire cards in my hand.

Also at this point, when Doug realized his mortar could fire smoke, I have to say that the crew must have been sampling that French wine that everybody talks about, because even at relatively close range, they couldn’t hit anything.

More German fire broke Forbes again after he had rallied, along with an engineer, and also brought a breeze that spread the blaze directly south.

After a couple of Time triggers, the British fired on the bunker again.

Nothing happened, but little did we know that another smoking French kid had been caught by surprise in the middle of the battlefield when the British showed up.

He had hunkered down as much as he could in the open ground, but for some reason kept smoking.

He tossed his cigarette, hightailing it out of there as the bullets got too close, and a German Wire placement started burning.

Things were getting a bit warm.

Not to mention that the HMG was now having trouble seeing the buys moving in the south!

Also, that British fire broke Esser and the squad in the bunker.

Thankfully I had a Recover card.

One other thing to mention really briefly that was kind of funny, a couple of times one of my LMGs broke for various reasons, and inevitably the next random hex draw would fix it.

I don’t think Doug found that funny, but I did.

Some German fire ended up killing Iggleby’s squad in the north, but also brought out a windy dust cloud right in the middle of the battlefield.

Things were getting hard to see.

Not a lot of note happened, other than a couple of Time advances, so let’s look at the situation at Time 5 (and I just realized, looking at this picture, that we never removed the Smoke after the first Time! Good thing it got breezy…)

British Engineers had reached the Wire barrier in the south, but there were also a number of broken British units there too.

Esser was suppressed once again, and a sniper had broken the German unit in the south who hadn’t fired a shot yet but had broken twice.

Time had also advanced to 6, one away from Sudden Death.

It was time for the British to start moving again.

The freshly-rallied engineers by the road swarmed through the hole in the wire, heading for my broken squad.

I couldn’t have that (I foresaw an Assault Fire with the satchel charge if I let him get too close), so dropped some more wire on them.

I then managed to break him with fire on my turn, as well as the mortar team with a sniper and a squad up in the north.

The HMG was on fire!

Not literally, though lots of other places were on fire, or would be.

Funnily enough, I routed the broken engineers one space off of the Wire, actually helping them!

You’re welcome?

A Walking Wounded event on trying to rout the mortar team brought out a dead British squad.

Right behind the German bunker.

They died quickly, giving me even more points.

But before that happened, the third rout roll drew a breeze!

Really hot now…

And more safety for the southern Brits.

Another British squad died up north, but a reinforcement event brought out a weapons team and HMG for Iggleby, since his squad and LMG had died previously.

Now they had something to fire with!

But after firing a couple of times, a German sniper broke the team.

After hiding behind the brush for a while in some foxholes, Lt. Lyndhurst decided to move the other engineers forward, but he stumbled into some Wire that he hadn’t notice before.

That always sucks.

Doug continued firing and drew a Time trigger, bringing us to the first Sudden Death, but the game continued.

One other funny event around this time is that, during another German attempt to rout the enemy, a sniper once again broke the mortar team!

They just had no luck this game.

But I did commit another cardinal sin, using my only Fire card and not drawing another one for a British move!

The plucky engineers ran up to the trench with my hapless squad who kept on breaking for no apparent reason (though weren’t broken at this moment) and I didn’t have any cards to stop them.

Thankfully no Assault Fire, but that Satchel Charge was coming hot and heavy, I was sure.

I did have a Recover card and they only broke once (the second British attack didn’t do anything), so they were hale and hearty for the upcoming melee.

Though I had no Ambush cards.

The German deck ran out but Sudden Death passed with no effect.

After breaking and recovering once again, they finally succumbed to an Ambush and died.

The other engineers came charging through the Wire, and guess what happened?

There was a French kid cowering in the open, right in their path!

Somehow the previous engineers missed them.

In a panic (he must have been asleep when the first squad ran by him), he tossed his inevitable cigarette and scurried off, starting another blaze.

Yeah, line of sight was becoming an issue.

On a subsequent German Fire, Doug drew another Time event, but Sudden Death still didn’t happen.

This was getting long!

On the same Fire attack, the HMG killed another British squad up north, but also drew a sniper that broke Esser.

Thankfully I already had a Recover handy.

But in attempting to Recover, Esser must have taken and released his deep breaths too hard, because there was another breeze!

Yeah, things were getting way too hot.

Even alone with his HMG team, Iggleby never gave up, firing on the bunker yet again.

Of course, the force of those bullets flying really created a big wind, because another Breeze happened.

Can an entire board be on fire?

The German bunker stack took out Iggleby and his team in two attacks, and Doug conceded.

There was no way anything was going to change, with only one German casualty (German Surrender is 5), the bunker impregnable and now only a couple of British units could actually see a German anyway.

After final objective revealing, the Germans had 35 VP.

Here’s the final map.

Doug was a fun guy to play with and, as I said above, it was kind of nice to be tutoring somebody.

It was a fun game and I’m sure he will have great success in future ladder games (though hopefully not if he plays me again).

This scenario, the Brits have to smoke, or get lucky with the HMG breaking (I did actually break it once, but I gave up initiative to keep it from doing that. It was too valuable).

Of course, the French kids were trying their best to help, not realizing that it’s smoke the Brits want, not fire.

This win puts me at 32-28 in my ladder career.

A bit more breathing room.

Next month, we go back to the base game of Combat Commander: Europe, with only three unplayed scenarios, it will be interesting to see which one this is.

Fat Lipki, anybody?

If you enjoyed this write-up, why not join us on the ladder, where you too can play a monthly game and also probably a bunch of other games as well?

You could play daily if you want.

I’ve already given my advice to you as I close this chapter.

Smoke! Smoke! Smoke!

But not cigarettes.

Those are bad for you, and also bad for the people around you when you start fires with them.

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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