Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 04 – Closed for Renovation

Sometimes life just hands you an impossible task and you have to do your best at it, even knowing that you’re probably screwed.

Sometimes wargames are like that!

Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of one of the best games out there run by the top-notch Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.

Go check the channel out to see a monthly game from the ladder in action in addition to my wonderfully-done (but not video!) after action reports.

It’s what got me into the ladder!

June’s scenario is a really tough one from the original base game of Combat Commander: Europe.

A force of American elite units is trying to capture a large chateau in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. The occupiers are some German elites of their own, with two Heavy Machine Guns.

The win-loss ratio in this one currently this month is something like one win for the Americans and a million wins for the Germans.

I could be exaggerating…but not by much!

(ok, a second American win was announced while I was editing this).

Anyway, my opponent this month was the veteran Larry S, who I haven’t had the pleasure of playing before.

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

See all that open ground with a few trees to hide behind for the Americans? And that long path down the left side that’s immune from fire from the chateau because of the stone wall?

Those will become very important.

The Germans (Larry – grey) set up first, except for the Infantry gun and crew, which can set up after the Americans.

They can set up 9 hexes deep (just before the Americans), but why would they do that?

Larry set up both of his HMGs in the chateau with decent lines of fire toward the Americans, along with a couple of token squads manning the right side of the board.

And wire all in front of the chateau, to make things even more difficult.

The Americans (Me – green) then set up one hex deep, so basically right on the edge of the board.

I set up in two groups to make sure I had everybody in command, with Lt. Wray tasked with attacking the chateau and Sgt. Buehler and his men tasked with forcing a path down the side of the board.

Maybe exiting, or maybe hitting the chateau from behind?

They also have a radio that can provide smoke.

Not many special rules in this one.

The wire must be placed next to a building hex because it represents rubble from earlier shelling.

The Americans get another leader with two squads and two flamethrowers on Time 3.

That can come in handy.

The only two objectives basically make holding the chateau a 30-point swing if the Americans can take it.

Is that possible?

Is the Pope Irish?

Let’s see how everything went.

What’s the operative word for this scenario?

No, not “impossible.”

It’s “smoke.”

As Patrick has kept advising American players, they should not be taking low-quality potshots at the chateau, but instead blanketing it in smoke and advancing.

Which is what I tried to do.

First turn, I had two Move orders and an Artillery Request in my hand.

Time to get started!

Wray called in some smoke to hinder any German firing.

It was pretty accurate, and also produced some shellholes over on the eastern road.

Then it was time for Buehler’s group to start moving, and the LMG in the south took a couple of potshots at them…and killed a squad! (it broke and then a KIA event finished them off)

It also brought on the first German Time event, already advancing the clock.

We can’t have it going too fast.

Thankfully, I also had a Recover so the broken squad quickly rallied.

After a German discard, Wray and company started moving behind the smoke.

Unfortunately, Wray blundered into a minefield, which triggered a German reinforcement event, bringing in another HMG that Larry placed on the right side (three in one chateau would be overkill, wouldn’t it?)

When exiting the minefield, Wray and his squad broke, but an American sniper broke the Germans who were sitting in the woods by the stone wall.

Buehler and his men also moved south, hoping to overwhelm the Germans on that side.

Thankfully, I had another Recover card, so Wray rallied, and his squad did too…but that rally attempt brought a Breeze out that blew away all of that awesome smoke!

The new HMG advanced into the building in the south, making that a huge strongpoint for the Germans, with the squad that was in there running into the gully and the foxholes that had suddenly appeared there previously.

With that broken German squad just sitting there cowering in the woods, it was time for a rare American fire attack (or what should be rare), overwhelming the Germans and eliminating them.

It was also time to keep moving Buehler to the south, now that the road was clear a little bit.

All of that movement and opportunity firing caused an American Time trigger, bringing out Sgt. White and his Flamethrowers (sounds like a Vaudeville act).

The broken squad in the gully tried to recover, but failed.

The German HMG team was no longer suppressed in the south, so it opened fire, breaking Buehler and his squad.

Another American Recover card (I had a bunch of them early, but they did start to dry up) rallied the gully squad and Buehler, but not his squad!

Damned 11s!

In addition to the Recovers, I had finally drawn another Artillery Request, and it was time for more blessed smoke.

And it worked, enveloping both HMGs in the chateau.

They finally rallied on the next order, and an American Air Support event sadly went awry and attacked Objective 4, which was too close to the Americans.

Time for Wray to move behind the smoke blanket!

Also, Buehler’s group (after finally rallying the squad) fired again at the HMG and managed to suppress the gunners.

That gun couldn’t be used until they unsuppressed themselves.

Even through the dense smoke, the HMG was effective, breaking one of my squads and battle hardening the HMG team.

However, on one of my morale checks, I managed to draw a Sappers event and remove one of the wire markers from in front of the chateau.

More options!

Wray drew down some more smoke, making it really hard to see out there in front of the chateau.

And Buehler continued trying to subdue the HMG, this time panicking the team.

A little bit of German maneuvering (Schrader moving into the hex with the second HMG) and more American fire provided one of the pivotal points in the game.

Buehler once again fired on the HMG broken team, and had a massive attack.

Larry played Concealment, lessening the firepower…and then barely made his morale check with the new amount.

Without that Concealment, that HMG goes away.

Larry had finally drawn a Recover card, and the team’s recovery also brought a new blaze out…right in the middle of the chateau!

You’d think with all of that ammunition hanging around, they would have put up No Smoking signs too.

Oh well.

Buehler reacted to that newly-ready HMG by breaking, along with his squad.

One big mistake I made in this game came at this point, where I thought I had positioned White poorly to lay down smoke in front of him.

I thought the stone wall was blocking his Line of Sight, but Patrick pointed out (after I had resolved it using Wray instead, which is as it should be as spectators should not be preventing players from making mistakes…just pointing them out afterwards) that White did have Line of Sight to where I had wanted to place the smoke.

So Wray instead tried to place some smoke to help White out.

It missed (the arrow marks where I was trying to call it in), but the drift moved the smoke down toward the left of the chateau, still being helpful at least.

The smoke on that side was certainly denser now!

After some discarding on my part (I didn’t have to often, but I did enough), Larry dropped his Hidden Unit card, bringing a new leader into the chateau.

I guess he was just waking up, wondering what this noise was all about.

Then something that I’ve never seen before happened.

The Germans fired, the last card of the German deck flipped and it was an Event.

So Larry shuffled his cards, did all of the Time things (time was running dangerously short), and then drew the event.

Infiltration!

An SS squad appeared right on my board edge, ready to hop off the board.

It was time to take advantage of all this smoke and start moving Wray’s guys, even though I couldn’t draw a Recover to help the two broken units.

I was also hoping to toss my satchel charge into the Infantry Gun hex next turn.

They’re only in a 9-smoke, so they should be safe, and it shouldn’t be too hard to throw it in, right?

I had drawn a Recover, rallying Buehler and friends, but my deck ran out after failing to rally one of Wray’s squads.

Time was passing much too quickly.

Thankfully the other squad rallied.

The heroic squad tried to toss the satchel charge through the chateau window, drawing first blood in the building!

And promptly failed because they couldn’t see the window through all of the smoke.

Hmmmm…I seem to remember talking about that in my Combat Commander tips post.

Subsequent German fire suppressed that squad, so they couldn’t try to unload it again.

But White had found his radio, to see if he could bring down some smoke on his side.

All of the good smoke shells had already landed, so this batch was just ok.

The minor drift of the artillery also left a gaping hole for Schrader’s HMG to fire if my guys tried to go down the road and around the Wire.

The Satchel Charge squad, still suppressed, decided to try and go around the building and out of the HMG’s sight, but the smoke grenades weren’t as good as the smoke shells, leaving them a bit vulernable.

Buehler called down some more smoke, hoping to help White, but it drifted too far away to be too helpful.

But it looked nice!

The other Satchel Charge squad had an Assault Fire action handy, charging into the open space where the wire used to be, and tossing it into Lauerbach’s HMG hex!

But too much smoke and they couldn’t find the open window either.

The SS squad advanced off of the board and Lauerbach decided that he didn’t want to be sitting there with a Satchel Charge waiting for him, backing further into the chateau, having the infantry gun move into the newly-woken Benzing’s hex.

Now my other Satchel Charge guys were in trouble, adjacent to an HMG and in only 4 smoke.

The entire German army in the chateau opened up, and the first fire attack was a Time trigger! (also a massive firepower attack on the subsequent Satchel Charge guys in front of the building).

That brought the SS squad back out, reinforcing the HMG guys in the southeast, as well as dissipating the sole cover of my Satchel Charge guys who were coming around the building.

Subsequent fire broke him and then would have eliminated him, but I had a Light Wounds card, so they broke down into a Team.

And then another shot killed him, because I only needed a 4 or higher and drew a 2.

That’s my usual luck.

The multiple Time triggers also triggered Sudden Death, but thankfully we could continue.

The Germans kept firing…and a Breeze event blew away all the smoke and sent the flame burning out in front of the chateau (maybe there were a couple of army trucks or something out there).

This was not going well for the Americans.

What made matters even worse was that, on a German fire in the same turn as all this happened, an American morale check triggered another Time!

Thankfully, Sudden Death passed here too, but this was getting insane.

Also thankfully, the radio was still working, as it was time to bring in some more smoke.

Apparently White gave them the wrong coordinates, though, because it missed and ended up bouncing back to help White instead of Wray.

That’s selfish!

With all of the Germans in the southeast joining together, Buehler thought it best to hop into the gully and the foxholes, where only one German squad could see them.

I finally managed to rally the guys right on my board edge in the north, and also drew a White Phosphorous event that broke the German squad next to the foxholes.

Wray and his 50 caliber MG as well as multiple squads laid some devastating fire down on Lauerbach, breaking everybody!

Thankfully the blaze was keeping them out of the line of sight of Schrader’s HMG.

Things might be picking up, though probably way too late.

Sure enough, Lauerbach and his men recovered, and found the lost satchel charge lying just next to the chateau where my dead squad had dropped it.

(actually, the SS squad in the southeast corner ended up with it)

It was time for more smoke to see if I could make the final push!

Wray tried to drop it right on the chateau, but instead covered himself with it.

Good for being safe now, but not good for advancing.

More German fire through the smoke, and sure enough, another breeze blew it all away!

And really made the chateau hot.

More fire from Lauerbach on the suppressed Wray and company, brought out another Air Support event.

That landed right on Lauerbach!

Where was that earlier in the game?

“We needed the light from the fire to see where to go.”

Thanks, guys.

With Wray broken and no Recover card in sight, it was time to send some more smoke that way in case the Germans rallied first and opened fire.

White called it in, and instead of helping Wray, it was perfect for White to finally advance.

Just a few turns too late.

And it wasn’t the greatest smoke, with the only really good one not actually getting in the way much.

Unfortunately, Buehler was in the gully, so he didn’t have line of sight to try to do anything fancy with his smoke, so he tried to lay it so it would help him and these nasty Germans holding him up.

It did envelop the HMG in great 8 smoke, though!

It was time to see if maybe I could run off the board, or take the chateau from behind.

Not that it would do much, but it would be something.

More smoke strengthened the smoke in front of White, so hopefully he could start moving.

Some other firing happened, the SS squad charged my guys for some reason (and broke finally), a sniper broke Benzing but Larry finally had a Recover card.

In the process of recovering everybody, he drew a Time trigger that finally ended the game.

Here was the final map.

This scenario is very hard for the Americans.

They have to do what Patrick says, and just smoke and move as much as possible.

That’s what I did, but breezes just kept popping up, blowing it all away.

Sometimes the Germans were able to hit and break my guys even through the smoke, and the Recover cards dried up.

If the Air Support event had hit sooner, maybe I could have done something against the chateau?

It didn’t help that Larry got a brand new HMG to reinforce the bottom right.

Maybe I shouldn’t have spent so much time down there, but I remember one game where I lost as the Germans, my token defense was eliminated and my opponent waltzed down the road twice with me not being able to do much about it.

I was hoping for something similar.

No such luck.

The Americans need to play an almost perfect game, and maybe get a bit of luck in there.

Like snipers killing the HMG teams, or them breaking down and being eliminated on a random hex.

The Americans can win.

But they have no margin for error.

Anyway, Larry was a great opponent and we shared lots of laughs.

We even had Patrick and a few others as spectators!

That’s always fun.

I’d love to play Larry again sometime. Hopefully it won’t be another 5 years!

This loss puts me at 32-29 in my ladder career.

Hopefully it doesn’t start a losing streak.

Next month we go back to the Mediterranean, or at least that expansion that has the Brits and French.

It could still take place in France!

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 know Tony’s always game.

Before we head out, my advice to you is the same as last month’s advice, reinforced even more: SMOKE SMOKE SMOKE!!!!

And hope for no breezes.

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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