Combat Commander Europe – #21 Saint Agatha

Sometimes history repeats itself from game to game, though not always to the same effect.

Sometimes you surpass that historical result instead of being pummeled by it again!

What am I talking about?

Combat Commander, of course.

Let me explain, after welcoming you to another adventure from the Combat Commander ladder, that monthly tournament of chaotic warfare administered by the resolute Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.

And he is famous!

I heard he is going to be getting his own late-night show soon…

Anyway, a few months ago on the ladder, I had a disastrous game where I rarely saw a Recover card to rally my broken troops, and three #@%!% times, the Recover card I did see happened to be randomly discarded due to events.

The other night, my July game had something similar happen, though maybe the effect wasn’t as devastating this time?

You be the judge.

July’s scenario is from the Mediterranean expansion and has an Italian blocking force in northern Sicily facing off against aggressive American attackers who are trying to mop up the German forces that have already retreated from the area.

Leaving their Italian “friends” behind.

My opponent for this month’s game was a relative newcomer to the ladder, Jake S.

Here’s the setup for our game.

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

The Italians (Teal – Me) set up first 8 hexes deep from the top edge.

One of the special rules is that they can keep up to 4 units (and their weapons) back, placing them on the 2 space of the Time Track (meaning they would come onto the board after the first Time trigger).

When they do, they can be placed in any setup hex with at least one cover (which I think I forgot the cover part for one of them when I brought them out!).

I decided to keep three squads and one of my two leaders back.

The Americans have a lot of machine guns, so I set up the rest of my guys so that only a few were exposed on the hills above the farm, and definitely not my big leader (he was covering the left side of the board).

The Italian mortar was set up to be able to hopefully do something before succumbing to firepower.

Another special rule is that the three 7-firepower mines (all mines are 7-firepower in this scenario) can be set up after the Americans do.

The Americans (Green – Jake) set up last 2 hexes deep from the bottom of the board.

Jake chose to set up mostly on the right side to try and power his way through the Italian screen squads I had placed over there.

I placed my mines to make getting through the woods and moving through cover and onto the heights difficult.

The other special rule is that all Hidden Wire cards for the Italians are actually Hidden Mines, and that one of the Hidden Mines cards starts in the Italian hand already.

Which is good, because I only saw one other one throughout the rest of the game!

Another big thing to take notice of is that all Exit points were doubled, so getting units off the board could be very lucrative.

With that done, we started.

Jake started by discarding, so I was able to fire first with the mortar (having drawn two Fire and a Recover card for my initial draw, plus the Mines that I started with).

Sadly, the mortar missed and no Italians had range to anything else.

The Americans started moving up with all their forces, with White on the right being unhindered but Buehler and his men both getting fired on and hit with a minefield.

The mines sucked (my mines usually do), but Buehler drew a Time trigger on his morale check!

My guys were coming onto the board early.

The mines actually did break Buehler’s squad, so they weren’t that bad.

He quickly recovered, though.

(Yeah, I did miss the cover requirement for one of my squads, but thankfully it didn’t make much of a difference).

I had an Advance card that let me move the newly-arrived Italians one hex toward the south.

Since Jake had left that side open, I figured why not? Free points, and then they’d come back on the next Time trigger and reinforce the top of the board somewhere.

The subsequent 3-card draw was a Boresighting, a Wire (Mines) and a Light Wounds card, all Command Confusion orders though.

Not helpful.

After some ineffective fire, Jake moved the guys on the right upwards again, and blundered into another minefield.

Again, the mines sucked, but that wasn’t the only bad thing.

Jake drew a Fog of War event and randomly had me discard my Recover card!

Thankfully I had him discard his other Move order, which was a nice result.

I then quickly moved my guys off the board for 16 easy points.

Now hopefully my right-side screen could hold off White until the next Time trigger when these guys could reinforce them.

Then came one of the funnier aspects of this game: the squad who refused to rally.

White and his men moved up the heights and the mines did nothing.

But my screening squad managed to actually break one of the American squads.

They would never rally again.

Not only that, but when they came back as a Walking Wounded squad, they still refused to rally for the rest of the game!

After some mild firing back and forth, Jake had to discard, and I happened to have the Hidden Unit card!

Sgt. Carboni came onto the board and gave some leadership to my right-side screening force, even as they were waiting for the reinforcements.

With things stalemated on the right, it was time for some more easy exit points, with one of my squads running down the side, hopefully getting off before the next Time trigger.

Jake got his first kill with all of his machine guns, taking out my light machine gunner on the heights.

Which actually wasn’t too bad, because I wanted to get my big leader and big gun up in those foxholes.

They weren’t doing anything where they were, since Jake hadn’t set up on that side.

Another running joke, for both of us, is how our mortars couldn’t hit a 100-yard field accurately, with Jake missing numerous shots (I think he only hit twice?) and me missing both shots I took.

They obviously went to the same gunnery school.

Buehler and his men decided it was time to finally start advancing, but while his other guys did ok, the minefield rattled both his squad and Buehler himself, breaking both.

Thankfully Jake seemed to be having the same trouble drawing Recover cards that I was having.

I decided to force the issue by firing down on Buehler’s broken stuff with a piddly little LMG, which happened to jam.

But the important thing wasn’t the firing.

It was using up Jake’s last two cards, causing a Time trigger and bringing my huge group of guys back onto the board.

(The LMG ended up getting destroyed later, thankfully the only weapon casualty I suffered considering how easily Italian guns jam).

To make matters worse, an American sniper broke the squad that was firing it!

I tried to rout his broken squad and drew another Time, but Jake gave me the initiative to keep that from happening.

I still managed to get him to rout back to the foxholes on the edge.

I had finally drawn a Recover card and managed to rally everybody.

Yay, me!

Subsequent American fire brought out an Italian sniper that killed the squad in the foxholes before they could rally.

That’s usually what happens to me!

I was finally able to Advance my big leader and big gun into the foxholes, though now they became a target of heavy American firepower as well.

With Buehler still broken, though, I was hoping to make it so he couldn’t form any firegroup.

It was also time to run another squad off the board.

Sadly, I didn’t get any Fire cards before Jake finally drew a Recover and rallied Buehler’s squad, but not Buehler!

A reprieve, thankfully.

But I still couldn’t get any Fire cards before Buehler got another shot and rallied.

His guns were mostly in blind hexes behind the forest, though, so that was helpful.

Jake did unleash blistering fire up on the mortar and Carboni, with Carboni breaking.

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

Then Fog of War hit, and I randomly discarded my Recover card!

Twice now, and the memories were haunting.

Before I could do anything else, an American sniper finished off Carboni, forcing Brachette to try and manage that huge force up north.

Here’s the situation since it’s been a while.

Buehler and his guys moved again and I was finally able to unleash the power of the Italian MMG, not only getting a good overall firepower, but also drawing a 12 Time trigger.

Sudden Death was getting closer and the Americans weren’t managing to make much progress.

He was saved a bit, though, with a Suppressing Fire event.

Since events happen before the dice results, his machine gun was still active and was able to suppress the squad manning the Italian MMG before the American squad itself broke.

And me without a Recover card (which I never saw one again!)

Buehler was still trying to advance onto the hill and another American squad broke.

And this is when luck went my way for once.

I fired on the broken squad on my turn and got an Interdiction event.

I suppressed the squad I was firing at.

He missed his morale check by 1, which means if I hadn’t done that, he’d still be alive and suppressed.

Woo!

Of course, he drew a Walking Wounded event, meaning the “Squad Who Couldn’t Rally” was back on the board, even as this one died.

He appeared off to the side where I didn’t really care about him.

Sgt. Ottolini (my big leader) got suppressed as well, but I was still in a good space since leadership isn’t affected by suppression.

I kept firing on Buehler and caused the American deck to run out.

Of course, the new event on Time 6 was another American Walking Wounded event, but that squad also appeared out of the way.

Here’s the situation at Time 6.

It was at this point that Jake decided to concede.

He was barely making any headway, I had 42 points, and there wasn’t any real way through my lines.

I also wasn’t anywhere near hitting my surrender level, so we decided to call it a night.

Here’s the final situation.

Jake was a fun opponent and I know he’ll do well on the ladder.

This was the first scenario he had played where hills were an issue, so he learned a lot about those in this game.

Hopefully his August game will go better!

The win puts me at 33-29 in my ladder career.

Not too bad!

But next month we move to a Paratrooper battle pack scenario, which is always fun.

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?

There’s always somebody wanting a game, usually with a name that starts with T.

As I leave you, my advice to you is to always cover all exit points.

You never know who may be hiding and ready to run.

See you next month!

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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