Combat Commander – After Action Report – Scenario 42 – Rumanian Defiance

One of the main rules of Combat Commander is “Anything can happen, so don’t give up.”

Obviously the caveat to that is “unless all hope is lost,” but in Combat Commander, that “lost” level is much higher than in many other games.

My November ladder game is a testament to that old philosophy.

But let me start the right way.

Welcome to another tale from the Combat Commander ladder, the monthly tournament of one of the greatest games out there. The ladder is administered by the stalwart Patrick Pence, he of Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials fame.

In another rare occurrence, I actually did play this game twice this month, doing a training scenario with my good friend Zilla Blitz on November 1.

The meat of the matter, however, was on Saturday, where I faced off in a scenario that I’ve played before, just over 2 years ago.

I lost that one, but would this be different?

My opponent this month was David S-P, a guy who I’ve played once before, three months into my Ladder career back in 2021.

I lost that one, but would this time be different?

The scenario is from the Stalingrad battle pack and features some feisty Rumanian troops (I kept the old spelling of the scenario) against an oncoming horde of Soviet troops as they were in the middle of routing the Germans after the Battle of Stalingrad.

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

The Rumanians (greenish – Me) set up first within 12 hexes of the left map edge, and they are also using the Italian deck of cards.

There are a couple of setup special rules which are handy.

First, the Rumanians can give up the Initiative to use German machine guns instead of Rumanian ones.

They will still break easy (the Italian deck breaks weapons a lot more easily) but they are easier to repair and have a bit more firepower and range.

That was an easy decision for me to make.

Secondly, they get any combination of 7 Wire and Foxhole counters.

I used one Foxhole and then put the 6 Wire as shown, slowing down the northern Soviet force (which I knew would be coming).

The Soviets (brown – David) set up last within 2 hexes of the right edge.

The other special rules are that it’s Winter time, so fields don’t exist and the orchards are -1 hindrance instead of -2 hindrance.

Oh, and I get some reinforcements at Time 4.

Anyway, let’s see what happened!

The way things began, I was wondering if this was going to be a short post because while it was fun to play (David’s always fun to play against), I didn’t think it would be interesting to read about.

That definitely changed, but I may gloss over a bunch of the beginning.

First, I had drawn one of the two Artillery Denied cards in my initial hand! But that came along with four Command Confusion useless cards.

But the Soviets get to go first, and David had managed to draw an Artillery Request to try and get some smoke up north.

He missed!

But the drift helped him even so.

My northern guys couldn’t see a thing, sadly.

I quickly Denied his artillery and drew back up.

To start with, David had only drawn Advance cards, not Move cards, so his advance in the north was slow.

However, with the north covered in smoke, my machine guns and mortar in the south decided to try some lucky shots against Lt. Gulikevich and his men hiding behind the hedges.

A huge shot with the MGs broke everybody.

The mortar shot ended up killing the squad and would have killed Gulikevich as well if David hadn’t given me the Initiative.

First blood to me!

And my last bit of good luck for a little while.

Not much else happened except the Soviets running through the smoke to make things really dicey for Cpt. Dragomir and friends up north.

We were still just mid-way through the first Time!

Things were not looking good.

However, David was now suffering from the same problem I had.

While the smoke allowed him to move up unhindered, now it prevented him from getting a really effective attack against Dragomir’s hex.

They did move forward, taking some fire, but Assault Firing a satchel charge into Dragomir’s hex (he sadly couldn’t break them).

While everybody broke in Dragomir’s hex, a Rumanian sniper finished off a Soviet squad in one of the objectives.

I had just drawn a Recover card, but a Soviet attack killed everybody except Dragomir himself.

This was even with me playing Concealment!

I needed to draw (roll) a 5, 5, and 4 to avoid everybody dying.

My rolls: 4, 2, and 9 (Dragomir).

Then the smoke hurt David again.

The other satchel charge was thrown, but even from an adjacent hex, he needed a 7 to hit (1 hex and 6 smoke hindrance).

He drew a 1-1 (That’s 1, because you multiply the numbers together). He gave me initiative.

And drew a 1-5 (that’s 5, below the required 7).

That satchel charge sputtered and Dragomir was safe.

For the moment.

Dragomir recovered and then a bunch of discarding.

Still in the first Time space.

Not much happened for a while (except I ironically pulled a 12 Time trigger on my last card) so let’s give you a status update as we move into Time 2.

Dragomir still holding strong (he broke a couple of times but rallied).

Soviets swarming, and I routed a broken unit back a couple of hexes.

Finally, Dragomir succumbed and things were looking bleak.

Objective 5 (worth a 4-point swing right now, but I also had my secret objective as Objective 5 being 3 VP) was no longer mine and ripe for the taking.

Of course I dropped a Minefield on it, but my first attack was a 4 so it didn’t do much.

David tried to move his broken squad up north out of the line of fire but they ended up dying by MG fire anyway.

It seemed to me that my only hope would be to hit the Soviet Surrender level, but it was not going to be likely.

Then a bit of a break, as David had to discard just when I had a Hidden Unit card!

Suddenly Lt. Zanella appeared in the Objective 3 building, having been recovering in the basement from a wild night.

My hope was to move him up to join with the Rumanians still around Objective 5 and maybe (probably not, though) retake it!

The Soviet squad in Objective 5 Advanced into melee with the Rumanian broken squad, but the minefield ended up breaking him.

David had an Ambush and I didn’t, so my guy still died.

Sgt. Bikovets and his men moved into the building and didn’t suffer any damage from the mines.

Instead of Zanella joining the fight, the remaining Rumanian squad hurried back to his hex instead to regroup.

I had also successfully routed a broken Soviet squad right to the edge of the board.

David moved his broken squad into my abandoned foxholes, but Zanella decided to try and do a quick hit and run.

David had spent two turns throwing out a hefty amount of smoke with his artillery, so the idea was to Move, Advance into melee and kill with an Ambush, and then hopefully retreat into the smoke.

The only danger was that massive Bikovits stack possibly advancing into the foxholes and killing me

But he’d have to leave the minefield, so maybe he wouldn’t risk it?

Turns out he didn’t and Zanella ran into the 8-hindrance smoke and lived to tell the tale.

David spent a long time debating it, so I knew he had one.

I was also hoping to bait him into firing on me in the smoke so I could play my Hidden Entrenchments (they were out in the open, otherwise), but he didn’t take that bait.

I Advanced out of the foxholes and that’s when David decided to Advance (I guess he didn’t want the possibility of his units breaking and then being stuck in melee with my guys, but having a Recover card ready was ok).

Here’s the situation after all that (including a shitload of more smoke that David fired)

In the middle of this sequence, one of the funniest parts of this battle occurred.

David drew a Scrounge event, and instead of taking one of his satchel charges (which I was certain he would do), he scrounged my eliminated mortar and gave it to Gulikevich to play with in the south.

He proceeded to fire it 4 times after this (because the smoke was preventing any other firing) and missed each time!

Before it broke on the last shot, never to be repaired.

Meanwhile, a successful Rumanian Rout order finally got that Soviet squad off the edge of the board.

Only six more Soviet units needed to die for me to win!

Later, another Soviet unit was Routed almost to the edge.

On David’s Recover attempt for him, he drew a 12 Time, which brought on my reinforcements!

Who promptly set up in the south so that only the Soviet MGs could fire at them.

The MGs sprayed their fire, breaking two Rumanian squads but thankfully not the leader.

The massive attack was because of another 12 Time trigger!

Times were rare early but now they were coming hot and heavy.

He just needed to kill a couple more of my guys and he’d be on the road to victory.

That’s when fate stepped in.

I tried to Recover my guys. First one failed, second one failed but drew an event.

A breeze!

All of that beautiful smoke for David was gone.

Bikovits was now in sight of all of my MGs, including the German Heavy.

So they opened fire.

A massive 24-firepower attack broke everybody in the foxholes.

Don’t worry, I’m sure David has a Recover card.

The mortar and its firing squad couldn’t see the foxholes, so fired at the lone squad in Objective 3.

The squad fired, but nothing happened except another Breeze.

The mortar fired, and another event…

A KIA EVENT!!!!!

Suddenly, Bikovits was dead and the Soviets in the north were leaderless.

Yes, David had a Recover card all ready for those guys.

Things had turned on a dime and suddenly I was in the driver’s seat.

David tried to rally the remainder of the troops in the hex. One squad did, the other drew a 12 Time trigger and we were one Time away from Sudden Death.

And I only had 1 card left in my deck.

The MG tried to fire at the broken Rumanians on my board edge, which of course ran my deck out, but not before the Soviet event that was triggered.

This is where probably the funniest thing happened (ok, the Rumanian mortar was the second funniest thing).

I said “Maybe Bikovits will come back with a Walking Wounded event”.

David drew…a Walking Wounded event.

The random hex was right next to Objective 2, so instead of taking Bikovits, David put a broken squad right in the Objective, marking a 4-point swing (which I just realized we never gave to David!)

I drew my card (just suppressing the squad, thankfully), my deck emptied, and Sudden Death ended the game with a 5.

Here’s the final layout of the board.

With hidden objectives revealed, we both had Objective 5 worth points, for a total of 7 points.

I was ahead by 7 points, which ended up a draw.

The player with the Initiative wins draws, which just happened to be me.

(We originally thought that I won by 4 VP until just now).

What a close match, and a see-saw match!

I thought I was dead for most of the game, with Objective 5 falling so early.

Even as time was passing, I figured David just needed to kill one more unit, maybe two, which he was sure to do with that huge stack.

But the breeze making it possible for my MGs to hit the stack, and that lucky KIA event just changed everything.

I felt bad.

But I had almost conceded a couple of times and then decided not to.

Let that be a lesson to you!

David is an awesome opponent, and I’m now 1-1 against him, both games going down to the wire.

Overall, I’m 29-25 in my ladder career.

A huge buffer for the inevitable losses!

Next month’s scenario is from the Normandy battle pack, so it will be interesting to see what happens with that one.

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.

Right, Ted?

Until then, my advice to you is simple.

Don’t give up!

Anything can happen in Combat Commander.

Combat Commander Ladder – After Action Reports

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