A Tale of Two Bridges

I have recently played two versions of the Chain of Command 'probe' scenario using my VBCW set-up. In both cases the table was dominated by a river (more of a stream really) running across it with a bridge across; the river was though fordable as 'difficult terrain' throughout. In both cases the objective of the attackers was to get across the river and off the far end of the table;

Here's the table for the first game which I played solo. It's really quite open (though there are some folds in the ground so its wasn't entirely flat) . The attacking BUF had a Vickers MMG in support and upgraded one of their sections to army regulars (plus two of uniformed militia) while the Anglican defenders had two sections of un-uniformed militia (green), one of uniformed militia, a mortar and a sniper.

Here you can see the Anglican defense. One of their green sections has already suffered heavily and is being supported by their only uniformed section. Further back is their mortar, mainly used to drop smoke on the Vickers in a highly annoying fashion. Further on the right is another un-uniformed section who had been tricked into deploying too wide and were of little use.

A little later you can see that BUF have charged over the bridge and they will shortly kill the rest of that first green section by getting up close & personal. There was a second BUF section further back in support and in the background you can see the second Anglican green section who were not able to do very much at all.

Here its all over really. The second BUF section is about to cross the bridge to help the first section mop up the last of the Anglicans while the Vickers covers them. As for the sniper which the Anglicans had, he only got in one shot and that missed!

In truth this was a pretty one sided affair, so much so the BUF's third section of British regulars, seen here in the rear area, never had to get involved.

Here's the table for the second game; this time a multi-player affair (4 of us in all). You can see there is rather more cover with buildings & some newly completed Woodland Scenics trees (and a new bridge specially painted by Jackie, my wife). Again there are folds in the ground which are hard to see and you can see the river running across. This time the Anglicans with an upgraded regular section would be in attack and the BUF (with an extra senior leader) would be defending.

A shot from the patrol phase. The Anglicans chose to go with only 3 patrol markers, and were able to push well up onto the far side of the river (though their jump-off points mostly ended up on the near-side). The location of the last of the BUF's patrol markers is under discussion here.

The Anglicans, fearful of a run down the flank, opened up with an un-uniformed green section on the left. This was countered by one of the Anglican militia section who got the better of them (despite a lot of sticking by their Lewis gun). Things went from bad to worse as the BUF deployed their regular section to support them and capitalise on the Anglican's weakness (their Brenn gun did not stick!).

On the opposite flank the Anglicans showed great accuracy (OK luck) in taking out a BUF Lewis team on the first floor of one of those buildings. Downstairs the BUF riflemen  waited, but the Anglicans began to move to outflank them.

Once the green section on the right had been wiped out, things came to a head in the centre as the regulars moved to link up with the militia from the left. The BUF moved to counter them and it looked for a while as though everything was set for a party in the woods.

It didn't end well though for the BUF. Although they got the better of one of the Anglican sections in close combat, they were in the end overwhelmed and ended up on 0 morale.

My thanks to Derek, Roger & Chris for joining in with me. You can read more about this game & see more pictures on Roger's blog :

http://blog.firedrake.org/archive/2014/01/Chain_of_Command__Game_2.html

So two games of the probe scenario; both won by the attackers by means of simply killing the opposition rather than making a run for the line.Overall I think I slightly underestimated the forces needed to defend.

Next time something with some vehicles in it. But first, I need to do some more painting. Sadly so far this year I have a painted nothing at all! (But otoh the year has got off to an excellent start in terms of games played).