IRON CROSS: Crossing the Merderet River!

  In honor of the 75th Anniversary of D-Day, Ken pulled out all the stops and threw his outstanding 20mm kit on the table for his first-ever Iron Cross game!  The reader may remember Dave and I played Iron Cross a number of years ago and it was great fun.  [click]  So much fun that I'm surprised we waited THIS long to play it!

We played the "capture" scenario from the book with me playing the Yanks and Ken playing the Germans.  The Yanks are battling their way inland storming Hitler's Reich.  In this game there is a swampy area across the bridge that the US forces must seize.  I have roughly double the amount of gear that Ken has, including a US infantry company, and a tank platoon.  I start with 1/3 of my forces in reserve (an important thing to remember later...) and Ken starts with everything hidden.

US Forces in the "assembly area" waiting to move out!

US forces doing their pre combat checks prior to attacking "Ramelle" 

Ken laying out the Germans.

I start off with the infantry attacking through the woods, taking a more covered and concealed approach towards the initial town and an MMG covering them in the center.  The Armor moves through the open fields up to the town.  Ken has an MMG in one of the buildings, along with 2 x squads that will act as a sort of covering force to buy time for their Kamaraden to deploy!  I like Ken's strategy, shooting then leap-frogging back towards the "friendly" side of the Merderet River.

View from the US side towards the river / bridge and the ultimate objective!

 I love how in Iron Cross at the beginning of the game you have the ultimate flexibility to do what you want, especially as your troops are fresh and don't have morale markers on them.  As the battle grinds on and progresses, things get much tougher to do.  The concepts of fatigue and suppression are both handled in a very effective manner.

Village in the lower left will have to be taken - there's no way around it Captain!

US infantry squads move into the woods by the town.

 We used dice as command tokens.  Simple but effective and hard to miss.

Armor moving up to support.  I quickly learned the lesson of having infantry support my tankers.

 Ken fires the MG42 at my advancing infantry and breaks contact!  Surprisingly, his infantry with their deputy commander take a shed-load of morale markers, but do well on their morale tests on following turns.  It is remarkably hard to kill infantry squads in this game but I think that is perfectly reasonable.

Ken's MG team making its way back towards friendly lines.

Note the cool look of the roads.  we played on Ken's painter dropcloth / homemade game mat.

 I also learn how darn effective support weapons can be and we both use our MMG's to good effect - perhaps one of the most casualty producing weapons of the battle today?

American MMG team banging away at the enemy.

I realize, too late probably, that there are reactions you need to make at certain times, like when your squad is on the ropes and needs a morale check badly and the enemy keeps shooting at him, or when you have an MG team covering your forces and the enemy is whittling away at them on the edge of the objective.  What I really love about Iron Cross is that it forces you to think "realistically" and "set up" your attack with your most advantageous and casualty producing weapons.  You need forces to cover your advancing units, all the while ensuring you have a fresh reserve to put in at the right time.  This game is about timing, decisions, and combined arms more than anything else and it's a ton of fun.  The game takes place very much in the realm of "the close fight" and things you might expect from "company level" rules are not in here.  Instead you're thrust into the role of a company commander and your resources and attention are stressed to the max.

Not enough room in the building, eh?  We'll wait outside guys, sure.

Ken's deputy command squad breaking contact.  Ken and I also learned about the value of the "fallback" order.  My Sherman drives in closer to the field to finish these guys off but they ultimately escape.  I think they were almost knocked out like 3 times!

US Infantry advancing through the woods to put fire on the Germans

 My attack finally reaches the outskirts of the first village but I'm running out of steam and there are only 3 turns left!  Gotta make something happen or we'll throw off the whole Division's timetable!

US Armor reaching the outskirts of the village

MMG laying covering fire

 I send a bunch of units forward but it's too little, too late.  Ken has plenty of hidden units remaining guarding the bridge.  This isn't going to be a walk in the park!  I send up armor to the riverbank to fire at the Germans on the other side.  Ken's Panther makes an appearance!  Holy Moly!

My Sherman 76mm firing at the infantry but he'll have a much juicier target soon enough!  Ken's Panther comes out to shoot at the Ami's.

I pre-empt the Panther's shot and it gets killed this or next turn.  Can't quite remember but it was exciting!  

Come on, guys!  They need us up there at the bridge!  US Forces rally and move out

Americans at the river bank.  Ken has more nasty surprises waiting for them.  My squads start taking casualties waiting for the other squads in their platoon to show up!

 Ken makes a bold move and counter-attacks with an infantry squad at the bridge!  They have Panzerfausts and move in to 8 inch range and open fire, knocking out my Sherman at the bridge!  Crap!  Meanwhile Ken's Support MG stand is racking up the morale markers on my US infantry!  Crap!

The AT gunner who fired the Panzerfaust earns an Iron Cross today!

A Sherman goes up in flames from a Panzerfaust hit!  I need to put more fire on those Germans!

I bring up some of my remaining infantryo n the table (still have an entire platoon in reserve) and knock out Ken's command group in the swamp on the other side of the river.  Good shooting, team!

Ken's infantry defending the village.  We called it beginning of Turn 7 - there was no way I was going to capture the swamp this turn which was my scenario assigned turn limit.

Wow what a great game!  Iron Cross is a blast and always gives an exciting, tense game.  I really like how the rules play and I like how few modifiers there are.  You're constantly making decisions and I had a token in my hand during almost all of Ken's later moves in the later turns.  One of the worst positions you can find yourself in is out of command tokens.  You have to keep a reserve of them to react to the enemy's moves or else he'll walk all over your troops during his own turn.
This game was great and I will add it's really hard to kill enemy troops, as it should be.

For me, I probably should have had my squads a little closer together in order to provide mutual support.  I also realized halfway through the game I never once used my mortars!  I also realized I should have been taking morale checks, making more reactions, and conducting more aggressive thrusts towards the objective.  I feel like Iron Cross rewards the use of good planning and good tactics.  Mission Accomplished!