June 6th Gaming DOUBLE-HEADER: D-Day and Waterloo

It's rare that I get a game in these days and even rarer that I would get not one but two games in one day.  On Friday June 6th a fortuitous doctor's appointment meant I had a day off and so my buddy Dave came over and we played my "LT TURNBULL'S STAND" D-Day scenario.  Later that evening I attended a game of Commands & Colors: Napoleonic at Brian's house in a team game of Waterloo played with Brian's exquisite 20mm collection.  

LT Turnbull reports to 2/505th Battalion headquarters as the German attack begins
"THIS IS ABLE FIVE FIVE - SIR THEYRE ROLLING A TON OF SIXES DOWN HERE.  REQUESTING AS MANY REINFORCEMENTS AS YOU CAN SEND, OVER.

First up was the Operation: Overlord game but instead of Flames of War (as the scenario was intended for) we played it with Battlegroup: Overlord which had some interesting ramifications for how the game would play out.  While longtime readers of this blog remember my penchant for Battlegroup games, I will say the long lines of sight and huge open fields on the road to St Mere-Eglise meant that there was a bunch of shooting in this game.  In fact the game played like one huge firefight with both of us making copious use of "area fire" to try and score as many "pin" results as we could to force the other to pull chits.  

Dave's dice were (as usual) on fire and he made excellent use of the Marder IIIM's gun and just punished my forward elements with round after round of super acurate HE fire.  As much as I tried to pull my forward squads back to regroup, they kept getting pinned during Dave's turn.  The Germans occupied the chateau with good firing positions and the rest was history.

 Hard-pressed American paratroopers heroically struggle to defend the road to St Mere Eglise despite their boss's unheroic dice rolling.

Dave starts the first turn (recon phase of the "Defense LIne" scenario from Battlegroup) and brings all of his platoon command groups on, ostensibly for the extra orders.  Note the yellow "chateau".  There is an American squad in there to buy time and force the Germans to deploy.

1st and 2nd Platoon HQs, 1st Company, 1st Battalion, 1058th Grenadier Regiment.

American paras prepare to make a dogged stand at the orchard.  The "1" marker is a casualty received from Dave's area fire (in BG, if you score a "1" on your save from area fire, you incur a single casualty).

Dave's rolls were kicking butt and I think he never rolled lower than an 8 for orders without counting the officers on the table.  My poor Americans, despite their "veteran" status were rolling 4s and 5s for orders each turn.  Dave quickly brings on his infantry and the Marder, greedily eyeing up the chateau.

The squad in the orchard is constantly pinned.  As soon as they unpin, Dave ends up pinning them again.  Hard luck!

Covered by the gun from the Marder, Dave confidently starts sending infantry towards the Chateau on the right.  That Marder stayed there almost all game.  My bazooka team was in the rear and Dave outranged me, anyways.

Dave spots the Americans on my right and continuously keeps them pinned.  My turns are spent drawing chits (which I can scarcely afford).  American breakpoint is 22 and the German is 26.  

The American squad at the chateau is destroyed and Dave overruns the chateau and orchard.  He crams the building full of MG42s and infantry right around when the American reinforcing platoon shows up along with my AT guns and extra officers.

Americans flood the crossroads but their breakpoint is getting close!  I wasn't even getting the orders to to get the AT gun into position!  Not a good day!  

If i didn't take a picture of it, you'd never have believed it.  Dave scores "6" after "6" with the Marder, hitting my infantry with HE shells at long range.  This was turn 4 of Dave rolling a "6" to hit an infantry squad.  Each turn he spots and hits with frightful precision.  If it wasn't for my saves and "Veteran" status, this game would have been over already.

American squad finally able to bug out to regroup behind the reinforcements.

Dave with the M43 field cap. We eventually settled into a protracted firefight between the chateau and the fellows on the east-west road to the south (left in the picture).  Dave eventually would lose an MG42 team and my Americans would break off after surpassing their breakpoint.  Ugh this was a tough one.

Following an afternoon Doctor's appointment, I was ordered to redeploy to Brian's house for a refight of Waterloo with Commands and Colors armed only with Christopher Plummer and Rod Steiger quotes from "Waterloo" where I got to play alongside the French commander (Mark will always be the French commander to me after he bested me in a campaign a few years back playing the role of Napoleon and I as Blucher).  I commanded the French right.  Brian provided dinner and refreshments and the group got down to the serious business of re-fighting Waterloo without the Prussians (as God intended).

After a brace of "left" section orders, Mark pulled off a spectacularly successful 5 card drive against Hougomont and his dice rolling matched Dave's from earlier in the day.  The real winner of the show however were Brian's re-based 20mm Napoleonic troops which I could not stop snapping pictures of.

View from the French side.  I commanded the right and Mark D commanded the left. Not many "right" cards to start.  I was keen to form a Grand Battery with 2 of my Artillery Batteries and was desperately scanning for a card that would let me do that.  

French center-right.  Opening up a lane for my Cuirassiers I became enamored with the idea of forming a hex-to-hex grand battery on the forward slope of the ridge...

gratuitous eye-candy of the minis.

Cuirassiers

  "Those men on grey horses are terrifying"

"Are these Amazons all Wellington has to offer me?"

Brian re-based his 20mm to accomodate his Hexon terrain, but they still have that great "diorama" vibe to them.

The unit that needs no introduction.

Heavy fighting on the French left/British right as Mark pulls off a successful attack first against Hougomont and then against the ridge.  While he's eventually pushed back off the ridge after numerous British counterattacks, Mark would secure Hougomont and make life difficult for the allies for the rest of the game there.  Note the unit in square - Brian used some of my old 20mm HaT guys to make square markers.

The British right/French left - 

        

Mark's Light Infantry in Hougomont - a hard won victory banner here!

In one of the most dramatic turns of the game, a British counterattack around Hougomont is stubbornly beaten back by the French Horse Artillery in a stunning 4x hit roll the British line are wiped out.  Battle honors for these gunners and I will ensure they are mentioned in Despatches.

  

Meanwhile the action starts to shift to my right as I gather up the Young Guard and an Infantry Brigade to seize Papellotte.

The allies reinforce with a unit of Dutch-Belgians after the Young Guard move into Papellotte.

The British launch a counterattack on the French right and attempt to overrun my guns on the forward slope of the French ridge.  The attack is beaten back.The destruction of the Dutch-Belgians around Papellotte sees the French clench the game.  This was a very hard-fought game too with the British launching numerous spoiling attacks.  The fighting really occurred in the right and left sections with the center staying mostly quiet.

Cavalry attack against the French artilleryon the ridge.

This was a fun game and each side made very good use of the tactics cards in addition to their 6 x card hands.  One funny item that came out of play was my attempts at forming a "grand battery" which bestows some advantages when firing (I think you may combine dice of the units in an attack if memory serves).  Anyway, when I finally had the cards to move units around and form the "Grand Battery" I inadvertantly (read that as stupidly) set up the Battery astride the Center and Right section.  Hilarity ensued as I needed a card that ordered *both* the center and right section in order to use the grand battery.  Shoddy staff work!  

We imagined what Napoleon would have said but Brian captured it better than anyone when he turned to AI to have a picture (or 2) commissioned to commemorate the occasion - note the "line" on the battlefield denoting section boundaries...:

"Apologies, Sire, but you are in the right section and we are in the center section.  Your card only orders your guns to fire."  Or more to hte point "What idiot forms a grand battery over 2 sections of the battlefield???"

A wonderful day of gaming with friends.  Thanks to Dave for sharing a precious day off with me to game, and thanks to Brian and the gang for a great evening of Commands and Colors Napoleonics.  I will be updating my "Battle Honors" page with the French Horse Artillery soon.