Decision at Le Mer D-Day -1

A slow session move wise this week, we were slowed down by the fact our usual rules guru( every club has one OTT has a Justin) Kevin was not feeling well, so there was more than a little delay as rules were checked more than normal.

There was upside for the Paras in this in that we realised we had only been giving them 3 actions and dice, when in fact they get 4 for elite for squads of 8 men, which we only found out when we were looking at the the effect on squads when losing men.

The 2nd thing was that the 2nd tea break card on the 1st move did not come out till the end, so everything activated.

what t we got was a Game of two halves last night, though we only got two moves.

The 1st card drawn on move 1 was the German infantry platoon. 2nd squad in the woods, continued its careful move through. the wood toward the tanks. !st squad opened fire on the Americans at the bottom of the farmhouse killing one. 3rd squad had the most luck, reducing the 57mm gun crew to one man.

A couple of American Antitank cards came out, we decided we needed to put the ones covering the armoured cars on overwatch less we got a gamey charge by them before they could fire. ( perhaps one of the few faults of the rules is that all overwatchs come off at end of move , may be a local rule change for future games amend to stay on overwatch till next activation).

Then the tanks card came out, the one already in position , open fire on the farmhouse , but only managed to pin the troops in the top floor, in theory we could have given it an addition for packed  target but decided the floor would break it up (for the small gun anyway, 25pdrs and 105s we may have allowed it).

The 12nd american para platoon came next, and both squads opened up on the Germans across the road who had shot at them, forcing 2 casualties on them.( this is when we spotted they should have had an extra dice as the ground floor squad had 2 dead reducing its dice to 3). The 1st squad with Summers moved down the hedgefow to stalk the tanks and the Mortar crew scrambled into the safety of the hedgerow, not knowing that the tanks had moved off the road. The Bazzoka tea

Various other cards came out such as German guns, the one at Southern  end of the table not spotting anything and the one at the north spotted nothing. the 3rd american gun the same, and the German Armoured cars successfully spotted the guns watching the road they were going to enter on.

When the 1st  American platoon came out there was a little bit of a discussion.

One was sit and do nothing, in case they got caught in open,  which I thought was a great idea with two units of armour either side of them which could catch them in a pincer. The most it was going to do was delay the inevitable.Staying where they were meant that the 2nd hedgerow across the road prevented them from firing at the Germans in the 4th story building, moving to it would leave them into being chopped up by the armoured cars if they broke through at the end of the road.

So the Bazooka team was moved to cover the road , and two squads crossed the hedgerow and dived into the bank on the road side of the 2nd.

Then the Big man for the U. Anti tank guns came up, so he helped man the the remaining gun and shot at German 3rd squad, they know have 2 annoyed pigeons and a smoking  kestral(good thing its not Bens Burrows and Badgers).

We finally got the 2nd tea break card, and was not sure we would get a full move in before Zebedee said time for bed again and the pub was discussed, but Keith had forgot pennies so we pressed on.

Again German infantry card and the German tank went 1st and with reduced no’s and lousy dice only managed to put some suppression on the squad in top of farmhouse( 1st w’d had, it had been remarked unusually for this game, casualties had been caused but no supressions).

1st American platoon (above ) went next, obssessed with shooting Pete wanted to fire at the chewed German squad, but that could have left the open to being shot at by the armoured cars if the cards went wrong, After some discussion it was decided to run a squad to the broken ground between hedges  under the cover of smoke from their mortar and the German Postion ( for and assault next move)and the other squad fire on them( fire and movement old as the hills but seems to have passed everyone by) and they managed to cause another casualtie(becomes important later).

The German gun crew tried to spot the troops on the road but failed ( It took Keith about 5 mins to convince Pete they had a line of sight)

The Guns and armoured card continued to pin each other down( I think the armoured cars were doing a grand job, the guns could not turn to face the tanks)

Summer activated and got 1st platoon to shoot at the chewed German Squad , for one more casualtie which dropped it to one activation and one dice, and the Bazooka crew tried a shot at the retreating German tank ( the somua had lousy movement dice) as it was in partial cover as it was moving through the gap in the hedgerow ( I can see the back was cried, -but can you see 3 corners (pinched from Tanks) but missed (just).

The last tea break was pulled and Zebedee shouted bed time.