Thursday, April 5, 2018

CoC Airborne vs Fallschirmjäger around Carentan

Overview of the battlefield
Nick and myself first tried Chain of Command or CoC last year because Bolt Action wasn't giving us enough "crunch" in our WWII gaming and although BA is a good game it just wasn't enough anymore. We liked Chain of Command so much we decided it would now become our go to WWII rule set and fact we are so hooked we haven't played anything but CoC since trying it which has been months now with no end in sight. I've always been an avid Dark Ages/Horse and Musket player/painter with a interest in WWII, but this game has now really lit my hair on fire for WWII with all kinds of future plans for the period! Now will WWII overcome my love of North American conflicts then probably not, but it sure has moved up the ladder of significance.

If your looking for a game that makes you feel like your in the boots of a platoon or squad leader then Chain of Command does it better then anything I've played so far and I thoroughly recommend it if you haven't had a chance to play it yet.  Nick even commented it's the first game that makes him feel like wargamer and not just a figure painter who sometimes plays wargames.

The Rules!
Now that we have had some games under our belts we started looking at doing a campaign. We decided to use 28mm for most our games and 15mm for any scenario's with a lot of armor. I have US Airborne I want to use and Nick wanted to use his newly painted Fallschirmjäger so we started looking around for some pint sized action featuring theses adversaries and Nick found a nice campaign on the Too Fat Lardies forum called "Rendezvous with Destiny" by Will3T(sorry don't know his proper name) featuring the 101st Airborne and the 2nd Fallschirmjäger in and around Carentan which was just the ticket! I've added a page to the top of my blog to help me keep track of the campaign and add a little detail to it if your interested.

A coke bottle supervises the battlefield.
Our first game was "Charge at Ingouf farm" which went so fast I didn't take any pictures and all the pictures you see are from our second game. The scenario was a Probe scenario requiring the Airborne to get a unit off the enemies table edge while running over mostly open ground for over half the way(Gulp!). Nick's intent was to bring his FJ's on directly into close assault with my Airborne rather then shoot me as I came in, but the gamble didn't work as I rolled a double move and over ran his jump off point thus denying him a chance to deploy and covered the other FJ jumping points in smoke making it a pretty easy and quick escape for the Airborne.

Black is FJ's and Green is Airborne
The next game and the one featured in this entire post was "Fighting in the Hedges" and is a flank attack by the FJ's. Black is FJ's and Green is Airborne. I had 2 Squads of my own Airborne at 1 and 3 and support Airborne squads at 4 and 2 with Plt Sargeant Tellman and Bazooka at 2 and Lt. LaMarch  at 3. Nick had a squad of FJ's at 1 moving to assault my Airborne 1 and another FJ squad at  2 exchanging fire with my Airborne 2. In between these he had a senior leader. At 3 he had one of his own FJ squads, a support FJ squad, senior leader and support heavy MG all exchanging fire with my parartroopers at 4 and 3.

FJ's exchanging fire with my Airborne in the buildings.
In a nutshell the FJ's at the hedges exchanged fire with the Airborne in the buildings each trying to suppress the other through covering fire with the FJ heavy machine close to being removed. In the Orchard the FJ's again exchanged fire with the Airborne to little effect on each. The game decider came when the FJ's moving down the side of the orchard assaulted my Airborne behind a hedge which resulted in an almighty bloody melee with saw the entire FJ squad wiped out including it's junior leader and the Airborne only coming out a little better with the loss of 9 paratroopers and 1 junior leader leaving only the LMG crew of 2 left! This left one of the FJ's senior leader exposed who was promptly cut down by the LMG. At this point the FJ's morale dropped dangerously low and Nick decided a withdrawal was the prudent thing to do.

Another shot of the FJ's firing on my Airborne in the houses. Along with his FJ's you can also see Nick's marker which are both great!
It was a truly terrific game and I'm very curious to see if my Airborne can continue to push back the FJ's, but the next game is a night attack by the FJ's and I have no idea how that's going to turn out. While I can pump out a good amount of firepower the FJ's can really pour it on with 2 MG's per squad so I'm really curious how this will play out as all shooting will not happen except at close range (18in.) unless a flare is used, but that requires a chain of command dice so not often if at all.

My Airborne in the ruined farm house keeping the FJ at bay led by Sgt Hardwell and Lt. LaMarch 
Another shot of Airborne in the ruined farm. I really do need to work on my cobblestone roads!
I've of course started to see the short comings of my terrain and will need to paint up a lot more roads
and build a proper orchard, canal. Ah well that's wargaming always more to do!

Airborne engaging the FJ's trying to outflank the orchard
Front shot Airborne locking and loading and taking aim on seeing the FJ's moving in!
I've also noticed I need to paint up some more Airborne troops as I need more then I expected plus some armor here and there......

Assaulting FJ force
Quick overhead look.
This campaign will probably last us a couple months then on to the next one. Still plenty more to do in Normandy and we have most the troops we need for it, but always need more

FJ's moving through the orchard.
Nick moving to check the range for his assault.
Not sure where we will go after Normandy, but we may go into the vast expanse of Russia as we have some of the troops needed and are curious to see how the two match up.

Thanks for viewing!

38 comments :

  1. A super looking game Christopher and a fine AAR!

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  2. Great report Christopher! Totally agree with your thoughts about these rules. CoC is just about all I have played for the last 9 months or so and WW2 figures are the only figures that I have painted in that time.

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    1. Thanks Rodger they really are addictive aren't they!

      Christopher

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  3. Looks terrific, Christopher! CoC is our go to WWII skirimish set too. Brilliant!

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  4. Awesome article Christopher. I have CoC now I need to get some of my group to give it a try.

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    1. Cheers Gary and good luck I think your group will thank you!

      Christopher

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  5. Fabulous report Christopher and the whole set up looks amazing!

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    1. Thank you Michael happy you found it worthwhile!

      Christopher

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  6. Superb looking table and toys there Christopher. Fine reporting too.

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    1. Thank you Phil it's always fun to get the toys on the table.

      Christopher

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  7. I’ve really liked CoC as well and these reports make me want to get a game in. My only gripe is that it takes a long time to complete a game.
    Nice figures and terrain.

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    1. Thank you Stew and all good things take awhile.:-)

      Christopher

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  8. Great looking game and exellent aar !

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  9. Great write up of an excellent ruleset--looking forward to reading more... ;)

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    1. Thanks Kym it is indeed an excellent rule-set!

      Christopher

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  10. Thoroughly enjoyed my few games of CoC, though I've played it at 15mm, which to us, seemed the more intuitive scale where weapons ranges are moot.

    Your tables always impress sir! Lovely report.

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    1. Thank you Dai. No question 15mm works just fine for CoC, but we are also figure painters who enjoy the scale 28mm offers to capture the detail. We also collect 15mm for larger engagements that feature more armor so you will see some of that here and there in the future.

      Christopher

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  11. Excellent looking game with fabulous figures and terrain, as always, Christopher. Love seeing two elite units battling it out.

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    1. Thank you Dean and indeed the two sides match up very well in a fight.

      Christopher

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  12. Superb table and painting! Its a treat to see it all out on the table. I'm currently in a CoC Kursk campaign and loving it.

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    1. Thank you Monty! It's just a wonderful system and we are also looking to maybe doing Kursk as well.

      Christopher

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  13. My gaming group was also impressed by the rules. Perhaps your beautiful game will inspire us to play it again!

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    1. Thanks Scott and if it does then that would be great!

      Christopher

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  14. I have to totally agree with your sentiments Chris. These were two great games, even if the first one was cut a little short with me trying to be too clever 😅
    Looking forward to more games.

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    1. Thanks for games Nick they were great fun so looking forward to the next ones!

      Christopher

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  15. The game looks great! I've been looking for something better than BA and I'll have to give CoC a go!

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  16. Thank you glad you like it and I think you will really enjoy CoC!

    Christopher

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  17. Superb looking game Christopher. I remember us chatting about CoC at Crisis so I'm delighted you're both enjoying it so much.

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  18. Great report, like you, once I discovered Chain of Command I found it hard to play anything else, it really scratches my WWII itch.

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    1. Thank you TTP it does indeed scratch that itch.

      Christopher

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  19. Wow!! Great battle and report! Marvelous details on your tabletop make a captivating atmosphere.
    Peter

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    1. Thank you Peter happy you find the table interesting.

      Christopher

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