Here the raiding party works its way down the trench towards the target
A British suffer from several turns of terrible activation rolls, so are only able to bring on the reinforcing bombing squad after the hun is well into their position. The lead German squad manages to bomb the British rifle grenade section in the sap out of action.
Meanwhile, the lead German Grenadier squad clears out the rest of the sap. Given that there are no combat effective British units on the table, the Germans has enough time to blow the sap and withdraw back across no man's land as planned. So a major success with fairly moderate casualties.
Lt. Klink is carried back by his men and will spend several weeks in a field hospital in the rear having his wounds attended to.
I hope you enjoyed it. The game took exactly 31 minutes to play, I know because I listen to a podcast while playing it, but I also played it solo, which speeds things up quit a bit.
Until next time, good gaming!
I like that- with a game of such short duration you could easily add it in as a quick pregame for a biger battle to determine set up conditions or similar.
ReplyDeleteCheers,
Pete.
Thanks! That is interesting, you could take a scenario like this and then "zoom out" to a 1 stand = platoon or company game, using the results to determine your jump off points, brilliant! I have limited time, plus, playing solo probably makes the game go at least twice as fast, plus I contributed to the rules, which probably makes it faster.
DeleteNot a lot of tactical options i this scenario admittedly, just get down the trench as fast as you can before the reinforcements arrive and set up blocking positions in the choke points.
I like to draw out the setup over a few days for the whole solo gaming experience, so when I step up to the table to play, the terrain is set up, figures at their start points.
Given the speed it was all over, are you comfortable with the 'balance' of the scenario? Will you be playing it again to see how it might pan out differently?
ReplyDeleteFrom a read through, it seemed balanced, and from your description of events, it wasn't a walk-over, I'm just curious how it 'felt' ...
It felt right. Part of the speed of play was a) I was playing solo and b) I was the co-author, so maybe an hour or so if you are just picking up the rules. The fight seemed appropriately bloody, with more troops on the table, holding choke points in the trenches is important. The balance felt good, I think t could have gone the British way if they had been able to bring on their reinforcements earlier.
DeleteOne tactic I dd not explore is abandoning the trenches and going over the top. Ivan has cooked up a more streamlined assault sequence he is going to use for Hammer of Democracy that I used in the next game, this one was by the book. We'll probably retrofit it to Trench Hammer.
Thanks Jozi - off to read the next one now!
DeleteThe activation rolls look to be a good mechanic for re-playability. Those trenches have a useful interior width.
ReplyDeleteI rather like it, keeps things moving along, but you still need to keep your "big man" to borrow a Lardy term at your point of main effort to keep things moving.
DeleteInitially I was worried about the trenches being a bit wide for the scale, but they are easy to maneuver in and my 40mm wide bases can run along them no problem.