I finally made it happen (We can get into why it took me so long, but that will be for another post. And one to write after my therapist visit.) and we played a scenario UIKeyInputDownArrowfor the Battle of the Bulge (fictional) for my favorite set of rules, Blitzkrieg Commander II or BKCII.
I gave Chris the Germans as to give him more to do, as well as an FAO. I took the AMIs defending a town. The goal was, in 9 turns, to be the last one and only one with units in the town...or break the other side.
Chris, of course, picked up the rules quickly and started by moving a group through the center woods. In the picture above, the Germans are coming from off table at the bottom of the picture. He sent one of his squads around the woods, in the open, to draw my fire, which he did. Which makes me visible from the concealed state. His CO and their group coming from off board failed their first CV roll and missed turn 1. Welcome to BKCII.
Chris struggled mightily to get my guys out of the city, first of all they're all concealed unless they fire, move or he gets within 10CM. But he was able to whittle down the guys in the town by putting more and more hits on them. I thought his arty would help, and I always use the auto-suppression roll, but after reading that again, it only suppresses after successful hits. I always said it suppressed if it hit at all, regardless of saves and hits. His arty only had 2 dice each.
His right flank with CO got going but was struggling as well. He was able to lay smoke and make some movement happen.
Turn 5 we both got reinforcements. My last game, one of the sides didn't receive their reinforcements which really affected the outcome. Chris had to roll to see where these units would come on and they came on his right which would turn out to be great.
My units also came on and made a good push the first turn, but then they stalled out a couple turns which would ultimately be my demise.
His tanks took some quick hits from my two tanks, but then fortunes turned and he took mine out quickly. To sum it up, that defending position, a dug-in squad and mortar kept him tied up for a while, but he eventually had the breakthrough and then stood on the hill and took my guys out as they ran out into the open ground as they charged for the city. He took out 4 units in turn 8 which put me 3 over my breakpoint, I failed my roll.
Chris was gettting somewhat down on his prospects as he simply couldn't make much progress against those dug-ins. I was feeling the same way for him as well. I wanted him to enjoy the game, and I was getting a tad nervous for his chances. But he stuck with it and it's a good thing, cause he cleaned up.
In retrospect, I should've run my guys into the woods behind the town and perhaps cover the open ground if he tried to go in. At least then he would've hit me on 5s and not 4s. I also should've kept my tanks as he ran into open ground, instead of going at him head on as soon as I got them.
I saw someone suggest keeping smoke going so as to have the troops get up to close assault without suffering all the support shots and open ground shots because they will accidentally run into each other.
One of the rules I struggled with was LOS and the 10cm max distance you can move toward an enemy unit. It gets a little
I'm going to say something completely obvious here: I've played at least 15 games of BKCII solo. I've enjoyed most of the experiences. I've only played with others 3 times. Once to test my con scenario. The con scenario. And now with Chris. I found myself really enjoying the game with Chris. His company is a huge reason. But it was fun to see how someone else chose to attack and to have reactions that I wouldn't think of. I want to do more of that.
And, here's the video AAR:
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