Last weekend I had a visit from Lawrence Greaves, who has journeyed out from the UK to not only visit me for a game but also to travel up from Adelaide to North Qld and back. We had a great chat about politics in the UK and Australia and in addition, we somehow managed to fit in a great game of Chain of Command.
The game we played was set in my favourite WW2 campaign theatre, Italy and we utilised the ‘Patrol’ scenario for the game as Lawrence had not played a game of Chain of Command before, however, he certainly picked up the basic concept of the game and rules rather quickly.
Of the two opposing sides, Lawrence commanded a regular British Infantry Platoon with a FO party and a Sherman tank in support, while I commanded a Fallschirmjagers Platoon with a Marder III in support.
I would have thought that with some excellent firepower from my MG34s would have been able to seriously restrict the British ability to advance, but that was not the case. Lawrence, as part of his support, utilised the pre-game barrage and then subsequently called in a mortar barrage on my troops. Both barrages severely restricted my own ability to bring troops onto the table and those that were deployed suffered numerous points of shock. It was a good choice of support options for the British.
On about the tenth phase of play I was finally able to bring on my Marder III and thought (as you would) that I had an excellent chance of knocking out the Sherman…..but after three shots I was not able to hit the target (the crew must have had sand in their eyes). Lawrence quickly followed up my poor shooting with a very lucky shot from his PIAT, which destroyed Marder. However, I would have my revenge and eventually destroy the Sherman with my last remaining Panzerfaust.
But it was too little too late, Lawrence would go on to win the game in the next phase, snatching a hard-fought win over my a Fallschirmjagers. Well done Lawrence and thank you for the fantastic, fun game.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend
Regards
Nathan
