Last Wednesday, I caught up with Mr Brian Buskell, an old gaming buddy from way back when we were a little younger. We played a great game of Chain of Command with his latest painted platoon….Royal Marine Commandos.
The mission of our game (set in June 1944) was for the Commandos to secure a large French farmhouse and hopefully snag a local German Divisional Commander, who happened to be residing in the farm. As you may have rightly guessed, the Germans’ mission was to stop this from happening as best they could.
However, little known to the British Commandos, the General was not home but just happened to be on his way back from the recent Corps Commander wargames, held the night before. To bring the General on, I had to obtain 30 points total from several collective rolls of two dice. Once the dice hit 30, the General would appear, with his motorcycle escort and race at top speed to the Farmhouse.
Our game played well with Brian’s Commandos winning the initiative and deploying rapidly onto the table and taking up overwatch positions up and down the main road. Next, the Germans quickly deployed a squad into the bunker and their armoured car 221 onto the road, which I decided to rapidly move straight up the road. Unfortunately, the armoured car did not get that far and came under MG fire several meters up the road. They soon skidded to a halt and started to engage the Commandos behind the hedge.
This was ok, however, with Brian’s next roll of the dice, he deployed his armoured car and soon had my 221 under accurate fire, forcing them to reverse back down the road. The poor crew of my 221 were the focus of several phases of fire, and soon after taking several hits from small arms and from the British Greyhound, they were forced to abandon the 221 and were captured.
Brian’s next move was to storm the German section located in the bunker, which they did very successfully, killing most of the occupants and taking the remainder prisoner. But they did take serious casualties themselves and were soon forced to quickly withdraw from heavy fire directed at them from two other German positions.
During the next phase, the German Divisional commander appeared with his escort and sped past the British armoured car, past several other Commando lads hiding in the hedges, and after a double phase, they almost made it to the farmhouse. But as luck would have it, the remaining Commando section opened fire as the General and his escort tried to zip past, killing the General’s driver and wounding him in the left arm.
The game was almost up for the Germans; however, I still had a section in reserve and soon reoccupied the bunker. But alas, Brian deployed his flamethrower team and, after a double phase, routed the German section from the bunker and retook the strongpoint. It was all over for my troops. The Commandos won the day.
Well done, Brian, for the victory, and well done to your freshly painted Commandos.
