Well we've played the game now, didn't track the time it took us to finish it (about 2-3 hours I think) but we were quite pleased with the results! Unfortunately we didn't have a camera available and so you'll have to close your eyes and imagine the scene
Most of the terrain was improvised at this point, simple blue, yellow and orange paper shapes arranged to represent rivers, roads and BUAs. The scene was a wooded river valley running North-South, with a road running each side of the river. The BUA representing the town of Otta was at the Northern end of the valley, by a fork in the river. The two branches ran to the South and East of Otta, and were each bridged where the road crossed them. The valley was lined with patchy forest and woodland, and we added a few small copses to the valley floor to break LoS and offer some cover for movement along the roads.
I played as the British defenders, and deployed one rifle company on each of the Eastern and Western walls of the valley, overlooking the two road approaches to the town. The third company was deployed at the Southern edge of Otta (one platoon in the BUA, two dug-in across the bridge), along with the 25mm guns. My CO was North of the town to my rear, with the 2IC in the town centre. My 3 Boys ATR upgrades were shared equally between my rifle companies.
The Germans approached in two columns on the road on either bank of the river. The Western column was the stronger of the two, with both an infantry formation (HQ, 3 Infantry, MG and light infantry gun units) and the armour company with the engineers. The Eastern column was commanded by the CO himself and comprised 4 Rifle and an MG platoon, accompanied by the FAO.
The first few turns were pretty uneventful for my side, as I waited for the attack to hit home. The Germans pushed the tanks up the West road at speed, followed by the engineers and infantry while the infantry gun set up behind a small wood to provide indirect fire support. The infantry on the East also moved up towards to the town as the FAO climbed the valley sides for a good vantage point. Two consecutive scheduled strikes from the German 105mm, and a Stuka attack caused no significant damage but kept the troops in the town occupied, while an attempt to move the Rifle Coy. on the Eastern spur into a better position to enfilade the advancing infantry column failed miserably, as my command units were too far away.
As the Germans approached the town the tanks and MG platoon provided covering fire at the infantry fanned out for an assault on the bridge and the engineers wheeled to push my Rifle Coy. from the high ground on their flank. In turn 3 the Pzkpfw VI Neubau was knocked out by concentrated AT fire (pretty historical
) and as they moved within range the German infantry began to take casualties. Once they had moved into position however their superior firepower began to take it's toll; the Rifle Coy. on the Western spur eventually succumbed to close assaults from the determined engineers and were driven from their commanding position on the flank of the tanks' advance, and the Coy. on the Eastern spur engaged in a brief firefight with the Germans before being destroyed in a spectacular display of fire superiority. My line South of Otta took a beating and lost a platoon to cleverly concentrated fire from the indirect gun volleys, the tanks and MG fire, so I pulled the surviving forward platoon back into the town to cover the bridge approach.
The decisive moment of the battle came when my brother rolled snake eyes, and with the extra bonus action finished the Rifle Coy. in the woods on the Eastern heights and took the river crossing North-East of Otta, threatening my CO and rear. I had to detach a platoon from the South end of the town to hold off this outflanking attempt, weakening my defense of the bridge in the South and a Pzkpfw II and some infantry forced their way into Otta. As my defence collapsed I reached my breakpoint and withdrew from the field.
Technically the Germans didn't occupy the town but I had been decisively beaten, and looking at the situation would have had difficulties disengaging. 1st Battalion The Green Howards had ceased to exist as a cohesive unit, and Gruppe Pellangahr took control of Otta that evening.
We played the game in a friendly manner (we are family after all!) and there were no rules disputes. When we came across rules situations that weren't clear, we just improvised a common-sense interpretation and got on with it, and we were both thoroughly impressed with the rules (thanks Pete
). Obviously as we play more we'll become more familiar with the rules and games will no doubt flow better.
Much enjoyment was had this evening, I hope you all enjoyed reading my first AAR and had as much fun visualising the on-table events as we did! Next time I'll sort out a camera so you can have some eye-candy to go with my ramblings!
(writing from a German PoW camp) Fletch