This is my 2nd ladder game of Combat Commander. For those of you who do not know what Combat Commander is (first of all crawl out from under your rock), you can learn more about it here on Boardgame Geek. You can also learn more about the ladder by clicking here. Patrick does a fantastic job at monitoring and running this ladder. (Kudos to you Patrick!)
This month's scenario is based on the Resistance module of Combat Commander. The module focuses on the Partisan presence during WWII. This scenario Compagnie Scamaroni II takes place in Caen France June 18, 1944. Partisans are on their way to infiltrate and cross the River Orne at Vaucelles to secure a vital bridging site, as the partisans passed through to the Orne, a rearguard engaged and delayed the responding Luftwaffe troops.
An estimated 500,000 French men and women worked for the Resistance during Germany's occupation of France. Resistance workers carried out thousands of acts of sabotage against the German occupiers. The risks were great. More than 90,000 resisters were killed, tortured or deported by the Germans.
I was paired up to play Ben for this round and I would play the Axis while Ben took on the role of the partisans. We are both, still youngsters when it comes to playing CC. So this was going to be a well-matched fight.
We had a full house as we logged in to VASSAL to play the game. Mark, Noel, and Steve were all watching and the pressure was on. The good news is they helped us on many occasions (especially early) with rules and sequence of play. By the end, I am sure they all wanted to stick a knife in their eye, but I was also reminded that they could always click away, so this was self-inflicted torture. haha!
The goal is for the Germans to survive and exit the board. I forgot about this early on. However, things were going well at the beginning. The Germans were in decent shape until they weren't. I made the mistake of closing in on the Partisans. Remember what I said earlier about victory conditions? Survive and exit. Dying is bad, and all I did was help the Partisans kill my squads. I should have followed the arrow and headed toward the board's edge for the exit points. X2 for the Germans, by the way. The maneuver below allowed the Partisans to engage and melee with the squad and LMG at the top of the map. The Germans were quickly eliminated.
The first time-trigger hit and the Germans were still in decent shape despite some awful tactics. The good news is the Germans were able to enter reinforcements on A1-K1 or A10-J10. I was able to choose the one I wanted as I drew a 10-smoke chit to determine placement. It is all good, right? Well, don't count your chickens before they hatch as my grandmother used to say. I picked A1-K1. Again not bad, but how I distributed the troops was awful!
What was I thinking? I placed 3 squads and 2 LMGs in the corner. I guess I was thinking of supporting the poor squads that are in melee in D2. I then take my Leader and move him way out of the way along with a squad and LMG. My thought process was good, but my execution was the worst. If I could do it over again I would have lined up all of those squads with the leader in the middle. This would have allowed for his command radius to activate the entire group. This would become crucial in the next few minutes. It's just a dumb placement of troops.
The group in the upper right should have been exited as soon as possible to get them back in play quicker. The group on the bottom should have kept heading for the exit but decided to stay and play with the Partisans. Again, I forgot that I needed to survive and exit. I forced engagement in the top left and I should have placed one squad to keep the Partisan from exiting and ran around the other squads to get prepared to exit. Then into a Melee and got hammered. This put the Partisans at 24 VP and things were looking bleak. Along with the dreaded Night Action rule, rearing its ugly head. All of a sudden I had a hand full of nothing, nada, just crap. The Germans under this Night Action rule can only discard 1 card! I call This Death by Night!
What?
It was awful and hampered my progress for the rest of the game.
Are you kidding me? For the rest of the game, I struggled with this type of hand. It is hard to find move and fire cards rotating 1 card at a time. I was given some advice from Noel and I think he was correct. I should have taken a few hands, and discarded 1 each time to change the landscape of the hand, I did the opposite. When I found a card to play I used it immediately and thus kept my hand from ever-improving drastically. Lesson learned for the next time I play these Night Action Rules. The Germans finally had some good fortune for the next half hour, and after exiting the squads that should have been off the board already, The tide had turned and the AXIS had a 4VP lead. That was a 28VP swing! The good fortune did not last very long, however.
In less than a half hour, the Germans had lost a couple of Melee's, and the Partisans had exited a large group off the board and all of a sudden, the Axis were down by 10VP. Things happen so quickly at times in Combat Commander.
For what seemed like an hour, I had ZERO move cards and all I was doing was discarding 1 card at a time, while the partisans were discarding 4 and watching time drift away. Not a good feeling for the Axis. I swear that all the move cards were removed from the deck. They had to be.
At one time I had SIX! (6) fire cards in my hand with no one even close to shoot out. Uugh! This was the worst feeling. I could not move and all I could do was watch as the time went by. Ben and the Partisans held their ground awaiting a frontal assault from the Axis, which just never happened. The game ended on turn 9 due to a sudden death. The Partisan holds 9VP and earns a hard-fought victory.
At one time I had SIX! (6) fire cards in my hand with no one even close to shoot out. Uugh!
It was a fun game and I have to say that I love playing CC: resistance scenarios. They have never disappointed me in playability and all-around enjoyment. I learned a few things in this game;
Command Radius is so important and I did not pay close enough attention to that fact.
Read and understand the Victory Conditions. This cost me early and I got myself in a big hole because of it.
When you can only discard 1 card at a time, you must bite the bullet and do that a few times in a row to breathe new life into your hand.
Last but not LEAST! Night Action Rules suck! haha! Not really but they sure made a big difference in this game.
Special thanks go out to Ben my opponent. This was a long game. Also thanks to those sitting in the peanut gallery, your help was much needed. Thank you! Until next month everyone, Have fun and game on. Oh yeah don't forget to join our community to get updates on the Movement Phase blog here at the Cardboardcommander.com
Read more about where the name Scamaroni came from. https://www.ordredelaliberation.fr/fr/compagnons/fred-scamaroni
French Forces of the Interior - FFI : https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/spies-saboteurs-and-d-day
Ladder Information Main Thread: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1780650/combat-commander-vassal-ladder
Results Thread: https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/1780654/combat-commander-ladder-results If you want to learn more about how to play Combat Commander go check out Patricks Tactics & Tutorials YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/@PatricksTacticsTutorials Order your copy of Combat Commander here at GMTgames.com https://www.gmtgames.com/p-928-combat-commander-europe-5th-printing.aspx
Nice write up Jerry. Some times in Combat Commander it's the card you DON'T play that is important. This is more so if your side has limited discard capability.