CoC: Delaying Action at Arthenay

I recently purchased the 29, Let's Go pint sized campaign from TFL. These are great little booklets that are less then $6 and come as a downloadable full colour PDF. I suspect many more are planned.

The campaign booklets are to be used with the Sharpe's End Campaign supplement for Chain of Command. This was has uni-directional 5 scenario structure which involves the exploits of an infantry platoon from the American 176th Infantry Regiment, 29th Infantry Division which landed on Omaha Beach on D-Day. They were ordered to advance west in order to secure the bridge at Isigny. In their way was the 914th Grenadier Regiment of the German 352nd Infantry Division.

After having a look through the booklet, I decided to go with the 2nd scenario which is a type 4 scenario (delaying Action) from the main rulebook. The challenge for me is having the correct terrain pieces to play the game, this scenario was the best choice. A basic regular infantry platoon was used for each side with 5 CD. 

I took the Germans and Mike took the Americans (we substituted Canadians), Mike had 19 supports and I had 10. Mike diced a morale of 11 and I had a morale of 8. I can say I was a little concerned! 

As my orders were basically defensive, I took two entrenchments, a medium mortar and a Pak 35 AT gun. Little did Mike know that I also had a pair of Marder II's hidden on his left flank. I also started the game with two CoC dice (these last two were part of the scenario design). Mike selected a Sherman tank, a 6pd AT gun,  a medium Mortar and I think a MMG gun team.

My camera's battery died while I was adjusting the white balance, so these photo's were taken with my iPhone, which is somewhat dated.

Here is the terrain looking toward the east, that of the American advance. I had some received some new roads that day, they do need some work. The bocage here are hedges rather then true bocage so can be fired from, are a medium obstacle and provide soft cover. I was able to advance my two JOP to my right and left flanks almost half way up the table. Mike got a little stuck and was able to get his JOP to just in front of the hedge on my right flank.  

Most of the action was not photographed but essentially you can see that I laid down a strong defensive perimeter to the right and the left of the road, with entrenchments on both sides. The stone wall abutting the house was also hard cover. Mike slowly and surely advanced his troops but did suffer significant loss from the my entrenched troops. This photo is from pretty late in the game and you can see that many German troops were lost as well, fortunately I was pretty lucky on my morale throws unlike Mike who was whittled down to a 5 pretty quickly.

Mike's 6pder and his FO.

Blurry, blurry, blurry, I have my troops dangerously running across the road to get to hard cover. My FO was planted in the orchard behind the hedge, you can just make out my truck mounted Pak 35 entrenched.

I was really hoping that Mike would advance his Sherman so I could shoot at it with my Marders, they could be only activated with a CoC dice.

Is this game the main tactic appear to be a Mortar barrage and I would say most damage was done by German 8cm mortar. 

I made 4 barrage markers to delineate the area of the barrage, you can see one of them above, they are a lot of work and I definitely need at least 6-8 more.

Mike packed it in when his morale fell to 4, so a German victory, I really thought I was not going to win one, but I think the dice gods favoured me. I believe it is the first time that Mike played the Canadians (substituted for Americans); he, as I, found that Commonwealth troops have to play a slow advance while whittling down the Germans before they attack!