The Great War Batrep

Hoi,

On February 23rd Koen came by and we played 3 The Great War games; one regular 1200pts battle and two trench-raid games. Now it has taken me ages to filter through all the pictures we took so now I can post them but have about forgot how the games went...

The regular game we played was a "village sweep" scenario my Germans (2 companies of 3 platoons each, 2 medium fieldguns and 3 HMG's) had to defend a village against Koen's BEF (he had about the same forces but with an added tank Mark IV Female). He had to conquer 4 buildings amongst which was a bunker. He advanced under a creeping barrage from the new rules from the Over the Top supplement.

Turn 1 and 2 saw my guns and HMG's do terrible damage to Koen's infantry but to both our enormous surprise his tank did not, I repeat NOT break down in turn one by rolling a one.

While the PBI died in groves Koen's plane arrived and it's bombs together with the British RA started to make it's presence felt and disabled my forward German field-gun and one of the dug in infantry platoons.

Turn 3 saw Koen popping smoke and his troops nearing the village edge. The tank rammed through a fence and the whitewashed farm buildings were taken by the advancing Brits.

The German plane arrived and a dogfight ensued in which the Fokker was shot down...

In the end more and more German positions were threatened and while they were not overrun the situation became grim in the end phase of the game. Koen had suffered from my artillery in turn 1 and 2 and so did not have enough infantry left to storm and hold the weakened German strong-points.

Eventually turn 7 came and I won by the fact I held on to 3 of the 4 buildings but only just.

Highlight of the game for me was this roll of Koen's to see whether his bomb killed my HQ squad, a real throw for Ray and his "don't throw a 1" philosophy...

The other 2 games we played were a scenario based on an Allied trench raiding force send out to destroy a German Big Bertha gun emplacement this because I do not have any trench modules yet.

We played it twice each of us playing both the German sentries and the attackers. Both times the attackers won. But in my case with incredibly more luck in killing sentries and loosing fewer of my own men.

Cheers Sander

Listening to: "Death Magnetic" by Metallica