Final Combat: Chef-du-Pont

The next scenario book from Britton Publishers I want to look at is Chef-du-Pont.  Published in 2009, Chef-du-Pont contains 10 scenarios based on some of the US airborne engagements on D-Day supporting the landings at Utah beach.

The booklet is smaller than the two previous ones I looked at, coming in at 66 pages but the pdf is around £7.50.  Unlike the other two books this one only has a single page set of publisher's notes and does have a table to help you translate the stats from Final Combat to Arc of Fire, Battleground, Disposable Heroes, Face of Battle and Nuts!  This is followed by around 9 pages of historical background material which helps place the scenarios.

Each scenario starts with a contemporary photograph, the historical situation, an order of battle and mission briefing for each side and then a set of Game Master's notes including battlefield conditions, deployment, victory conditions and some author's tips.  This is followed by a map and, unlike the other two books this isn't a photo of a wargames table but rather a purpose drawn colour diagram.  The US forces are typically a platoon or less and the Germans a single or couple of squads with some support weapons - although they do get a platoon sized set of reinforcements in one of them.  The scenarios don't require any vehicles (unless you count a crashed glider) and most of the terrain is straightforward (although a couple do require several buildings) so seem manageable in larger scales without a huge "investment".

This is all rounded out with a concluding section recounting the historical outcome.

Whilst this has less scenarios that either Operation Jupiter or Unternehmen Lüttich they all seem eminently do-able with a sensible amount of figures and terrain and provide some interesting challenges.