Crete, 1941

Our second game of 2014 was another chance to play the Chain of Command rules by Too Fat Lardies.  In this case Lenin converted a scenario from one of the Skirmish Campaign books on Crete.  I took command of the Fallschirmjaeger and he took the Allied forces.

As with our previous game the patrol phase was an interesting component and something I think is a great aspect of the rules.  Of course I didn't have quite enough Jump Off points (4 per side) and so a little improvisation was required.  In the end the placement of them was a little tricky but I think worked ok.

Deployment is something I think we are both still coming to terms with - as both of us were rather too keen to get as many of our toys onto the table as quickly as possible.

I split my force, with the majority being deployed on or near the hill on my left and with a single section on the right to harass the enemy.  Lenin ended up with most of his troops on the ridge on his table edge but with a section further forward in a small wood.

I deployed my MG team to cover the ridge and started to lay down fire as I continued to deploy men on my left.  This gave me a base of fire which allowed my MG armed section to advance through to some rocky cover and set up there.  My other section advanced through the vineyard towards Lenin's advance section.

Lenin attempted to suppress me using his Bren but the power of my MGs was quickly felt.  He added a substantial amount of rifle fire to it which then gave me a little more of a headache but ultimately the power of the German MGs was decisive.

With Lenin taking some serious casualties on the ridge, his Bren team being forced to withdraw and his advance section pinned in the wood we called the game.

In the post game analysis we decided that the straight conversion of the Skirmish Campaigns scenario probably didn't make things easy for Lenin and that, in future, we would probably look more closely at aligning it with the Chain of Command approach.  All in all a fun game though and we'll certainly be playing the rules again.