I believe this is the first play of a scenario from Black SS. This is a small urban assault during the fighting around Normandy. SS troops are trying to retake a small town Montchamp. They have more troops, armor and OBA. The British have control over the town with plenty of troops to hold the town and slightly better morale.

Setup has the British setup in Montchamp in a hedgehog defense. The AT gun has been setup hidden to start, the only optional rule used. The 3in mortar is in the west side of town away from the German attack, the Bren was setup in the center of town so it can reinforce any weakened perimeter town hexes. RIF and WPN are setup on the perimeter. Leaders are setup to provide a maximum control over the town.

The Germans enter the board from the east. They will enter in two groups one going on the north side to take advantage of the woods and hill cover and one in the south to move into the woods to the south-east of the town. Also capture the small town to the south-west of Montchamp. After that they will provide fire on Montchamp to kept troops back from the northern attack.

18:00 The Germans move onto the board taking advantage of the cover mentioned above. Some British Op fire is ineffective. But it does blow the cover of some of the British troops. Germans artillery zero in on a HMG in the east most hex of Montchamp. The GREN and HMGs move into the woods to the north. In the south the Germans position an HMG to fire on the south east corner while the Panthers move up on the ridge to the south of Montchamp to capture the small town to the south west. German GRENs move to capture the southern road out of Montchamp. British Op fire demoralizes one of the GRENs, then they call on the 25lbrs off board and score a kill. The demoralized unit takes the loss but suffers a second demoralization. First loss for the Germans.

At 19:00 the Germans start the assault on the town, but British Op slows the advance of the Germans out of the northern woods. British mortars get into the action attacking the disrupted/demoralized units. The demoralized unit suffers a second demoralization and loses a step. During the action a mortar shell fragment instantly kills the Hpstfr stopping the attack. Shortly after that incident a Osftr gives up and runs away when attempting to recover from a disruption. Not a sign for the SS. Another Hpstfr takes over command of the assault troops and gets them into an assault on the towns perimeter. The British are not immune to fleeing leaders, a Lt abandons his post after suffering a close call with death in an assault.

By 20:00 the German engineers enter the assaults on the perimeter. They move up with a reduced GREN and an Ostfr. They are able to get a step loss on a British RIF and disrupting the remaining RIF unit. German DF from the south east begin to take a toll on the British, a step loss and another British LT is killed. In the east a lone GREN and Hpstfr look to attack the AT gun, but the Bren and a LT move up to reinforce the AT gun and keep the Germans out.

At this point the Germans only contest 3 town hexes and control 1, the small town to the southwest. They need to move up more units to assault. To the west the Panthers had taken a position to fire on the town but now take the chance to move up and assault the town with some SS GRENs in the north. They close on the town and the British watch helplessly. They the GREN's move forward. British Op fire disrupt the first GREN one hex short of the town, a second is demoralized moving up while a Hpstfr is killed outright. This leaves the tanks on their own next to the British infantry. The Major sees an opportunity for dealing a big kill on the Germans. He advancing a RIF and a reduced WPN and himself to attack the Panthers. PIAT teams load their spring launchers in ready for the assault. The Majors force gets lucky machine gunners spray the tanks to force the crews to button-up while teams with grenade bundles blowout the tank treads on three tanks. The remained demoralize, he has done it.

The German assaults begin to falter as the British will hold the majority of the town hexes of Montchamp. The final score will be 16-10 for the British a minor victory. The Germans still have a strong force but have lost 3 leaders so control is a problem. The British suffered leader loss as well, 2 leaders lost. Five leaders lost in the scenario, probably the most ever lost in a scenario I have played.

As for the scenario, very good. Balance was very good for both sides. Victory conditions were within the abilities of both sides and the scenario was in question right until the end. OBA was effective but not overwhelming. Morale levels were appropriate for the scenario. Would I play again, yes as I believe it could go either way and all plays will be different.

In our series of Skype games around the German 9th SS, one more Normandy scenario where the SS attack against the British. This one I have played before in a solo effort, but in this game the Germans were able to take the day. The 9th SS is attacking the Welsh Guards holding Montchamp. My setup had the British deployed in the towns with the WPN's and RIFs facing the advancing Germans and hoping to disrupt the attack before they can close on town and assault. The Germans were deployed to the north east edge and initially moved on toward the town. Early OBA and OP by the British stunned so of the advancing Germans and two RIF platoons were deployed to northern wooded hill to disrupt any advance through the woods. British fire was accurate, but the SS morale was stronger. Some demoralized and disrupted but the recovered quickly and continue there advance on the town.

The first German assault began on hex 610, with both sides scoring morale checks that they easily passed. But the German massed behind the assault and forced the brave Welshmen to move out of the assault to try to buy time for the defense. The Germans kept on advancing and eventually they closed on the British. Their OP fire and OBA slacked and the Germans were able to score hits on the British. So the open southern side of the town was overwhelmed with SS as well as they pushing from the north and east. By turn 7 the Germans had controlled or contested 75% of the town and the British casualties were mounting.

In the end the Germans were able to get a Major victory and pushed the British out of Montchamps.

British set up with most units in the large town. Mortar platoon supported them from the woods on the hill NW of town while two other platoons held the small, one hex town. Most German units advanced from the east toward the large town while two platoons were sent west to eliminate the mortar and two other platoons were sent to the one hex town. The initial German advance saw few casualties and they assaulted two of the town hexes. The British defenses gradually wore down as the Germans simply had more and better units. Also, the British simply didn't have enough units to defend the entire large city. In the end the British still held the single hex town, but that was it. Only one hex of the large town was still in dispute. The Germans took a convincing 31-6 victory. The Germans simply had too much and were too good. NOTE: The scenario writeup mentions the potential British armored support but the scenario doesn't have that possibility. It would be nice if it were added as a "what if" option.

This game was the penultimate PG contest of a 7 scenario mini-series comprising the 9th SS Hohenstaufen versus the British in Operation Bluecoat in Normandy from the BSS book. I'm playing the series against Alan Sawyer over Skype and there have been some memorable struggles so far. To the report.

The last scenario I played against Alan was the 'return to Lutrebois' from Winter Soldiers, and to be honest, this was a similar set-up in that it was once again a more numerous attacker trying to take a defended town with those town hexes having to be controlled and casualties determining VC's. This time, it was the Germans on the attack.

1800 hours: The Hohenstaufen troopers have to advance on the town of Montchamp from the east and decided that the main point of attack would be a thin strip of Montchamp that jutted out towards the east. This would allow an advance with a minimum of British fire to face. The British (or Welsh guards) placed their MG's here and the SS made sure to group their own MG's with a supporting Panther platoon to lay down a heavy fire on this part of the town. Despite attaining a 22 col attack on two turns, the resultant morale checks were passed by the Welsh, thanks in large part to a charismatic LT that was controlling the area (2 morale factor). Meanwhile, in order to stop any wide flanking movements, a company of Guardsmen were sent northwards out of the town into the wooded area to hold off any SS advances there. Both sides OBA, though annoying was generally ineffective up to this point.

1845 hours: Casualties to both sides had thus far been negligable (0 each) and made the 'Deadly' title of the scenario seem a little ironic. However, a small chink of success was gained by the SS when some much lesser SS rifle fire, albeit lots of individual bursts from the advancing SS Grenadiers finally caused disruption amongst one of the Welsh MG platoons. In response, the other MG platoon barked out some fire at SS infantry making feinting runs and with their attention distracted, an SS platoon managed to gain a position outside Montchamps building line. With stick grenades hurled into the buildings, this platoon hustled into the Welshmens MG positions and commenced house-to-house fighting.

1900 hours: With German reinforcements quickly rushing to this toe-hold in Montchamp, the Welsh MG units took the decision to pull out of the assault here as a group, and did so cleverly and without casualties. One platoon made their way to the town centre, whilst the other positioned itself outside the northern approach to the town. It was these MG's that were then attacked by other SS troops advancing into Montchamp and these MG's that became demoralised with the second attack upon them. Other Guardsmen became casualties in the northern wood area when German OBA finally hit the mark and also left their leaders here stunned too. Welsh infantrymen made a brave counter-attack to save the MG's under pressure, but the Hohenstaufen also reinforced the melee. It was a bloody finale here when the SS wiped out 3 of the 4 British steps in one round of assault. The scales seemed to be tipping ? This was confirmed as the Hohenstaufen began swarming round the edge of the whole town and were also reducing the Guards units in the nearby woods.

1930 hours: The British in Montchamp were now surrounded with little chance of any counter-attacks being made. The British in the woods were also cut-off from their mates in Montchamp and without decent leadership. As another step of infantrymen were lost, the British commander realised that any further resistance was futile, and just like the real battle, the Welshman left the town to the Hohenstaufen.

This game was decided by turn 7 of 12 with the Hohenstaufen racking up 20pts to just 4pts for the Welsh Guards. Having played the Lutrebois game recently, this seemed very similar. However. one must rate a scenario on its own standing and therefore give it a standard '3' value. Good fun as always !