After playing my last game against Vince on the Arctic Front (AFDX031 - Tank Sausage), I was looking at my stack of PG games and asked Vince if he would want to play a scenario from BN. He had mentioned that there were some epic scenarios there and hadn't played BN in a while so he gave me a choice of 3 he selected and I went for this one. On the surface, it looked to be decent-sized and though the Germans have the morale advantage (9/8!), The British have the potential to rain artillery on German positions with lucky rolls. Add the potential for smoke and air (which turned out was mostly a non-factor) and it sounded like it would be fun.

SITUATION / SETUP

The British are tasked with pushing the Germans out of the Mouen area while gaining a foothold in Bas-de-Mouen. The Victory conditions are very explicit and the only effect that step losses have is on British morale due to the formation rules in BN (more on that later...). The SS mainly focused on deploying GRENS, HMGs and Armor in as many town hexes as possible. The British had the 1st Worcestershire on the initial attack setup just over a rise out of sight of the SS units with the 7th Somerset LI to provide reinforcements as early as 2 hours later (1000). I was successful in rolling for smoke so, having never played with smoke before; I was looking forward to seeing what tactical benefit I could gain.

BATTLE

Sighting in BN is different from other PG games since the maps represent rolling hills rather than clumps of hills surrounded by flat lands. Consulting with some of the players in the forum, both Vince and I agreed that sighting would be limited to 3 hexes in every hex unless firing or elevation rules allowed greater distance. With that in mind, the British approached aiming for the gap between Mouen and Bas-de-Mouen as it seemed as though most of the German strength was deployed to prevent the British from skirting around the "open" western area of the map. As the British began to crest the hill, opportunity fire began raining down as units came into view, however, UK Artillery began dropping smoke in front of the German positions and the British were able to move most of the regiment onto the hill. Seeing that any attempt to move into positions for assaulting would be bloody, part of the regiment was dispatched to move around the rise and attack Bas-de-Mouen from the east. The remaining elements charged to the rail embankment and engaged in a fierce DF battle with the Germans in Mouen, and even at one point, a half-platoon of Tigers assaulted a platoon of rifles. In the east, the 1st Worcestershire Lt. Col led his troops to the outskirts of Bas-de-Mouen and established a foothold in the eastern portion of the town. Over the course of the first two hours (8 turns), the SS would inflict heavy casualties on those positions behind the rail embankment, ultimately eliminating enough attackers to free up units to move on Bas-de-Mouen.

At this crucial stage, The British had achieved the foothold necessary to prevent a German victory whilst it looked like the Germans would hold on to theirs to prevent the same from the British. The only hope was that the reinforcements would arrive in a timely manner and ease some of the pressure that the 1st Worcesters were facing. The 7th Somersets did show up close to the expected arrival time (turn 8 instead of 7), and began to move around to the west. Without any AFVs to speak of, there was little fear of encountering the hidden AT guns that may have been emplaced there (I figured them to be in that spot as it was really the only open area for my Achilles to operate). The 7th Somersets moved quickly around the west-northwest of Mouen and along with some helpful placement of smoke were into position to assault from the West. The remainder of the regiment would support from behind the rail embankment to the north. This began a slow progression of British assaults that by the end of the game were only able to clear one of the town hexes of Mouen; however this was to prove enough. The Germans were finally able to clear the units from Bas-de-Mouen but the effort to do that spread them thin and allowed the western assault to open a small corridor to the south which allowed a company of rifles to get within the specified range of the objective hex to prevent the German win. The game was called on turn 15 as we both agreed there was no way for either side to come out with a victory.

OBSERVATIONS

From a purely gaming sense, this was a fun, tense scenario as the high morale of the Germans was offset by the size of the British forces plus the potential for tremendous artillery support and air support, giving a fairly balanced battle with the smoke capability included. However, the victory conditions, as Vince stated in his AAR, are very tough for the either side to accomplish and will most likely end in a draw. This, I think was more a problem for Vince as I was happy to finally get a "Non-loss" against him! :-). Another item that seemed to bother me is the formation rules. Not that they are an indication of bad design or development, but rather what the reasoning was for including them in BN? In discussing this with Vince, he mentioned that the County system for organization (which I assume the formation rule is meant to represent) was enacted to promote morale in the units as they would be fighting together with those they knew. Looking at the rules, we could not determine any distinct advantage that the British get for formation cohesion other than a reduced morale of 7 (whilst the Germans routinely get 8!); instead all we could find was the disadvantages, consisting of activation and combat restrictions.

Despite these few items (and the fact that the RAF never showed up!), I did enjoy the scenario and found it to be more evenly matched that I expected.