Opening games in the 1940 Fighting Withdrawal campaign - Part Two; Holding the line at Risquons Tout

Last night Tom and I played the next game in the 'Fighting Withdrawal' campaign. In this scenario, the Germans had one objective, as per the 'Probe' scenario.. get at least one team off the opposite side of the table.. very Blitzkrieg!

The scenario map, Germans attacking from the left

I actually gave a little thought the night before as to how to spend my generous support points. In this scenario the BEF have a pretty good defensive line along an Anti-tank ditch, with barbed wire and concrete bunker.  I opted for more firepower than speed, reasoning that it was likely that a roadblock would impede a wheeled or tracked dash for that end of the table. I chose a pre-game barrage to try to delay some deployment, along with an IG18 gun, some engineers and an off-table mortar battery.

The line of defence, German infantry pushing on the top

We had a cagey patrol phase.. neither of us too sure of our intentions and I definitely lucked out, Tom cursing his angles!

A Jump Off Point on the flanking edge, followed by a double phase and some good dice throws, found an infantry section rushing hard up on the one weak point in the British line. Tom managed to get some infantry deployed just before the 80mm mortars opened up, but the german gun crew put some fire into a section in the house, wounding the Junior leader there.

Despite the fact that the British Force morale was holding very well, some more lucky dice rolls ran the german section off the table and ended the game.

As it happened, the road had been left clear, and maybe deploying a 221 and gunning it might have yielded the same result? the Probe scenario is a tricky one to defend.

This was a really quick game, but it wasn't really a disappointment in that this is one chapter of the story. The British didn't suffer any losses and the next game sees them in a much tougher defensive position.. I suspect that I'll be hard-pushed to win that one on the first run!

See Tom's page for more photos and his account of the battle: 

http://tomstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2021/10/chain-of-command-fighting-withdrawal_01007570048.html