The Shadow of the Axis - Alternative WW2 campaign - Boltaction - Combined arms - Sea Lion ( Game 2) - Battle of Blean Woods

I started the preparation for the game by researching the real world site the battle would take place and picked Herne bay with the dead ground between the forces being Blean woods. The British infantry force had a 'Blitz' token so could not take part in any battles. I played the forward air observer card which gave me a free FAO, additionally the fleet stationed off of the coast also provides fire support so I also get a Free Artillery observer.

Looking up the real world site, I quickly discovered the battle would be fought across a forest with east west ridgelines bisecting the battlefield. The forest itself is very dense with a main road running down the centre of the woodland.

Both sides made 1000point lists, I played the card Forward Air support from my Combined arms hand which gave me a free forward air observer and the Naval squadron next to my Infantry in Herne bay gave me a free forward artillery observer, all the German infantry squads carried AT Grenades, I had a Pak36 (proxied by a Light howitzer) a Panzerjager, an AT Rifle team in a Volkswagen bug (VB) and a Flamethrower team in a truck alongside one of the infantry squads outflanking. The British brought an armoured platoon of 3 A13's with one held in reserve, 2 infantry squads in squadroned Bren gun carriers, one of them outflanking, a Mortar carrier and the free forward artillery observer in a car. The Germans ended up with 14 order dice and the British with 9.

Rolling randomly we got a 6 followed by a 6 so Sectors it was, in all 7 years of playing BA 2nd ed I have never actually played this scenario so I was keen to try.

This was the battlefield for Blean woods, we agreed to have the hills count as open ground to make the going easier for all his tanks.

The Germans only Deployed 5 of the 16 order dice to minimise the number of units lost to preparatory bombardment (I'm looking at you Panzerjager), The British came off easy from the preparatory bombardment (thanks Kriegsmarine top work - ominous omen that one).

Turn 1 

Not a lot going on, the Germans had 8 units in reserve and had to put them down the remaining 8 went into ambush or rallied after the preparatory bombardment. The Forward air observer called in an airstrike.

Turn 1 for the British was a bit of a wash, the tanks pushed forward trying to use their MG's to find the hidden sniper team and Pak36 to no avail. The infantry in the Brens near the farm on the left kept failing their orders with only 1 pin from the preparatory bombardment and just kept running and everything else rallied or went down from reserve.

I did a bad job with getting photos this game

Turn 2

The German Pilot was a rookie (we used out house rule on FAO, randomly select one unit with 6 inches as the target) the Airstike ended up hitting the British Mortar forward observer, German reserves started to pour on, the A13 that snuck up around the forest trying to stay out of firing arc of the Pak36 got spooked by the airstike then flanked by the VB and it unloaded its passengers, that being a AT Rifle squad who put a pin on it for a total of 3. The German Mortar began to zero in on the Mortar carrier after it moved forward to shoot at the VB. A German infantry squad charged up the left flank and tried to destroy an A13 with AT Grenades but failed and withdrew into cover losing 2 men.

Turn 3

The Panzerjager came on from reserve and took a side shot at the A13 and missed, the British then countered with an outflanking infantry squad and parked right next to the Panzerjager and shot at the AT Rifle squad pinning them and with the combined fire of the Bren gun carriers and Infantry squad was unable to kill them! The Pinned A13 attempted to activate but failed and withdrew backwards before the German Scout Motorcycle came on and blasted the now exposed British infantry from point blank range killing 3. Following that the outflanking German Truck appeared in the British sector of the map and disgorged its infantry squad into a point blanking shooting action into the British infantry and the Flamethrower team attacked the A13 destroying it, to top off the British experience the bren carrier squadron that had been failing its rolls all game Fubar'd and ran away from the action.

 

End of turn 3 

The British lost the Bren carrier squadron as they ended up closer to the Panzerjager than the infantry squad they carried after removing 8 of the original 10 members of the squad.

Turn 4

The German Artillery arrived and proceeded to wipe out 3 German units and completely miss the British ones, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe efforts today were abysmal. The German Infantry on the left flank activated again and the 8 remaining members charged the A13 within the 6 inch range so no return fire this turn, they hot 7 out of 8 times and blew the tank to high heaven. The Bren Mortar was hit and destroyed by the German Medium mortar, the ammunition turning it into a colossal explosion. 

End

At this point we called the game, the British player asked if he could voluntarily withdraw which I agreed to with a bit of role playing rolls for withdrawing and hiding etc but he failed all those so I rolled to destroyed and wiped out his tanks.

Back to the campaign

What followed was a turn of consolidation, I played my orders to keep getting initiative cards hoping for something tasty like Naval Raid to start destroying some of these shore targets with my ships but the turn ended with us both reinforcing, I played economic might which let me bring back 2 planes instead of 1.

The following turn was the beginning for scoring objectives, the British scored 4 VPs (2 for holding London) and the Germans scored 4 as when the deck was shuffled the top 2 cards were German Objectives.

When you score a Victory point your opponent gets to escalate which means bring on a new unit from the pool of unused ones, the British brought on a plane, infantry, tank and ship.

Following the escalation the British played the card 'Land Offensive' which prevented my sea units being given orders from the order board, I'd have to use a card order but didn't get one.

That made the air battles all the more important, the British deployed 2 Squadrons to attack my infantry who had retreated to the ocean after being outnumbered by the British forces and 1 Squadron to attack the infantry deployed in transports off of the French coast in preparation to land, the Radar station allows me to deploy 1 Squadron in response to an enemy air order so I deployed a plane to the infantry straddling the French coast and played my own air order to deploy 2 squadrons to defend the other troops off of the English coast.

For our air forces we both chose to demote on plane to Pilot skill (PS) 2 and promote another to PS 4, I played the 'Malfunction' card from my hand which forces you to destroy a plane before battle and he discarded his PS 2 plane.

Turn 1

Turn 2

Burn and Turn! The ME 109E burns advantage to neutral, lines up a shot and blasts the spitfire from the air.

Boom! not even the 10 dice of a sideways shot could save him from the veteran

The Germans handily won the BRS game 5 boom chits to 1, I failed to destroy the squadrons however rolling a 1 and 2 respectively on the destroy chart so they were just chased off instead.

Next game is BRS to resolve the other air attack on the transports!

The Shadow of the Axis - Alternative WW2 campaign - Boltaction - Combined arms - Sea Lion (Game one) - Operation Sealion

 On June 25, 1940, France surrenders to Germany, but the French establishment, bitter over Britain’s perceived hesitation to strike during the Low Countries campaign, views the defeat as a opportunistic move to sideline France in the colonial race and thwart its rise as a great power. Resentment festers, redirected toward Britain and her Commonwealth allies after the Royal Navy’s attempt to seize, then sink the French fleet at Mers-el-Kébir. Outraged by slights both real and inflated, Vichy France declares war on its former partner. Meanwhile, Kriegsmarine officers unite the French and Italian navies, assembling a formidable fleet off Palma’s coast. Minesweepers clear the way as they sail to challenge Gibraltar’s shore defenses. By July, this armada enters the Bay of Biscay, dropping anchor just as the Battle of Britain and our campaign, Begins.

The campaign is going to be fought using the combined arms campaign rules except using the custom map above and instead of having set lists we just roll at the end of the turn to see if the unit is destroyed, we'll be playing games using Victory at Sea, Blood red skies and Boltaction.

In the details I'll refer to the difference units by their branch name in a shortened format:

Lft: Luftwaffe
KM: Kriegsmarine
Heer: German Army
RAF: Royal Airforce
RN: Royal Navy
BA: British army

Britain opted for 2 Tanks, 2 Infantry and 2 Planes.

Germany went with 2 Ships, 3 Planes and 1 Infantry

 Britain began the campaign with Homeland which allowed them to begin the game in control of the Cultural centre (London) and the Radar station, then they had the Forward positions opening gambit which allowed them move one of their infantry units to the Fortifications. 

 Germany began the game with the Industrial Might card to account for the massive resources available to axis at this stage of the war Pre-Barbarossa, and Drew the Annihilation card which grants a bonus VP to the first player who destroys all land, sea or air units on the board.

Turn 1 the Reposition card was drawn so no fighting this turn, the British army struck out and moved to consolidate their objectives, KM snuck up the coast and secured the Radar station and threatened the Fortifications with a fleet.

Turn 2 drew clear weather and the Lft then moved to begin bombing the marching armored forces and infantry. Germany had the initiative and tried to bomb the infantry first but was shot down with an early lucky 6!

 The RAF then attacked the 2 remaining Lft squadrons and we had our first game of the campaign 

The British played the Malfunction Card which meant I had to choose one of my planes at the start of the game and remove it. Germany played Finest Hour which bumped one of my planes up to an Ace, so Germany lost 81pts worth initially but gained 50 points of xp on a plane.

The Ace had a rough started starting disadvantaged, but the dive away card and his high skill meant he was very hard to shoot down. There was a lot of early sparring, the British favored outmaneuver instead of climbing to negate my Great climb card and the German player kept up the pressure by bouncing around clouds.

The crunch happened turn 5 when the Me109e's got 3 tailing shots blasting 2 planes from the sky ending the game 7 to 2.

Having driven off the RAF the Lft was then able to bomb and destroy a tank column.

The state of the Map end of turn 2, reminiscent of the real battle of Britain the Lft losses are mounting.

Turn 3 saw more air battles at the RAF tried to cross the channel and bomb the Heer massing along the coast, the Heer managed to sneak away however eluding the RAF recon planes and instead the Lft moved in to intercept, however was caught short as the RAF used their final order to reposition their planes for a big airshow.

The Luftwaffe was outnumbered 2 to 1 and I made the mistake of taking cheaper lower quality pilots, meaning the RAF always managed to outmaneuver me.

Unluckily my single Pilot skill 3 plane was shot down turn 2 or 3 and from there the cascade began.

Considering it was 500 points vs 160 at this point lasting 4 more turns was quite a feat.

The game ended around turn 5 or 6 when the Luftwaffe did manage to line up some good shots but the following turn the faster more skilled pilots quickly disadvantaged my planes and I called 'GG'.

Rolling to destroy the British then rolled a natural '6' to my amusement!

Turn 4 we drew storm, which negated airpower this turn and ended with a Boltaction game to play, I played Outmaneuver earlier in the turn and stole the fortifications again, specifically so I could play the coastal raid card in my hand but it was to no avail, I just didn't have the orders left to make it happen. For the Boltaction game I played Air support which gave me a free Forward Air observer, additionally my adjacent naval unit gives me a free forward artillery observer, the British infantry cannot participate in the battle as they have a blitz token and the British player chose to Reinforce, so the German infantry attacked!

I'll end the post there, next time I'll post the Boltaction battle and we should see the first escalation and VP's scored.

Closing thoughts

 Something that really tickles me playing campaigns and wargames is how history repeats itself, despite being outnumbered and less experienced the RAF had such a strong showing, in our game the British player had only played BRS 2 times before and Germany outnumbered them on the operational level, in this campaign however they're winning the air war, if it wasn't for the storms this turn would have been terrible for Germany unless their luck changed and they could start rolling some 6's for Flak as well.