D-Day +4 - Capture the Village Scenario - British vs. Germans

Last Friday evening I had some friends over for another Iron Cross game. We have a few games under out belts now and we're starting to enjoy these games more and more. I've added a few minor house rules to fill in the gaps where the rules let you figure things out for yourself. Having a 6' x 12' table, I've also increased the movement ranges for our 28mm games. All of the changes seemed to make the game even more fun.

This was a meeting engagement with mirrored forces. I'm still learning the rules so balanced forces takes out mistakes I might make in scenario balance. Both forces were charged with capturing a village in the center of the table. Each force had a headquarters platoon with an attached anti-tank gun and a section of mortars, and three infantry platoons each with a weapons squad (MG or sniper) and an attached armor asset.

Below the Germans: Ralph, Rob and Mike on the left and the British Ed, Byron and Earl on the right.

The forces marched onto the table with the Germans taking a strong position on a hill on their left with their Panzer IV, and their infantry and mortars mostly deploying opposite the town with their Pak-40 on a central hill. The British matched the Panzer IV with a 75mm Sherman and an Cromwell on the opposite flank. Earl's Mortars started off the game accurate and deadly taking out an MG squad, damaging another and working over some infantry. Ralph's Pak-40 took out the Sherman before being eliminated by British sniper fire from Ed's command.

Rob's infantry moved aggressively to the town capturing two buildings and destroying Earl's infantry in a third, eventually occupying it. Earl returned the favor and assaulted the house with another squad of British infantry and the two squads fought to exhaustion in the house, neither gaining the upper hand.

In what ended up being the final turn, while the house melee was going on, Byron's lead infantry squad charged the Panzer IV. The Panzer IV and German infantry were so surprised by the bold attack they froze (failed their reaction rolls) and Byron's infantry got off not one, not two, but three Piat attacks to finally brew up the Panzer IV.

As we called time, the game was a dead heat. The British were ahead on casualties with five German squads/teams taken out to their three losses, but the Germans held more of the town's buildings.  Both sides had positions of advantage and weakness and there was surly plenty of fight left in both forces.