Dateline: France, 1944

PUTTING THE “BLITZ” BACK INTO BLITZKRIEG   

Last week I got a chance to play another game of Blitzkrieg Commander in 6mm micro armor. Chris L. brought his Americans up, and Mark and I were my Germans (Mark is still working on his 6mm army…J).

The scenario was an American assault against hastily prepared German positions, somewhere in western France, c. 1944. There were a couple of small villages and hills for major terrain features, but none that the Germans could effectively use to their advantage.

The Americans got off to a great start with rapid forward movement right into and through the gaps in the German’s fields of fire. The Germans on the other hand, were hamstrung by the fact that they a) wanted to hold their fire until the Americans were in optimum range, so as to not give away their positions to early, and b) the Germans couldn’t roll to get an order off to save their lives (quite literally in some cases).

Eventually, as the Americans were poised to run roughshod through the well-prepared, but paralyzed by fear, German positions the American command became woefully overconfident and cocky, taunting the Germans with their smoke breaks and extended delays for meals and power naps  (i.e. they stopped being able to make their command rolls). The Germans, while only barely managing to get off a few precious orders, were able to now put some hurt on the attackers.

With their losses mounting, and very few units attempting to do anything, the American commander began to press too hard. He tried to maneuver units in ways that weren’t tactically sound, but as they were the only units actually activating he had to try. This only led to even more casualties for the attackers, and an eventual admission that this particular attack was a lost cause. The brave (if rather timid) German defenders managed to carry the day!

All-in-all it was a fun game, and we all had some laughs at the rather pathetic dice rolling. Hopefully in the future the fates won’t be so cruel.

Until next time…

Dan