July 1943,
We entered the village early in the morning, no sounds except the tramp of our boots and the mechanical shrieking of the steel beast sent to support us.
The village was not large and completely deserted by civilians. A church watched over a town square and a few buildings expanded out to either side. Allied bombardment from air and sea had destroyed a few buildings. I deployed my men in two groups. Sgt. Cox commanded a forward assault team while I led a rifle team in support of our armored friend. Sgt. Cox's fire team took point. My squad and were passing the town square when a sniper's bullet missed a mans head and pinged off the tank. We hastily took cover, searching for the location of the sniper. He was hidden on the roof of a destroyed building across the square. Cpl. Collins, with a particular hatred of snipers, fired a few round in that direction. His counter sniping was cut short by another bullet from the hidden German.
Our armored support peppered the area with machine gun and cannon fire but with no success. Fast acting soldiers grabbed the fallen Ranger and started dragging him to safety. Pvt. Price shot from cover and silenced the sniper. His marksmanship would come to define the skirmish.
Immediately after the sniper was dealt with, then four German soldiers rounded the corner of a building into the square only to be cut down by Pvt. Price's carbine and machine gun fire from the tank.
Our gunfire had drawn the attention of the defending forces. Sgt. Cox and his assault section were also ambushed up the road. Every man in the section was knocked down by a German machine pistol but fast action by my squad drove off the attack and took a wounded German prisoner.
Pvts. Price and Martinez made their way into the abandoned building, scouting possible German defensive positions.
Price took the ground floor but Martinez climbed to the roof. A German antitank gun and a machine gun were zeroed in on this position. We believe Pvt. Martinez was wounded in the hail of fire that erupted but his fate is unknown. He did not return with Pvt. Price.
Pvt. Price dashed back across the square towards me with the location of the antitank gun. He was cut down by German fire but I managed to get to him and drag him to cover. Our big metal friend covered our retreat as we left the village with the intelligence we had gathered. We had taken too many casualties to complete the mission fully, but another raid with fewer men might just do the trick.
I believe this has been my wordiest post yet. The solo system gives a very interesting dynamic to the game that I am growing quite fond of. The unpredictable nature of where forces will be and what the will be composed of provides a challenge for the small skirmish games that I prefer.
Sounds like a great game! Curious as to how you you handled enemy positions - randomly determined or did you use your best judgement for the scenario?
ReplyDeleteThe Pak 40 was placed in the corner where it could cover as many roads and alleys as possible. For this game I picked what locations I thought made sense for one more defensive position and two patrols to start at. The patrols were randomly moved using a scatter die to determine direction when they came to an intersection and a D8 to determine movement. What soldiers actually made up the units was randomly determined based on some charts and die rolls.
DeleteFor games after this I have randomly determined where enemy units start using Five Men in Normandy: Rifleman's Guide. The section Suspect Hostile has rules for using markers and then throughout the game determining if troops are at those markers or maybe even somewhere else. I'm using this campaign to iron out both a solo system based on Five Men and my own modified version of Nordic Weasel's Price of a Mile. Please forgive my inconsistency in rules as the campaign continues.