Lucas Land: The Door

(Previous chapter: Welcome to Tatooine)

I’ve already recounted how the stars somehow aligned to send me to Tunisia, North Africa, on a wild expedition that would eventually land me a job at Lucasfilm. I've also offered a rough sketch of how the trip unfolded, highlighting some of the most spectacular Star Wars shooting locations we encountered along the way.

But it is now time to get down to brass tacks: the cantina door.

Right upon arriving in the vicinity of Ajim, on the island of Djerba, we recognized the telltale architecture that sends the hearts of countless fans around the world aflutter—we knew we were in Star Wars territory. As previously told, we found Obi-Wan’s home on the outskirts of town, and encountered the famous cantina, albeit devoid of its innumerable alien denizens, right in the heart of Ajim.

While shooting A New Hope, that particular building had been enhanced with all sorts of accessories in order to provide it with an even more outlandish, out-of-this-world appearance. The edifice was thus fitted, amongst other elements, with plastic domes on its top and an actual extension to one of its sides, complete with a fake door that, had it swung on its non-existent hinges, would have led to absolutely nowhere. Walking around the humble abode, we did spot the domes in the backyard, used as some sort of protective covers, more than twenty years after filming had wrapped on this weird movie filled with all sorts of creatures. Clearly, the town’s inhabitants had seen no reason to discard the materials left behind by the film crew, and had found uses for those decorations, no matter how bizarre they might have appeared at first.

So maybe, just maybe, the cantina door had survived, somewhere, and was just waiting for us to unearth it. Right?

Our little group (there were six of us) decided to split up and conduct a thorough search of the area, spreading in a circle from the cantina itself, as if a deity had thrown a rock on that very spot from the heavens, and was watching us ride concentric sand waves across the dry, scorching land. We felt that the cantina door, if it still existed, would not have dropped anchor too far from its point of origin. And sure enough, after barely fifteen minutes of stumbling about, the door—the door—appeared right before me, at the end of an open field where goats were grazing without a worry in the world.

The cantina door: one of my personal
Star Wars holy grails 

It was unmistakable: the door had kept its recognizable shape, and the plastic ridges that adorned its front—affixed to sections that had been hollowed out in the wood—were still mostly intact. That ancient, obscure piece of set dressing was now performing important duties as an actual door, guarding the entrance of a rickety shed that no doubt sheltered some tools or others. At some distance, an old man stepped out of the shade and stared at me with curiosity. I raised my hand in a friendly greeting, made a vague gesture that I hoped would be understood to mean that I’d be returning in a moment, and hurried back to round up my travel companions. They hadn’t wandered far, and in no time we found ourselves standing together in front of the shrine.

The old man had apparently understood my intent and was waiting for us, in what little cover from the burning sun the shed could provide. I extended a hand that he shook surprisingly firmly. As we were clearly foreigners, he addressed me in French—in a deep, parched voice and with a beautiful accent that smelled of wild flowers and exotic spices. I explained, also in French and as succinctly as I could, that we were fans of Star Wars, a movie shot in that neighborhood back in 1976; that we were fans who had travelled all the way from North America to visit this corner of the world that was so significant to us. He only replied that he had never heard of that movie, but his warm smile and amused eyes spoke volumes: we were crazy kids with way too much time and money on our hands.

I then proceeded to tell him that the door to his shed had been part of that movie, and that we were very excited to have found it. I actually showed him a playing card that featured that fake cantina entrance prominently, with three Jawas seated in front of it. (That image sits at the top of this article.) The old smile grew wider. Biting my lip in hesitation, I asked the old man if we could re-enact the scene and take a picture in front of his shed. The man let out a soft laugh that had seen generations come and go, and silently waved at the ramshackle construction with his palm turned up, as if saying “knock yourselves out.”

And we did.

Yours truly, sitting on the right

It was a strange feeling, knowing that we were sitting in front of the real cantina door—almost like kneeling before a holy relic. A small crowd had gathered at the edge of the field, and the locals were gazing at us with puzzlement. I remember thinking that the group would have a good laugh at our expense after our departure, and so they should. We were crazy kids. But the craziness was just getting started.

Because it’s right there, on the ground, that our archaeologist guide and my soon-to-be colleague and close friend, David West Reynolds, asked me in English: “Do you think he’d sell us the door?”

I laughed out loud and said this was nuts. What would we do with it—if we could even bring it back with us? Reynolds thought the door would find a place of honor in the private museum of Steve Sansweet, one of his friends and colleagues at Lucasfilm, and also the world’s nuttiest Star Wars collector. I admitted that I liked the idea, and so I stood up and turned to the old man. “We would like to bring that door home with us,” I began in French, “if at all possible. Would you consider letting us purchase it from you?”

I expected the owner of the cantina door to burst out laughing, call out to his friends in disbelief and share some quick comments with them in Arabic, all the while eyeing us like a bunch of loons freshly escaped from the nearest asylum. Instead, he kept a perfectly straight face and returned only one word: “Oui.” Reynolds had no need for a translation here, and pressed on without missing a beat. “Ask him how much.”

Feeling very much like a Jawa haggling over droid parts, I relayed the question. The man bit his lower lip, and after a pause that could have been pregnant with quintuplets, he said, “one hundred American dollars.” Only then did he allow himself a smile—the kind of knowing smile that says, hey, I may be just an old Tunisian shepherd, but I know a good deal when I see one, and I think you understand that. I smiled in return, nodded in appreciation. The man added, “It’s been a good door to me,” and I thought that was a perfect line. I smiled again, with genuine delight, and translated the man’s remarks for my English-speaking companions. Reynolds laughed, said “Oh, I like this guy,” and immediately agreed. Money changed hands, the bills quickly vanished into the folds of the man’s white robe, and he helped us disconnect the cantina door from his shed. No tools were required: the ancient wooden barrier had been hanging by little more than a few loose nails.

It was with a strange sense of elation that we removed ourselves from the man’s field, under the puzzled gaze of half a dozen goats and handful of locals. Grinning from ear to ear, Reynolds and I were carrying the door, like an oversized trophy after a hard fought match, and I wish someone had captured the scene with a camera. (Alas, in that pre-smartphone age, a snapshot was not yet hiding in every pocket.) Despite the excitement of the moment, we understood that we now had a problem on our hands: how did we intend to bring the door home? We quickly decided that the best solution would be to saw the door in half—through the middle section, which was all wood—and then fold it on itself, with the top half facing the bottom half, thus encasing the precious and fragile pieces of plastic set decoration inside the door itself. We figured that if we could just nail the two halves together, the door would be ready to travel in relative safety.

Fine. But how? And where?

In the west, the sun (singular) was setting fast on Tatooine, and we realized we were racing against the clock. We had to find someone with the tools we needed for the job, and soon.

We started walking, our growing shadows connected by a mysterious rectangle of darkness hanging between us. Despite my questioning some of the town folks, night fell before we reached our objective. But we were in luck: one helpful resident eventually directed us not to someone with a saw, but to an actual woodworking shop armed with equipment beyond our needs. Surprisingly enough, given the late hour, the business was still open and several employees hard at work when we stumbled in. Tools ground to a halt and the mechanical ruckus gave way to an amused silence as one head after another turned our way.

I introduced our little group and explained our situation. Could they provide the services required? “Bien sûr,” one of them replied. Two of the men brought our door to what looked like a homemade—albeit fiercely effective—table saw, then proceeded to expertly slice our relic in half, nail the two pieces together, refuse payment and shake our hands with the most charming smile in the world. They even provided a burlap bag to stick our wooden assemblage in and tied the whole thing with a rough piece of rope.

The bag, along with its coveted contents, would make it back with us to the airport and survive four plane trips. Smuggling it through customs proved surprisingly easy: we explained it was an old door we intended to restore and put in a museum. How much more Indiana Jones-esque can you get? The customs official laughed, shook his head and let us through, and that was it.

The cantina door now rests comfortably in Rancho Obi-Wan, in northern California, as one of the most exclusive pieces in my friend Steve Sansweet’s collection—the largest private collection of Star Wars memorabilia in the world. I try to pay Steve (and the door) a visit from time to time, although not nearly as often as I’d like.

Thanks to Steve for the picture!

One day, I promise myself to fly back to Tunisia and find my way to the outskirts of Ajim. I just need to see what that old shepherd installed on his shed to replace the strange door he’d been using for over twenty years. For all I know, some kid might greet me there and tell me, in that fragrant French of theirs, how his grandfather once spun a tale about some sentimental fools from overseas who showed up, decades prior, in search of an old piece of junk.

(Next chapter: The Call)

(Full series here)

# # #

Wargame review — C&C: Medieval

Forge Ahead

Designer: Richard Borg
Player count: 2
Publisher: GMT Games

When the Roman Empire reinvented itself in the east (a vast power known today as the Byzantine Empire), the 6^th century never looked so bright and promising. But Persia had other ideas, and the two forces would repeatedly meet on bloody battlefields for the better part of six decades.

C&C: Medieval is the latest incarnation of Richard Borg’s Commands & Colors system—a system the designer has molded and twisted to simulate a variety of conflicts, from the American Civil War to hypothetical skirmishes in the far reaches of intergalactic space.

Medieval stands as GMT’s third foray into the system, starting with Ancients back in 2006 and following up with Napoleonics in 2010. Both previous publications spawned large numbers of expansion modules, adding new battles to ponder and new factions with which to resolve them. There’s no reason to believe this new family member won’t be treated the same way—after all, the Middle Ages lasted a thousand years!

The basic system remains unchanged: stickered blocks represent various units, which are deployed on a grid of hexagons divided into three sections. Command cards allow players to activate a number of units in the left, center or right section (and sometimes across multiple sections). Movement follows; battle oftentimes ensues.

Each type of unit has its own movement and battle capabilities, perhaps allowing it to fire from a distance (as is the case for archers, amongst others) or engage the enemy with awesome power (like the heavy cavalry). Leaders provide support and enhance the performance of neighboring units; however, your commanders are not invincible, so make sure you guard them well.

Special six-siders are used to resolve combat, which sees players trying to roll the symbol associated with the unit type they are targeting. The more powerful the unit, the more dice it rolls in combat. But no matter its strengths or weaknesses, a unit is made up of exactly four blocks, and each hit suffered takes away one such block. Upon removal of a unit’s last block, the attacking player earns a banner. Accumulate the number of banners required by the historical scenario you’re playing, and you win the game.

HOW DOES IT COMPARE TO C&C: ANCIENTS?

Medieval is more or less an Ancients sequel. Leaders behave the same way, boosting units and preventing ill-timed retreats; units are back to consistently chucking the same number of dice, no matter how many blocks they have left. Yes, line combat is still a thing, and you’d do well to respect the doctrine.

In fact, the two games are so closely connected that the Medieval rulebook uses a special arrow icon to indicate where new or altered rules are introduced into the classic Ancients ruleset. (Although they missed one, the Parthian Shot, on page 16.)

• Superior Armor Class: In close combat, units with an armor class higher than that of their adversary can ignore one sword hit. (Red > Blue > Green)
• Superior Stature: In close combat, mounted units can ignore one sword hit inflicted by an infantry unit.
• Parthian Shot: Light bow cavalry units can shoot two dice at their attacker when they evade!

But the most significant, earthquake-inducing change introduced in Medieval is without a doubt the advent of Inspired Actions.

Each time you play a Leadership card (a card with the word “leadership” in its title), you can spend an Inspired Action token to activate one of your army’s Inspired Actions. Said actions vary from army to army but generally include powerful maneuvers such as Mounted Charge, Darken the Skies and Move Fire Move.

Essentially, the units activated by the Leadership card get to carry on whatever special action they are empowered with. (And if you don’t play an Inspired Action token with your leadership card, you earn one such token. Hoarders will have a field day.)

Inspired Action tokens can also be used to trigger Battlefield Actions, much like Inspired Actions, but without the need to play a specific card. Currently, three Battlefield Actions are available to both armies: Move a Leader (at the end of the turn), Battle Bonus (attack—or battle back!—with one additional die), and Bravery (ignore one flag).

Two things are important to state at this point, both of them red herrings.

First, the rules changes appear cosmetic; I mean, how much could a few lines of text really transform the gameplay experience? A lot more than one might think, it turns out.

Second, and given the previous statement, Medieval must feel significantly different from Ancients, right? Well, in a joyous paradox of cardboard and wood: not at all. If you’re a veteran of Ancients, you’ll feel right at home. And if you’re new to the whole shebang? Medieval is no more difficult to pick up than its predecessor.

(And I envy you the wondrous journey ahead.)

WAR PRODUCTION

Medieval ships in a deep box that harbors a tall deck of command cards, a large mounted board, all the Inspired Action tokens you might want, more terrain tiles than you can shake a long sword at, plus about a warhorse’s weight in wooden blocks and stickers.

The game also comes with printed dice whose solid, weighty plastic puts previous C&C stickered dice to shame. I love them and hope that GMT will keep using similar dice in the future.

Despite the fact that most cavalry units are pictured without a bow, several scenarios state that those units do, in fact, carry bows. No worries: bow tokens have been provided to help mark those units quickly and efficiently. (The marker also looks pretty cool, sitting atop that quartet of blocks on the battlefield.)

The Medieval board is one hex deeper than most of the other C&C boards, which might not seem like much of an alteration. Ah, but you can certainly feel the difference when your raiding cavalry units, operating deep into enemy territory, try to make their way home.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

Only 18 pages of rules stand between you and victory on the battlefield.

And those pages are slightly better organized than the Ancients rulebook, with concepts like “Attach and Detach Leaders” being given their own section instead of ending up buried in a wall of text about movement. So get to it—you’ll be up and running in no time.

As usual within this family of games, the separate player aids contain all of the stats pertaining to individual unit types, so that you’ll never have to browse the rulebook for those in the heat of battle. But I do miss the terrain effects player aids that accompanied many of my other forays into the C&C world. Hopefully, GMT will equip us crusaders with those weapons in an expansion to come.

The back of the rulebook reveals a full card almanac (quite handy when it comes to assessing a few edge cases), as well as 19 challenging scenarios. Just like in Ancients, the Medieval battles start you off easy, without any terrain in sight. But just you wait. Can you hear the raging waters of the Euphrates in the distance? Or the furious wind barreling through the many passes of Petra Mountain?

Terrain will find you. What you accomplish with it is up to you.

FUN FACTOR

One of the nice surprises here is that the game supplies armies on both sides with light bow infantry units that can shoot adversaries at a distance of four hexes. That’s a range of more than a third of the board, which can wreak some serious havoc in your opponent’s line. Long-distance relationships have suddenly become a lot more tense.

I was a bit disappointed when I saw only one deck of cards sitting in the Medieval box. I had become accustomed to (spoiled by?) the tactician deck found in Napoleonics and some other games in the series. But when I started playing with the Inspired Action tokens, I quickly realized I didn’t want to go back.

Whenever you play a Leadership card, you can spend a token to morph that card into whatever Inspired Action you need. True, tactician cards meant you always had a handful of such actions at your disposal, but you might get stuck with stuff you didn’t need and wait an entire game for the one card you want to show up. With Inspired Action tokens, when you do draw that Leadership card, you can call it whatever you like.

Inspired indeed.

I would be remiss if I didn’t make a special mention of the cataphract cavalry. Not only can those super heavy cavalry units trample everything in their path with their 4-dice attacks, but their armor class is at the very top of the food chain, allowing them to ignore a sword hit from almost everyone, even other heavy units. With a leader at its head, the cataphract cavalry cannot be ignored for long. Flanked by a handful of friendly units, it becomes a veritable terror on the board.

PARTING SHOTS

Back in 2011, I wrote in a review [link] that Napoleonics was my favorite entry into the world of Commands & Colors. I loved the fact that units attacked with only as many dice as they had blocks left; that artillery could shoot over the heads of friendly units and join forces with infantry or cavalry in some impressive feats of combined arms; that infantry could go into a square formation and stand its ground against the most aggressive cavalry charge. I loved it all. And that sentiment went unchallenged for years… until I started missing Ancients.

Napoleonics remains a fascinating game, but there is a simplicity, a directness to Ancients that frees the mind to tackle the tactical problems that are the beating heart of the system. After over 150 plays of Ancients I felt ready for the next step, but Napoleonics might have gone just a tad too far in its sophistication—despite the fact that I couldn’t imagine myself ever again playing a C&C game without a tactician deck. So for a dedicated Ancients player, Medieval feels like a better “next step.” And it gives us the Inspired Actions mechanism, which I believe represents a fascinating evolution of the tactician deck of cards.

In the end, I’m getting the best of both worlds.

# # #

Expansion review — C&C: Napoleonics - General, Marshals, Tacticians

It's a New Day on the Battlefield

(Originally published on December 23, 2015)

Designer: Richard Borg

Player count: 2

Publisher: GMT Games

It’s always when you think your world is fine and stable that something comes along to rock the boat. So there I was, happily breezing through scenario after scenario of Commands & Colors: Napoleonics, and GMT decides to throw a monkey in the wrench. Not just another expansion with additional blocks and a generous helping of new battles, but something more akin to a revolution.

So the boat rocks and rocks and—to my surprise—comes out the other side a better, even more fascinating vessel.

Expansion #5: Generals, Marshals & Tacticians has arrived.

The thing is, it comes in a standard C&C expansion box, so the deception works like a charm. You expect a chopped up tree in a shiny new color, stickers depicting foreign, exotic new units, and orders of battle galore.

Well—surprise!

NEW UNITS

Sure, you get new units. But just a few, and they are sprinkled over the whole system.

So there is a handful of French blocks, notably a brand new Guard Horse Artillery unit—essentially a Horse Artillery that can ignore two flags. The British get a chunk of additional Light Cavalry and Line Infantry units (you always need more canon fodder), but the shiny new toy for Britain is the Rocket Battery—the portable mortar of the era. It doesn’t need line of sight to fire, attacks with two dice, but requires two icons of the target unit to inflict a hit. The good news? Rocket Battery flags cannot be ignored. The bad news? The thingamabob can explode in your face: if you roll two saber icons, the Rocket Battery itself takes a hit!

The Portuguese get one more Light Infantry unit and one more Line Infantry Unit—plus an additional Leader—while the Prussians receive a single Cuirassier Heavy Cavalry unit to add to their forces. Last but not least, the Russians benefit from the most new toys: in addition to some backups for already existing units, the green guys can now field a Light Lancer cavalry unit and two Militia Lancer cavalry units, both of which can reroll flags when they attack (even with First Strike). But the Militia, of course, needs to retreat three hexes per flag rolled against it. Ah, the bane of the unwashed, untrained masses. 

NEW RULES

There are very few of those. Garrison Markers now make it possible to leave a single block behind when an infantry unit leaves a city hex. The little guy will give it his all, and won’t count as a victory banner when he finally bites the dust. Then there’s the Grand Battery rule, which allows two or more adjacent artillery units to fire together in one devastating blast. Oh, and lone leaders can now be attacked at long range.

But the real beast hidden in the booklet is the couple of pages that detail the workings of the two new decks. Not one—two.

Okay, so the first one is a revised Command Deck. Now standing at 90 cards, it towers over the original 70-card Command Deck. For the most part it’s the same deck, except for the new Take Command cards, virtually identical to the Inspired Leadership cards in C&C Ancients: order a leader and up to three adjacent, linked units.

Some of the other cards now sport three stars (put there for upcoming La Grande Bataille scenarios), while others have a brand new sentence in bold at the very bottom: Draw 1 Tactician card at the end of the turn.

And here’s where the second deck comes into play, with 50 cards that seriously alter the face of C&C: Napoleonics.

So what are they? Each Tactician card basically allows you to break a rule. First Strike, for instance, has been moved to the Tactician Deck (where it thrives alongside a few variations on the same theme); Short Supply is another card that’s been relocated to the Tactician Deck. The rest of the cards offer new capabilities, such as Hold the Line Leader, which allows an attacked unit adjacent or attached to a leader to ignore all flags, or Superb Infantry Training, with which a moving infantry unit conduct ranged combat at full force. Some of my favorites include Artillery Reposition (move an artillery unit 3 hexes, or move it 2 hexes after it battles), Charge if Charged (if a cavalry unit attacks another cavalry in melee, both units roll their dice at the same time), and Call Forward Reserves (which is really a reversed Short Supply: take a friendly unit from your baseline and move it to any hex occupied by or adjacent to a friendly leader within the same battlefield section).

Players start each battle with an opening hand of Tactician cards, typically between two and five. On your turn, you play a Command Card as always, but you can supplement it with a Tactician card—each Tactician card specifies when it can be played, and how.

But be careful! Those are only replenished with the play of a Command Card that states so. Use them wisely.

FUN FACTOR

The rulebook clocks in at 28 pages, but that’s mostly scenarios and reference material. The actual rules for all that new, good stuff take up all but two pages. TWO PAGES.

That’s an incredibly light overhead for a module that operates such profound changes. (My wife was apprehensive when I took out the new card decks, and I could see she was bracing herself for the rules onslaught she was sure was coming—only to ask “Is that it?” after just two minutes of explanations.)

All in all, there’s practically nothing new to learn: the cards do all the work. This allows players to get into the swing of things almost immediately.

And what a swing it is! I feared the new Tactician cards might detract too much from my beloved C&C: Napoleonics, but after a single engagement, I couldn’t imagine playing the game without them. They enhance the role of leaders on the battlefield, provide a thrilling tactical flexibility, and keep things fresh, battle after battle.

The Tactician cards also provide a sense of your commander’s capabilities. It’s all good and well to read that Napoleon was in charge of a particular battle, but you don’t quite feel it until you start the game with six Tactician cards whereas your opponent gets only three (poor Blücher).

PARTING SHOTS

Some might consider a 90-card Command Deck to be too swingy and random, so GMT provides a deck list that pares the whole thing down to 75 cards. (My recommendation? Play with the tall stack and don’t look back.)

There’s also the concern that you might get stuck with a Tactician card that, for instance, enhances cavalry action when you have no cavalry on the board. Take heart: you can always use a Tactician card to move one of your leaders up to three hexes at the end of your turn. (Which, in turn, helps alleviate the occasional “no card for the correct battlefield section” problem.)

Frankly, I’m loving this. Nothing quite like receiving your initial hand of Command Cards and thinking, “Okay, nice, now let’s see what the Tactician Deck gives me.”

And grinning from ear to ear.

# # #

Wargame review — C&C: Napoleonics

La Grande Armée

(Originally published on January 11, 2011)

Designer: Richard Borg

Player count: 2

Publisher: GMT Games

It’s early in the 19^th century, and that short French guy thinks he owns the whole of Europe. Let’s call on our British and Portuguese friends to teach that arrogant, blue-clad “Emperor” a lesson…

C&C: Napoleonics is the fifth incarnation of Richard Borg’s Commands & Colors system, which got its start when Battle Cry—on the American Civil War—was first published by Avalon Hill back in 2000.

(And as such, Napoleonics marks the tenth anniversary of the system. Hurray!)

Days of Wonder published the WWII version Memoir ’44 in 2004, followed in 2006 by two more games: the medieval-fantasy BattleLore (published by Days of Wonder and eventually passed on to Fantasy Flight Games) and Commands & Colors: Ancients (published by GMT Games), featuring the myriad battles of antiquity.

This time around, the British, the Portuguese and the French are thrown pell-mell onto the battlefield, circa 1808.

(True, Fantasy Flight Games also published, in 2010, a “BattleLore game” called Battles of Westeros, roughly based on the C&C system. While most people consider Westeros a member of the family, I think it features rules changes too significant for the game to truly belong with the rest of the series; otherwise, Worthington Games’ Hold the Line and Napoleon’s War might as well be called C&C games.

So there.)

Now newcomers to the Commands & Colors fun might wonder: are all those titles the same game? Well, yes… and no. They are all based on the same fundamental rules, but each incarnation offers its own unique twists and turns, in addition to exploring completely different themes.

So let’s take a look at those fundamentals, exploring further into the idiosyncrasies of Napoleonics itself—without sidestepping the unavoidable comparison to its older brother, Ancients, with relevant comments between brackets.

The board is composed of blank hexagons arranged into a rectangular grid. In turn, that grid is divided into three sections, giving each player a center, a right flank and a left flank. Onto that grid are placed hexagonal cardboard tiles sporting different terrain types, which makes it possible to recreate the many scenarios provided with the game. Units—represented here by wooden blocks adorned with illustrated stickers—are deployed onto that battlefield in a variety of types and numbers.

And the game begins.

Each player holds a hand of cards, most of which—called Section Cards—allow a certain number of units to act within a particular section. (For instance, an Attack Right Flank card allows you to order three units on your right flank.) An ordered unit can move and/or fire, depending on the capabilities of each particular unit.

The rest of the cards are Tactic Cards and grant the player wielding them special actions. Leadership, for instance, orders all of the active player’s leaders, no matter where they are on the board.

Combat is resolved with special six-sided dice sporting icons instead of numbers. Essentially, whenever a unit attacks, it rolls however many dice are called for by that unit’s type and applies any hits to its target. So you’re firing on an infantry unit? Try to roll infantry symbols. Same goes with cavalry and artillery. The crossed-swords symbol? It’s a hit on anything—provided you were attacking at close range and not firing from afar.

Each hit removes one block from the targeted unit, which will eventually lead to that unit’s destruction. When a unit gets wiped out, the opponent earns a victory banner. Whoever reaches a specific number of victory banners first—as specified by the special instructions of each scenario—wins the game.

And all of that in less than 60 minutes. Not bad at all.

But that’s it for the basics: Napoleonics pushes a cartful of fresh concepts to the front line. The main ones are examined below.

Leaders play an important role on the battlefield, just as they did in Ancients. [Although that role is now limited to ordering and support; leaders don’t provide an attack bonus the way they did in Ancients.] Keep them away from the front line, but not so far back that they won’t have a chance to influence the troops. Just make sure you keep them safe!

In all previous incarnations of the system, the number of remaining blocks in a unit was not factored into the strength of said unit’s attack. But now it is. The basic attack strength of a unit is equal to the number of its blocks. [This makes the “last ditch effort” a much more difficult decision to make, as you’re sacrificing a busted unit—most of the time giving away a victory banner to your opponent—for at best a terribly weak attack.]

Units that are attacked in melee but neither eliminated, nor forced to retreat, can battle back. So consider your attacks carefully, for if you don’t destroy the enemy, he might very well do it to you. [Ancients players are familiar with that concept. But here, with attacked units battling back at reduced strength, snappy comebacks are less reliable than they used to be.]

Each Napoleonics die features not one, but two infantry symbols. This makes infantry a prime target in any scenario. [And represents a definite step up from the level of aggressiveness Ancients veterans are used to.]

Cavalry faced with a melee (from an adjacent hex) attack from an infantry unit can Retire and Reform, pulling back two hexes and suffering hits only on Cavalry results and not crossed swords. [This is very similar to the Evade move in Ancients, except that here, only the Cavalry is afforded that luxury. All other units stand fast!]

Infantry can form square when attacked by cavalry, which means the cavalry only rolls one die for its attack—if it doesn’t bounce off the square first, that is. An infantry in square removes one card at random from its owner’s hand and puts it aside, to be retrieved only when the infantry is ordered to come out of square.

Not only can artillery standing on a hill now fire over a friendly, adjacent unit, but it can join infantry or cavalry in a combined arms attack, adding up the dice each unit would roll in separate attacks.

And one more little detail if I may: cavalry cannot use ranged combat. At all. For those equine warriors, it’s melee or bust!

There are more wrinkles to the game, of course, but painting with a wide brush, this is it.

WAR PRODUCTION

Everything looks really good, as is customary with most GMT games.

I especially enjoy the cards, printed on good stock, and with a gorgeous layout and a most delicious—yet simple—back. I always thought that the Ancients cards, while serviceable, were a bit bland, washed-out. This is not the case here.

The board is mounted from the get-go, which wasn’t the case back in the early days of Ancients. (“You kids have it easy nowadays!”) So, naturally, veterans of the system will want to know: does the board have a reverse side printed with a bleeding hexagonal pattern so that two boards, when put side by side, will create a unified battlefield and eventually allow for an Epic version of Napoleonics? Sadly, no.

But the story doesn’t end here... When prodded, GMT Producer Tony Curtis alluded to two upcoming Epic maps, which would be double-sided. How’s that? No amount of bribery and/or blackmail could make the man spill more of the beans, however.

The oft maligned dice I found to be perfectly fine. Sure, they’re blank indented dice waiting for you to apply a sticker to each face. But you’re already stickering a million blocks—what’s the problem with taking care of a few dice while you’re at it?

However, I would like the dice stickers to be a little bit smaller so that they would fit perfectly inside each indentation. And I really don’t like passing dice around all the time in the heat of battle; I’m convinced I’m not the only one who would have been happy to cough up a few dollars more for a second set of dice.

But GMT is listening, and players can buy additional dice and stickers directly from them. And there’s one more option for the sophisticated gamer: Valley Games has been granted permission to produce wooden dice for Napoleonics the way they did for Ancients.

I love how the GMT folks have decided to print a scenario book apart from the rulebook this time around. It makes both documents much easier to handle, and will not only enable players to look up a rule without losing sight of the current scenario instructions, but also make it possible for GMT to update the rulebook while leaving the scenarios alone (and vice-versa).

The blocks are standard GMT wooden blocks, but the stickers are different from their Ancients counterparts. Whereas units used to sport a colored symbol to indicate what categories they belonged to, each sticker now has a colored band at the bottom. Red stands for artillery, yellow for cavalry, and blue for infantry. Furthermore, each band holds the unit’s exact type, such as Grenadier, Guard Heavy, Horse, and so on.

So no more confusion, and no more looking up what the green circle with a white outline stands for.

The tiles are a bit on the thin side—especially next to the massive mounted board!—but do a very nice job of bringing to life the terrain of each particular battle. The tile cardboard is the same thickness as the one found in Ancients.

The box is one of the heavy duty ones GMT has always uses to ship out their Ancients stuff. Sturdy enough to hold all the heavy components and take a beating. Plus the cover is stunning—enough to hold your gaze from the shelf and make you want to play the blasted thing. 

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT

I found the rules to be clear and well organized. Better organized, in fact, than in Ancients,  where I regularly had problems finding what I was looking for.

Napoleonics is not a complicated game, but with a rulebook clocking in at 23 pages, it’s still a bigger bite than casual gamers can chew. Coming to it cold (or even from Memoir ’44), the learning curve is a bit steep, in large part because of the impressive number of different units.

For Ancients aficionados, even, the learning curve is not completely ironed out, since many of the system’s main mechanics are retooled significantly. Yet, many others are left untouched, which is why I was expecting a page (or just a sidebar) featuring just the changes. Fans of Ancients would have been told to read only this and that section—in a manner similar to what was done in GMT’s Combat Commander sequel, Pacific—thus speeding up the conversion process. The rules do begin with a column of Napoleonics highlights that point to a few of the main features of the new game, but expect an entire read-through of the rules to make sure you don’t forget any detail.

Once you’re done, however, you will hardly ever need to go back to the rules, for the player aid cards are as detailed as one could hope for. Those were formatted differently from their C&C Ancients counterparts, so old hands will feel at first that they need to have their glasses adjusted. (Fear not, the feeling will quickly pass.) GMT provides two copies of each player aid, so that both opponents can peruse each nation’s little battlefield idiosyncrasies to their hearts’ content.

And there’s now a player aid card (again in two copies) for the various terrain types! Gone the need to constantly ransack the rulebook for the special effects of a forest tile on movement. And good riddance, I say.

FUN FACTOR

For newcomers to the system, this is a relatively simple tactical wargame that can be learned with no real hurdles and played out in an hour. For seasoned players, this package is much more than an expansion for Ancients. It’s more refined, more subtle… and also more brutal. What’s not to like?

I especially enjoy that identical units across two nations turn out not to be identical at all. They each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and it often makes for interesting tactical decisions of a sort that rarely arose in a game of Ancients.

Terrain effects are more intricate and require more subtlety to squeeze every last drop of advantage out of them. Interestingly, whereas terrain in Ancients usually imposed limits on the number of dice that could be rolled in battle, here terrain harks back to Memoir ’44 by subtracting dice from an attack.

Just as in Ancients, attacked units that survive the skirmish can fight back. But here, the retort will be carried out with a reduced number of blocks, and thus an equally dwindling number of attack dice. Which makes combined arms attacks so devastating, in that they are more likely to wipe out the opposing unit before it gets any chance to battle back.

Many of the cards contained herein are repeats of concepts present in every incarnation of the C&C system, such as First Strike or Counterattack—indeed basic cards that are necessary for the game’s engine to be able to run at all. But some cards are completely new! Cards like Leadership, that orders every leader on the board (with any attached unit), La Grande Manoeuvre, which lets you move up to four units up to four hexes (but not battle), or—one of my favorites—Short Supply: one unit (yours or your opponent’s) goes back to any baseline hex in its section. Nasty—or a real life saver, depending on which side you’re sitting.

Even “old” cards deserve a new appraisal in the Napoleonics context. First Strike, for instance, is not as obvious to use now, what with the battle dice linked to the number of blocks in the unit. If your tendency, like me, was to play First Strike to grant a dying unit one last heroic bash against an oncoming juggernaut… well, we pretty much have to kick that old habit now.

The game comes with 15 scenarios, and my first reaction was tainted with disappointment. Only FIFTEEN? Not even 20? But the truth is that we’ve all been spoiled by the many Ancients expansions that routinely lured us in with more than 20 scenarios in a single box. Turns out the base game of Ancients featured just 10 scenarios.

That makes Napoleonics at least 1.5 times better. Right?

PARTING SHOTS

C&C: Napoleonics is arguably the most complex game in the series. But it is also the most refined member of the family, giving you substantially more to think about as your units engage the opponent. It’s a thrilling ride that, while offering more options than its predecessors, still manages to completely run its course in an hour or so.

The game scratches several itches that were almost scratched before, but not quite. It has become without a doubt my favorite game in the series.

For instance, in Ancients, I never liked how beat up units, often down to a single block, would regularly be sent on suicide missions, welcoming annihilation in exchange for one last shot at a particular opposing unit (often with an attached leader), rather than trying to save its own skin—and deny a victory banner to the opponent. But now? A unit down to its last block usually attacks with just one die. This results in a much higher rate in troop rotation, bringing fresh units to the front and carrying the wounded to the back. I didn’t see that often enough in Ancients. No more!

GMT is already preparing a first expansion—bringing Spaniards into the fray—for a projected August 2011 release date. Yep, that’s in a scant six months.

I’m happy.

# # #

Chronological Combat Commander

Embarking Upon the Great Crusade

Current war date :	August 1942
Embattled region :	Egypt
Engagements completed :	32 (out of 118)
Allied victories :	16
Axis victories :	16

Combat Commander: Europe is a WWII tactical wargame, and it is my favorite boardgame, across all genres. As I'm writing this introduction, I've logged over 400 plays of CC, and I'm not even beginning to tire of the bloody thing. I've played both sides of every single officially published historical scenario—even the promotional ones published in magazines and sundries. So much so that many of my game components are starting to show some serious, loving wear.

I suggested to my friend François that we start over, playing all published scenarios once more, but this time in chronological order—that is, according to when each particular battle occurred in the actual war.
That's 118 engagements, each clocking at roughly two play hours.

Not only did my comrade in arms accept at once, but he suggested that we perform that crazy run twice, so that each of us could have a chance to play Axis in one instance of the war, and Allies in the other. That was an offer I couldn't refuse. 
We flipped a coin for our first run and Fate cast me in the role of the Axis. I can see a lot of German and Italian troops in my future...

Since we don't intend to stop playing other games to make way for Combat Commander (too many good games out there!), we expect to tackle two to four scenarios per month, meaning it should take us anywhere between five and 10 years to play through the entire war twice. And I'll be posting a short recap of every battle over here, each time updating this article, for however long it takes us to reach the ultimate conclusion.

Here we go!

* * *

NEW! [32/118 - played on March 11, 2022]

August 11, 1942 - scenario #23: No-Man's Land - Southern Desert, Egypt (Italian/British)

Awakened in their trenches by a British sniper wreaking havoc on their sentries, Italian troops responded with mortar fire and the occasional bark of assorted small arms. Then, under covering fire, one Italian squad managed to reconnoiter the area and take control of the few locations of any value across the barren terrain. Down to a single squad, it looked as if the British were done for—until a hero rose to the occasion and dashed down the lone road, seemingly dodging every single bullet, to retake Italian positions and win the day in extremis.

(Allies, 1 point) 

Cover be damned—heroes don't fear anything

[31/118 - played on March 5, 2022]

December 30, 1941 - scenario #5: Cold Front - Starista, Russia (German/Russian)

Outnumbered from the get-go, German troops did their best in freezing weather to contain the Russian onslaught, to no avail. Soviets flooded the German trench system and forced a Teutonic surrender without missing a beat.

(Allies, Axis surrender) 

 

The demise of this surrounded weapon team forced the German hand.

[30/118 - played on March 5, 2022]

August 14, 1941 - scenario #122: Barbarossa Sustained - Plyussa River, Narva vicinity, Estonia (German/Russian)

On their way to Leningrad, German units came upon fortified positions manned by well equipped Russian forces—on the other side of the Plyussa River. The bridge had been taken out, which forced the Germans to wade their way through raging waters, only to be picked off one by one. The lucky few who made it to shore couldn't force their way into bunkers and pillboxes, and paid a high price for even trying.

(Allies, 18 points)

Ain't nothing like a quiet swim.

[29/118 - played on February 12, 2022]

July 7, 1941 - scenario #15: Armata Romana - Bessarabia (Rumanian/Russian)

Rumanian forces launched an assault on a Russian-held village, thinking numbers were on their side. But the Red Army machine-gunned wave after wave of attackers, with hidden units that jumped out of hiding to block any advance the Rumanians could organize. One particularly heroic squad managed to occupy a crucial building overlooking the entire battlefield, but those brave Rumanians were quickly wounded and captured. 

(Allies, 44 points) 

 

Main building objective, a short time before the Rumanian collapse

[28/118 - played on February 5, 2022]

July 3, 1941 - scenario #1: Fat Lipki - Lipki, Russia (German/Russian)

It should have been a simple task for the German elements to hold on to their two objectives, but the Russians reached the buildings first and adopted a defensive posture so aggressive that the units in gray fell one after the other—ultimately forcing a German surrender.

(Allies, Axis surrender)

 

[27/118 - played on January 30, 2022]

June 1941 - scenario #3: Bonfire of the NKVD - Outside Brest-Litovsk, Russia (German/Russian)

Despite the fact that German forces managed to lay down an important volume of fire in the direction of their main objective, Russian units hunkered down in their large building and never broke. Instead, the German kill stack found itself repeatedly pinned down, so much so that time slipped by before any serious action could get underway. German parachuted reinforcements threatened to turn the tide for a short while, but the unit landed in a minefield and was eventually finished off by elements of the Russian militia, compounding the shame of the German defeat.

(Allies, 13 points) 

 

They said hiding in the woods would be safe...

   

[26/118 - played on October 2, 2021]

June 1941 - scenario TBP #10: Barbarossa Unleashed - Outskirts of Minsk, Belorussia (German/Russian)

Right from the get-go, Russian units managed to occupy the battlefield's main tactical location, leaving Germans to inch forward under heavy fire. Each side caused the other some casualties, but most firefights only served to destroy the scenery. The Germans called in reinforcements—more than once!—to little effect: Russian forces kept whittling away at the poorly coordinated Germans. 

(Allies, 1 point) 

  

Heavy fighting around the main thoroughfare—don't cross that street

[25/118 - played on September 18, 2021]

21 May 1941 - scenario #13: Tussle at Maleme - Near Maleme Airfield, Crete (German/ANZAC)

Despite a relative lack of suitable cover, German units took to the hills and held the high ground, weathering an important volume of fire coming from the New Zealanders. Much barbed wire was unspooled to slow down the ANZAC advance, but Germans were running low on ammo and could only do so much. A blaze quickly spread to one side of the hill, cutting short the German line of sight; ANZAC forces used the wall of flames to flank one of the last pockets of German resistance and send waves of soldiers into a fierce melee made all the more chaotic by the smoke and the nearby inferno. Germans held to the last man and, against mounting odds, won the day.(Axis, tie broken by Initiative)

 

[24/118 - played on August 21, 2021]

20 May 1941 - scenario TBP#9: Operation Mercury - Rethymnon vicinity, Crete (German/British)

While German forces initially encountered little resistance in their thrust towards their two main objectives, they were soon laden with more wounded than they could tend to. The standstill became a standard exchange of fire from fixed positions until a hero emerged, crawling through barbed wire and gullies in order to reach a valuable hilltop temporarily left undefended by the British. 

(Axis, 1 point)

[23/118 - played on May 28, 2021]

7 April 1941 – scenario 19: Metaxas Season – Kilkis, Greece (German/Greek)

Fighting through kilometers of barbed wire and seemingly endless mine fields, elite German troops managed to climb a steep hill and capture a heavily defended bunker. Down in the valley, other elements were not so lucky, suffering shelling after shelling from a zeroed French '75 parked on a generous vantage point. A handful of soldiers made it through the carnage to occupy a central building, only to be eliminated in a wave of counterattacks. When a squad of pioneers led by their capable leader finally retook the building and pushed to take the adjacent structure in order to capture a vital objective, time ran out and all of their efforts were for naught.
(Allies 6 points)

[22/118 - played on January 30, 2021]

7 April 1941 – scenario 18: Bridge Hunt – Nisava River, Yugoslavia (German/Yugoslav)

Having spotted a suitable bridge for the crossing of a critical river by their armored units, German forces rushed towards what looked like a barely defended objective. But Yugoslav reserve units ambushed the invaders and made them pay dearly for their temerity. Caught in the middle of a field with little to no cover, Germans were dropped one after the other. One squad made it all the way to the bridge and valiantly fought in melee after melee, but failed to take control of the bridge. When all seemed lost, and with time running out, one final hand-to-hand skirmish eliminated enough Yugoslav units for the Allies to surrender their precious bridge.

(Axis - Allied surrender)

 

Axis map edge at left

[21/118 - played on January 23, 2021]
16 March 1941 – scenario 115: Dongolaas Ravine – Eritrea (Italian/Indian)

Facing a frontal assault by Indian troops, Italians defenders entrenched on

the hill managed to slow the attack to a crawl. One of the allied leaders met his demise early on, which threw his troops into disarray. On the opposite flank, an ongoing firefight laid waste to the area while ensuring nobody either gained nor lost ground. The Italians maintained control of the hill objectives and won the day.

(Axis 24 points)

Axis map edge at bottom

[20/118 - played on April 17, 2020]

12 August 1940 – scenario 24: Six Hills – Tug Argan Pass, Somaliland (Italian/Indian)

[Details lost to the sands of time]

(Axis - British surrender)

[19/118 - played on April 10, 2020]

25 June 1940 – scenario TBP#8: Codes in the Sunrise – Le Touquet, France (German/French)

British commandos quickly infiltrated the area and forced German defenders to retreat. Some elements got caught in a crossfire that caused enough confusion for a squad to sneak behind enemy lines and capture an important objective. Unfortunately, time ran out on the Brits before they could capitalize on their improved position.
(Axis 3 points)

Axis map edge at left

[18/118 - played on April 4, 2020]

15 June 1940 – scenario 83: Thrust in the Dust – Ernage, near Gembloux, France (German/French)

Superior German firepower and matériel were thrown against urban defenses on the outskirts of Gembloux; but what the Wermacht possessed in armament, they severly lacked in mobility. Despite a veritable carnage that had French losses mounting at an alarming rate—and threatened to break French morale—the invaders couldn't manage to take vital objectives in time.
(Allies 2 points)

Axis map edge at left

[17/118 - played on March 28, 2020]

14 June 1940 – scenario 82: Hidden Guns Lash Out – Farm of Sart-Ernage, near Gembloux, France (German/French)

[Details lost to the sands of time]

(Allies 2 points)

[16/118 - played on March 26, 2020]

10 June 1940 – scenario 85: Striking the Hammer – Perthes, South of Rethel, France (German/French)

[Details lost to the sands of time]

(Axis 17 points)

[15/118 - played on January 3, 2020]

June 9 1940 – scenario 84: Seize the Canal – Château-Porcien, West of Rethel, France (German/French)

While French troops did their best to prevent German forces from even entering the town, the Wehrmarcht marched right in and started blasting away from building to building. Several close-quarters firefights and bloody melees later—plus a squad of French soldiers pinned down trying to cross the Aisne river back to safety—and the Germans had taken control of the town, securing their much-needed bridgehead.
(Axis 5 points)

Axis map edge at left

[14/118 - played on November 15, 2019]

27 May 1940 – scenario 78: By These Deeds They Shall Be Known – Cassel, France (German/British)

The advancing Germans were stopped dead in their tracks and confined to an assortment of small buildings and clumps of brush terrain. British forces repeatedly attempted to deploy smoke in order to disrupt German firepower, to no avail. The result was a static engagement where casualties were kept to a minimum on both sides, but were still costly. The German emerged victorious with a tiny sliver of an edge over their British foes.

(Axis tie breaker)

Axis map edge at bottom

[13/118 - played on November 15, 2019]

21 May 1940 – scenario 77: The Crucible of Fire – Petegem, Belgium (German/British)

Hiding in foxholes in the center of the battlefield, German forces put up an unbreakable resistance that prevented the British from gaining any ground. One Bren carrier attempted a breakthrough but failed to reach the German kill stack and eventually suffered a weapon malfunction that took out its main gun.

(Axis  26 points)

Axis map edge at bottom

[12/118 - played on September 1, 2019]

15 May 1940 – scenario 76: A Most Gallant Dirty Little Imp – Dyle River Line, La Tombe Vicinity, Belgium (German/British)

[Details lost to the sands of time]

(Allies 2 points)

[11/118 - played on September 1, 2019]

15 May 1940 – scenario 16: The Blitzkrieg Checked – Gembloux, France (German/French)

[Details lost to the sands of time]

(Allies 16 points)

[10/118 - played on May 22, 2019]

14 May 1940 – scenario 81: The Bottleneck – The Road to Chehery, South of Sedan, France (German/French)

Fragmented notes recovered from a French soldier's diary:
Accurate German snipers slowed down our tank advance... but not enough. Lots of blazes in nearby woods!

(Allies 20 points)

[9/118 - played on May 1, 2019]

14 May 1940 – scenario 80: Bitter Isthmus – Monthermé, France (German/French)

Difficult terrain made this skirmish a complicated one to read, as Germans and French took turns attacking and defending inside and out of this heavily wooded area. German forces managed to secure several objectives before the French could get to them, however, leading to a stalemate that would end up costing France the day.

(Axis 11 points)

Axis map edge a left

[8/118 - played on May 1, 2019]

10 May 1940 – scenario 75: Sturmgruppe Beton – Vroenhoven, Belgium (German/Belgian)

As Belgian forces launched a counterattack to recapture the strategic bridges of Vroenhoven and Veldwelezt, German troops stood their ground. Assault after assault brought the Belgians ever closer to the enemy, but parachuted German reinforcements sealed the deal and inflicted a costly defeat upon the Allies.
(Axis 25 points)

Axis map edge at bottom

[7/118 - played on April 17, 2019]

10 May 1940 – scenario 74: Sturmgruppe Granit – Fort Eben Emael, Maastrict Vicinity, Belgium (German/Belgian)

Despite being encircled almost from the start by German parachute troops, the Belgians offered an impressive resistance. The Germans quickly reorganized after a scattered drop and assaulted the bunker complex, making silencing its large gun their first priority.

Belgian leader Rousseau held out as long as he could, wounded but still able to outmaneuver his tormentors... before being taken prisoner and allowing the Germans to secure a hard-fought victory—the tightest so far in the war.

(Axis 1 point)

Axis map edge at bottom

[6/118 - played on April 17, 2019]

26 Apr. 1940 – scenario 79: Battering Ram at Kvam – Kvam, Norway (German/British)

Despite very light cover, the Germans were ordered to assault the British position and drive them out, whatever the cost. Smoke screens could only do so much—the Brits dug in deeper and use their mortars to lethal effect. The Germans failed to take advantage of the cover the plateau offered and failed to accomplish their objective.

(Allies 25 points)

Axis map edge at left

[5/118 - played on April 17, 2019]

24 Apr. 1940 – scenario 110: Arctic Assault – Narvik Front, Norway (German/Norwegian)

Deep in the Gratangen Valley, Norwegian forces launched a counterattack on the German occupiers in an attempt to regain lost territory. The blizzard enveloping the area made manoeuvring hazardous, and attacking downright reckless. Despite a brave Norwegian attempt at encirclement, the handful of Germans held fast and dealt their northern foes a severe blow.

(Axis 32 points)

Axis map edge at bottom

[4/118 - played on April 14, 2019]

12 Dec. 1939 – scenario 20: A March in December – Tolvajarvi, Finland (Finnish/Russian)

A highly organized detachment of Finnish soldiers ambushed Russian troops on a road cutting through the woods, throwing Molotov cocktails left and right. But the Russians maintained cohesion, took several prisoners and pushed back through melee after melee. With both sides teetering on the edge of surrendering, the very last melee would determine the outcome of the engagement. Just as the Finnish troops were trying to reorganize, exhausted elements of the Red Army executed one last push inside a zone controlled by the Finns, and emerged victorious.

(Allies 21 points — AXIS SURRENDER)

 

Axis map edge at bottom, and an overflowing casualty track

[3/118 - played on April 14, 2019]

Late Nov. 1939 – scenario TBP 2: Signals in the Snow – Karelian Isthmus, Finland (Finnish/Russian)

Initially surprised by the bold Russian push right down the frozen plain, the Finnish forces managed to halt the enemy’s advance when their column reached an opening between two stretches of dense forest. The choke point erupted into a never-ending firefight, but the Finnish, determined to defend their home, held to the last man.

(Axis 8 points)

Axis map edge at right

[2/118 - played on April 10, 2019]
Sept. 15, 1939 - scenario 14: At the Crossroads - Sochaczew, Poland (German/Polish)

It was supposed to be a Polish counterattack, but the engagement turned instead into a static duel of mortars across an idyllic orchard. Attrition slowly did its job, but hidden and infiltrated units kept pouring in, renewing the veterans’ hope. In the end—while a handful of Poles did achieve their objectives—it was a decisive German victory.

(Axis 20 points)

Axis map edge at bottom

[1/118 - played on April 10, 2019]
Sept. 2, 1939 - scenario TB2: Blitzkrieg Unleashed - somewhere on the Polish frontier (German/Polish)

While the Germans intended to set up shop with a heavy machine gun atop a wooded hill overlooking a small town, a bunch of angry Poles emerged from said town and quickly derailed the aggressors’ plans. The hilltop was lost—along with several of the machine gunner’s fingers—and the Germans beat a hasty retreat. A few quick beats later (the Sun was sprinting through the bright blue sky) the engagement was over, with Germans scattered in isolated pockets kept in check by the heroic Poles
(Allies 22 points)

Axis map edge at bottom

# # #