PEGASUS BRIDGE
CG I
DAY II
JP playing British
SET UP
I have setup 2x 648s, a LMG, PIAT and the AT gun in the Town Hall (W12); they are all under a “low ammo” counter. The bulk of my force is either in the trenches in the wheat or in foxholes in a loose line along the valley Y12-Y8-BB7 to stop any flanking manoeuvres. I have my walking wounded guarding the road P18-Q18 and there are AT mines dug in the road in front of them as well as 6 AP mines in U16 as a last ditch effort to stop him from taking the trenches.
In Le Port I have a 9-1, 2x 648s and a walking wounded (LL4) set up to fire on his conscript stacked with his 47mm French piece of crap (hereafter called a “tank”). I also have a 648, PIAT in LL6 to charge his “tank” as it will have to fire at my Sherman when it makes an appearance.
TURN 1
My 9-1 and gang break the conscript and my Sherman drives to 3 away from his “tank” and he naturally fires, my LL6 tank-hunters-of-death charge adjacent to the “tank” and 5 squads from my re-enforcements run up towards his positions while the other 10 squads start heading towards the bridge defenders.
In Benouville I do not fire as I don’t want to start the fireworks until my re-enforcements are there. I fail to kill the “tank” with either my Sherman or the PIAT so during advance my PIAT dudes get their Gammon bombs and turn the piece of crap into an un-functioning piece of crap. During his turn he exposes and fires a 24FP FG with a 9-2 leader in U12 (good news for me!! A HMG and a 9-2 in the upper level of the chateau could have played havoc with my re-enforcements). He also fires for acquisition in a seemingly pointless and random fashion.
TURN 2
I send the Sherman up the hill to SS7 with a couple of squads while the rest of my guys get behind the hedge in NN1 and another 3 squads disperse across the hill OO2, PP2 and PP3 (I still have the tank-hunter in the wreck hex PP4) He surprises me by firing for Immobilization on the Sherman with another of his “tankettes” (the 37mm variety). I blast in Adv. Fire but only manage to make his 7-0 leader get a HOB roll that he fails and surrenders (double 6).
In Benouville it is time to pull my AT gun out and the 2 MMC and crew push it to the relative safety of W13 (the word “safe” in this part of town means only one tank and half a dozen German squads have LOS to it) the real tank (PZIV) fires and misses and then his MGs blast away and get a snake eyes!! (+3drm for grain orchard and wreck with –3drm for hazardous movement and FFNAM – DAMM!) Naturally the 1KIA RS dr chooses the crew to die.
During rally of his turn I get a squad onto the AT gun and in his prep his “tankette” in Le Port luckily misses my huge beast with its Immobilization shot and his real tank fails to make an impression on my AT squad. He moves loads of guys into the schoolhouse and one into the town hall; during my defensive fire I toast his “tankette” and roll a 5,5 with my AT gun thus ruining it as it was fired by inexperienced and was under ammo shortage. At this point I felt the game was a definite loss and to continue would have been a waste of our time and so offered my surrender.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Chateau is the most important piece of ground, and the Brits must take it in Night I or Night II and then re-enforce and hold in Night III or you lose the game!!! Holding the Chateau makes it a lot harder for the Germans to take Benouville and they can’t really attack the schoolhouse until they have a large piece of the town as they wouldn’t want to be attacked from behind while assaulting the school.
THE C.G.
The game itself is a bit of fun but it is basically one long scenario and it would have been nice to play around with the Brits “at start” forces as every player has a different style of play and I certainly would have had AT guns on my initial glider force just to allow me to set them up in defence of my troops at Dawn instead of across the river.
It is also obvious that taking the Chateau wins or loses the game for either side, (the bridge only comes into play much later) and so, as a CG it is not overly “strategic”, more a game of lots of tactical problems to be solved but the Brits cant threaten areas by moving troops – thus causing a reaction from the Germans like you can in KGP.
Hmm… so far I have only played KGP and ABTF and they were a lot better than this CG.