Back to Holland'44, only this time I'm the Allies and Mike is the Germans.
In the photos the dice indicate an attack and the odds.
Largely successful drops by the 1st Airborne and the 82nd.
The 1st head for Arnhem while the 82nd try an attack on Nijmegen.
The Grave bridge is secured
The 101st secure bridges on the Wilhelmina canal,
while 30 Corps starts its drive up the highway.
The 101st are already heading to Eindhoven.
End of the first turn on the southern portion of the battlefield.
In the north Nijmegen still holds and 1st Airborne are yet to get into Arnhem.
Turn 2 and 30 Corp are bogged down by traffic jams on the highway.
The flank forces, 8 and 12 Corps, engage the enemy,
while 101st start the fight for Eindhoven
1st Airborne fight their way into Arnhem,
while the 82nd have another go at Nijmegen.
The Germans launch a counterattack against the 101st.
An attack is also made against 1st Airborne.
The Germans have been able to reinforce Nijmegen.
End of Turn 2 and 30 Corp is well on the way to meeting up with the 101st.
Arnhem and Nijmegen are now contested by the Allied paratroopers.
1st Airborne strengthen their perimeter.
82nd make another attack on Nijmegen,
as well as attempting to secure the flank.
30 Corp has battled its way through to Eindhoven.
Furious German counter attacks against 1st Airborne and the 82nd are bloodily repulsed.
At this stage Mike starts an epic run of rolling 1s in combat,
for this turn and just about every other turn in this session.
Vicious attacks against the 101st are bloodily repulsed.
Turn 3 and Guards Armoured have reached the Zurd Willems canal.
The Germans make another attack on 1st Airborne.
It fails.
And the Germans make further attacks,
trying to secure Veghel.
All their attacks fail, more or less.
End of Turn 4.
The Allies will have to fight their way across the Zurd Willems canal to reach 82nd Airborne.
Then it will be a race to capture Nijmegen and its critical bridge.
There will be delays while the bridge at Veghel is repaired.
The weather also looks doubtful.
The Germans had several good options in their counter attacks in this our first session albeit at low odds, HOWEVER with 5 out of the 6 first 1:1 and 2:1 counter attacks rolling 1's and eliminating the attacker it was a blood bath and it didn't get much better. The number of 1's rolled reached double figures. The allied rolled a good spread, and above average. With a d6 CRT table like it is for this game 1's kill you, and multiple ones in the number that were rolled by one player unfortunately skews the game sufficiently to force that player to concede, which is disappointing. If the Allied player does not roll bad weather in the next day of play, disappointingly this game will be over as it will become unplayable as the GERM with the skewed loss ratio and epic number of 1's.
ReplyDeleteCritical German attacks are those north of the Rhine. Everything else is just to buy time. German losses did not leave holes and they have been successful in blowing key bridges. Plus plenty more Germans are arriving (including those Panthers)
DeleteNow if I can throw a one for the weather...