France'40 - Take Two

Richard and I restarted our France'40 game.  I expected things to be much the same.  They weren't. For this AAR I have concentrated on capturing the attacks. As per the last game, I am the Germans.

In the images the combat odds is given by the chit.  The plane indicates an additional shift.  On the first turn multiple planes can be applied to a single combat, after that it is just one per combat.

 Turn One attacks in the North.

Rommel with the 7th and 5th Panzer tries to cross the Meuse.

While further north there is a clash of armour.

 In the South four panzer divisions try and force crossings at Sedan and Charleville.

 Turn Two and the Germans try and expand the Sedan bridgehead,

while still trying to cross at Charleville.

 Rommel is still trying to cross the Meuse.

An automatic attack starts to eat away at the defences of Namur.

 The French throw in a counterattack against Rommel.

Rommel holds.

The French attack 2nd panzer which is threatening to breakout from Charleville.

The Germans retreat, safe in the knowledge that they have two more division ready to advance.

 Turn three and Rommel tries to breakout south of Namur,

while 3rd and 4th panzer try to breakthrough north of Namur.

The infantry maintain pressure in the centre.

Rommel has a dismal time, even with his reroll he still gets a one which is not enough to breakout.  The other panzers were also thwarted, this time...

 In the south the Germans keep attacking around Charleville.

 Turn Four and the Germans launch devastating attacks 

that will lead to the encirclement of significant French forces.

 And in the North much the same thing happens,

 A desperate French counterattack fails to rescue troops trapped on the Dyle line near Namur.

 The French counterattacks in the south also fail to free their trapped units.

I should point out that much of the German success has been because of the GQG markers that represent confusion in the French high command as to what is actually going on.  The German player places them, but then rolls two dice and removes the associated counters.  As the game progress the counters are slowly retired.  The counter stops those French units attacking, limits them to two hex movement and means the stack cannot split.  In the above image, GQG 2 and 4 have really reduced the French counter attacks before they even began.

 A flash bird's eye view of where we finished up the day's session.

There are three out of supply French pockets.

The question for the Germans is should they mop them up or attempt to press on?

A not so flash somewhat shaky aerial photo of the same situation.

France'40 is another excellent GMT WW2 operational level boardgame.  Highly recommended.