Commandos vs Schnell Kompanie in Pincer

German heavy guns controlling the bridge

Last night I had a chance to play test my mid-war British Commando list against Ryan.  We rolled up Pincer as the mission and I decided to conduct the British speciality of a night attack. This was one of the first times I was going to be able to conduct a night attack and I was looking forward to it.

Big Willie's Commandos
OC
Commando Pl 1 section
Commando Pl 1 section
Commando Pl 1 section
Commando HMG Pl
Commando Mortar Pl
3 x Sherman tanks
2 x 17/25 pdr AT guns
Humber Recce Pl

Ryan's Germans (incomplete list, sorry)
OC and 2IC with knackers
Grenadier Pl
Grenadier Pl
2 x 15cm guns
2 x 15cm guns
2 x 88s


Set Up

Objectives are at the train and road intersection and

German 15cm guns ready to rain death

More 15cm guns ready to open fire

Grenadier platoon holding a flank

Commandos and Shermans ready to advance

The thin red line ready to advance on the Germans

Turn 1

Commandos and Shermans advance under the cover of darkness

Commandos surge forward close behind the Recce cars

Turn 2

Cloaked in darkenss the Commandos continue silently advancing

Shermans and Commandos continue their stealthy advance

Out of the darkness Commandos launch their assault!

The fighting is fierce and in close quarters the Germans hold the objective but pay for it dearly

Turn 3

A second Commando Pl moves in on the objective and this time root the Germans out

The big guns fire over open sights taking out a Recce car

Casualties mount on both sides as the Germans launch another counter attack to retake the objective

Turn 4

Another Pl of Commandos move into buildings near the objective backed up by Shermans

The Recce cars, Shermans and rifle fire knock out the remaining German opposition around the objective

This was a great test game for me to see how night fighting works.  I think we still got a couple of rules wrong with the movement of vehicles (everything can only more 8" at night and no double time). The final score was 6-1 for the Commandos only because they have a special rule allowing them to ignore the first Commando Pl the company loses. As always Ryan was a great opponent and had dawn broke sooner or he got reinforcements fast this could have ended very differently.