Back here last weekend am experimenting with Lazy TW&T. Am melding it with SAGA. We will see where it goes. The best news of course is no matter what the tactical rules it still goes with Platoon Forward. My brother gave me a beautiful Italian church for my birthday so I turned to my british platoon in Italy for this game. This is a great platoon and is a poster child for PF. It has loads of characters and no one gets along!
Characters
Lt Red Talbot Fickle/ Govt Gr III (Hates Cpl McNabb)
Sgt Theo Barnes Narcssisic/skirt chasser Gr II (Thinks Red is an idiot) Leads 2nd section
Cpl Clarksone Evil/govt Gr I (new to the platoon) leads 1st section
Cpl McNabb addicted/ alcohol Gr I (platoon dislikes him; nephew to company Sgt Maj)
2nd section has +1 morale
Also add 1 Churchill tank, 2 in mtr, 3 pre game stonks of 81 mm mtr and 2 in game strikes.
Also add 1 MMG commanded by Sgt McGregore Gr I (who hates Red because he dimed him out at the Church at San Larda)
Is this a soap opera or what?
Red smiled. "Balls" had finally given the platoon a hard assignment. He was to lead the main attack against the church of Santa Barbara. (Red had always felt that Balls felt he wasn't a true leader.) He had that coward McGregore but also artillery and a tank. He felt confident his men could take the church.
The Church looking from British lines.
His plan was to put McGregore in the building on the right and have him interdict the battlefield. He would lay one stonk on the tower, one on the graveyard and one of smoke infront of the church. Cpl Clarksone would charge the church directly while his best men (Barnes) would go into the graveyard and assault the church from the side. He would stay in the left building with the drunk McNabb and follow up the assault to hold off any counter attack.
Another view of the church with St Barbara in front
The back of the Church.
(What a great model!)
The attack begins!!!
Cpl Clarksone leads the way
Now in Platoon Forward I wrote that the system will give you a great game 90% of the time. Well, sometimes the cards are stacked against you. (Sometimes you get a walk over too.) First, we were facing paratroopers as you can see in the picture above in the graveyard. Second; all the german forces were stacked on the graveyard side of the table!! There was one half squad on the other side. If I didn't know better I would have accused the game of leaking my plans to it. (Who wrote these dumb rules anyway!) Third; the germans rolled better than average for support weapons getting two HMGs, one in the tower and one on the hill behind the church. There was even a tank behind the graveyard!
Suffice to say the attack met "stiff resistance".
Sgt Barnes makes it to the graveyard!
Cpl Clarksone managed to make it into the church but upon losing his life, his men thought better of it and left to crouch behind the graveyard wall. Cpl McNabb moved his men up to support and was caught in a withering crossfire and lost half his section. At this point Red had seen enough and ordered a withdraw.
Red tried to explain to "Balls" what happened but fell on deaf ears. Morale dropped in third section due to McNabb's antics so Red felt he had to go and ask for McNabb to be replaced. (unlikely) Bad idea. Not only did Red get a lecture on the evils of blaming ones failures on others (-1 towards Ball's view towards the platoon), McNabb and McCarthy are both mad at Red (-1 as well), Cpl McNabb stays, morale still drops by one in 3rd section and now Sgt Maj McCarthy is going to go out with the platoon next mission to check on Red's leadership. Whew! Just another day in Platoon Forward!
Great game and the system sure surprised me this time. I would have shifted my forces but the ground was just too open.
For those of you that want to do better than Red the Germans had
2 squads both +1 morale (remember 2 LMGs per squad) 1 Gr IV 1 Gr III and 1 Gr II
2 HMGs and 1 PZ III tank. The germans start dug in.
Enjoy
Joe
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