After many thrilling games our ongoing 3rd Edition Caen campaign came to an epic conclusion!
As an update we had just finished Turn 2/5 of the campaign with a glimmer of hope for the allies as they had captured Viller-Bocage after a daring fight.
Turn 3
Turn 3 brought more bad luck as the allies lost both of their initial attacks from the beach, as well as both firestorm units. While I managed to defeat an axis attack on B-1, that still left the allies outnumbered in firestorm troops 6-10. We decided to call it at that point as it was highly likely the allies would lose a beach and even if they didn’t there wasn’t enough time to really make a difference. I think some early mistakes, and design flaws in the campaign, doomed it from the start but we learned a lot though the process. We decided the best way to do a proper send off was to have a mega battle for Caen and so one of the organizers drafted up a mission.
Caen Mega Battle
This was our first attempt at playing a mega battle using this system so we tried to keep it simple. We doubled the objectives in the Hasty Attack mission and adjusted it to the larger board size.
Now a lot went on in this game so I will try and give an overview as best I can. The main objectives were spread out across the board with the allies choosing to remove 2 after deployment. If the allies start their turn holding 2 then they would win, otherwise the Germans could win by taking one of two allied objective or starting their turn with no enemy units in their table half. As one of the allied players we chose to focus on the central church objective and another on the right flank.
The broad thrust of the allied assault didn’t go great though we did manage to push the Germans off the central objective for a time. Thanks in part to me egregiously misplaying my artillery rules, (which I apparently had been doing all campaign…… whoops!) The germans defended tenaciously with the central Panzergrenadier platoon fighting on till they were down to a single man and passing numerous 4+ morale and last Man Standing tests!
The attack on the right flank bogged down thanks to a German minefield and some stubborn bocage hedges tying up the Churchill crocodiles.
Unfortunately for the Germans many of their reinforcements arrived on the wrong side of the battlefield and had to hoof their way across the board. Although the central objective was being tenaciously defended by the German jadgpanthers.
The allies managed some success with the artillery taking down the panthers, partly due to said, accidental cheating by yours truly, and my commandos clearing the MG nest in the house. The commandos even managed to knock out the Tiger II tank through some good luck in assault.
Ultimately, as 9 PM rolled around, and as 2 of the allied players and one axis were nearing their Company morale checkpoints we decided to call it. While the allies may have been able to squeak out a victory it would have been a longshot leaving the Germans with the victory!
Final Thoughts
While I was a bit embarrassed to admit I had been massively misplaying the firepower rating on my arty (5+ not 3+ on 3rd ed 25 pdrs). I think the final battle was a good send off for the campaign. Our host did a great job creating a beautiful board using our pooled terrain collection and the battle felt very thematic. I am looking forward to breaking out my French late war forces for our next campaign in Lorraine. Expect to see some more highlights from that campaign soon!
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