Wow! Somehow, I'm three weeks late with this one, but here's the OTHER of the parallel games we played to represent the nighttime landings in the early hours of D-Day, 1944.
 |
| Osttruppen worriedly edge up the road in the dark... |
I believe it's called 'Skirmish in the Dark' (again, from the new Campaign: Overlord' supplement) and it is the kind of game that I absolutely adore: in other words, it was small-scale and very very randomised in terms of what units appeared, when and where, to represent scattered patrols of echelon Germans desperately scouring the French countryside for even more scattered fragments of US Paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st.
 |
More Paras arrive (played here by Alex's gorgeous US Army)
and the night is shattered further by close-range musketry. |
Simply, on a 4x4 table, the US player starts with a group of 5 Paras, and the German has a normal patrol of Heer. From that point on, tow units enter from a random edge each turn, and the players roll to see whether they're US or German...before rolling to see who it is, from a wandering medical team to a lost mortar to a bazooka [useless in this game!] to a squad of brave Fallshirmjager or cowardly Osttruppen.
 |
| Bazooka versus infantry. In the dark. Useless. |
As it happened, I was very lucky with my rolls, whilst my opponent, Charlie was not. Mostly, this manifested in way more US troops arriving than Germans, and then it just became a matter of whittling them down.
 |
| A senior German Lieutenant picks his way toward the fighting. Too late. |
Pleasingly, no-one shot at the medics from either side.
 |
This lost British Para Medic is escorted by two US Paras
as they dash across the track. |
Even more pleasingly, an unlikely series of enjoyably lucky rolls on turn one resulted in none other than Capt. Richard Winters rocking up out of the darkness! Whilst a few more rifles might have been useful, and he spent most of the game just watching from the middle (let us charitably call it staying a tactical bound behind', at the end, when needed, he ordered four units at once to converge on the last remaining pockets of Heer troops in the area and send them packing.
 |
| Dick Winters (centre-top, behind the hedge gap) takes charge. |
Another enjoyable random feature was the night-fighting. Every turn a powerful flare might go up and turn the night briefly into day, so it was really risky to move out into the open.
 |
The last squad of Grenadiers, shortly before they were shot and
pinned off the table. |
HUUUUGE thanks to Charlie who set up a beautiful table and was - as always - a thoroughly sporting foe: even when the chips were down, he enjoyed telling the story!
Next up,
BEACH LANDINGS!
- Drax.
(lagging behind, but loving the gaming.)
