D-Day Begins

The D-Day preparations continue but enough has been done to start the fight!

I played a Flames of War game with my son Tristan. This was unrelated to D-Day and was more to get Tristan re-acquainted with the rules and also his first full size battle at 1500pts.

And he did quite well. He played a US armoured company from the book Blood, Guts and Glory while I used a Panzergrenadier company. He managed to hold up one flank and push onto the objective on the other flank for the win.

The other FOW game I played was for the world wide D-Day campaign, Operation Overlord, being run by WWPD (What Would Patton Do).

Here I commanded a Grenadier company against a US airborne company commanded by Chet and Tristan in the Seize and Hold scenario. Having never played the scenario before I made a few tactical errors in set up. The game played quite long as the fighting bogged down over an objective around some bocage. After a few turns of some high attrition assaults the US were able to push the Germans away from the objective for the win.

Other games I played were a few games of Forbidden Island and a game of X-Wing. We managed to win the co-op game of Forbidden Island while I lost the X-Wing game to Shawn though the game was quite tight with only one ship left on the board at the end. Some rule errors were made during the game though and a rematch is in order!

A few pictures of the first FOW battle followed by a short battle report of the airborne landing.

The US armoured company.

German Panzergrenadiers

End of turn 1. The StuGs and Shermans at the top of the picture ended up trading shots all game without destroying a single vehicle.

From the POV of the US M10's on the ridge, 1 Panther goes up.

The P-47 harasses the Panthers in the town.

And another Panther gone.

The StuGs and Shermans still slugging it out.

Near the end, the P-47 has taken out the infantry on the objective and the US armoured platoon moves in for the win.

 D-Day Battle Report.

The US airborne forces using the full Easy Company rules.

The German Grenadier company.

The battlefield with Carentan on the right.

Turn 2. US has entered with1 platoon occupying the lower field and 2 platoons coming through the bocage on the upper right. The Germans occupy the town with 3 grenadier platoons and some AA guns. The objectives are in the white building near the centre of the board and the other 1 is in the bocage by the tree line.

The US approach the town and take some fire, it is still dark. The red die is marking the platoon that fired giving away their position.

The US are nearing the objective in the bocage, no German reserves have come in yet.

The 1st of the German reserves come in behind the advancing paras who turn around. Meanwhile more US glider troops show up near the Germans. Note: here is one of my big set up errors. I had the mortar platoon held in reserve thinking they would be coming in on my side of the board and then read the reserve rule for the scenario and realized I had no side of the board and they would come in on a random location.

The beginning of the contest for the objective. The Germans move out of the town to stop the paras from controlling the objective.

Finally my reserves are all in. The Tigers are trying to double time it to get into the fight before it is too late while the P-47 tries bombing them. My AA guns cover their advance.

More Germans are thrown in as the HMG platoon moves into position.

After fighting off numerous assaults from the airborne the Germans are getting too thin.

And finally they have had enough! The US wins a Major Victory.