069 Dash to Dunkirk

 
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069 Dash to Dunkirk

Last week I had the rare-these-days opportunity of playing in-person with two of my greatest friends. The friend I played with has a solid foundation of experience with this game, but among the two of us, I am the more experienced.

We played this scenario once. ScubaSeth as the Brits, me as the Germans. I won.

This scenario was extremely fun for me. We ran out of time to play it multiple times--as I generally like to do--but what I liked about it was the random timing of German units entering the battle; the random placement of German units on the map once entered; and the fact that the Brits' goal is merely to exit units at the other side of the map.

Neither of us had played a scenario with this dynamic, so it was a learning curve for both of us. As Germany, I definitely placed my first on-board units (which didn't happen until the end of Round 3) in a more exposed and offensive place than I needed to, and suffered the consequences in both casualties and having to move units quickly to other places on the board. As the Brits, ScubaSeth was more cautious than he ought to have been, which slowed him down greatly.

Germany had about 3-5 area attacks from bombers and artillery during the first three rounds that did not do much damage at all--either because of drift, or because Officers and Elites kept units from being pinned, or simply because Germany rolled crap dice a lot. These attacks seemed great on paper, but in reality they were very underwhelming. The Brits should not have been afraid of these.

This is a scenario I definitely want to play at least a few more times.

I'm glad you enjoyed the scenario. It was actually inspired by the book/movie Atonement. 

Yes,  due to the random timing and placement of the units, the scenario plays out differently each time!

Considering that you liked this scenario,  I also strongly recommend another scenario of mine: A nasty surprise. Soviet tanks need to destroy a German foward supply depot during the early phases of Operation Barbarossa and then make it off the board quickly to prevent encirclement.

Thanks Willem! I haven't yet played A Nasty Surprise, but look forward to doing so.

boersma8 wrote:

Considering that you liked this scenario,  I also strongly recommend another scenario of mine: A nasty surprise. Soviet tanks need to destroy a German foward supply depot during the early phases of Operation Barbarossa and then make it off the board quickly to prevent encirclement.

It's still unplayed, but interesting.
www.commandsandcolors.net/tideofiron/sce...-nasty-surprise.html

I really like the idea of destroying a supply depot but I've been scared by the long amount of special rules!
Maybe I should read them again and try to go over that obstale...

Played this scenario again yesterday with a friend. Although I'm the designer, it had been a long time since I played and therefore made some capital blunders as the British player! Bunching up units is not a good idea with all those air and artillery cards stacked up against you! Sure they can miss or the German player can fail to establish contact, but this time that didn't happen and, to add insult to injury, he even rolled incredibly well and completely decimated my troops on round 1. Entirely preventable,so it certainly doesn't make the scenario broken or anything, but then you shouldn't give the opportunity! After this attack there were three British squads right on round 1 with only one figure left in it!

Also the British MG found itself out in the open while not being in op-fire mode when the Germans entered the board right next to it! Let's just say they were caught entirely by surprise!  . NOt how the British MG should be used!

We did play the scenario to its conclusion and three squads even made it close to exiting the boar, but combined fire by the Germans caused one hit (despite the use of the take cover card) and destroyed all these squads. In the end not a single one made it to the relative safety of the Dunkirk perimeter!