Most of the wargaming hobby fans are aware of the sad situation with Chad Jensen. He unfortunately lost his brave fight with cancer but his great works stayed with us forever. For which we all are so very thankful to him.

I am always very happy whenever I am able to introduce new players to the Combat Commander Europe – for me a hallmark of Chad Jensen design. This is so tense and interesting game with great twists of turn – one of the better entry positions into the wargaming hobby. In this sad time I am especially proud that another soul was acquired as fan of this title!

We of course played scenario #1 – Fat Lipki – a skirmish between German and USSR forces in July 1941. You think this is extensively played and nothing more can be surprising here? You are wrong! Remember, this is CCE – full of unexpected events and twists of turn. Let us see how it went!

Scenario #1 Fat Lipki

Initial set-up. Red areas are victory point objects (click on the picture to enlarge)

I was playing with Konrad – my long-time gaming buddy with whom we had opportunity familiarize with No Retreat, Pericles and other titles. I was sure he will quickly grasp all the game mechanics and will appreciate great fun factor in that game.

We decided I will be playing less numerous Germans (if you click on picture above you will see in details I have much less units) while Konrad will lead overwhelming Soviet force.

All the actions depicted on the map (click on picture to enlarge)

What follows is detailed report depicting main actions as marked on the above picture:

(1) My first action was to quickly take the building in the center as I expected this to be a great vantage point against incoming Russians

(2) Immediately after that my token force on the right wing took small house overseeing the road to the East; so far so good!

(3) Konrad responded by quickly advancing and positioning his main force on my left flank. The action will begin soon.

(4) The Soviet forces also advanced on my right flank and we had here first melee fight. Unfortunately, my small detachment was overwhelmed by Russians and I lost that victory point. (black x marks the site of the destroyed units on above picture)

(5) Then the main Soviet onslaught started in the center of the map. A very fierce melee fight ensued, where first I managed to dispatch one of USSR squads, but then my squad plus officer were killed. I was left with only 2 units on the map – shall I surrender? Never!

(6) I started to relocate my units – one took the house on the left. That unite become a real Third Reich Hero – acquired Veteran status, recovered Weapon from the destroyed pile, killed two Russian units and one weapon and broken another two! That squad was simply unbreakable and never surrendered.

(7) In the meantime Konrad approached my second surviving unit, keeping the other building. Despite intensive cross-fire, the unit managed to hold.

In the end, the game finished due to Sudden Death – with significant victory points advantage for USSR (Konrad):

Victory points and losses (click on the picture to enlarge)

On my side I may add that I am proud I managed to survive with my two units. That was not easy, but the Heroes managed to survive.

Also, I am pretty sure Konrad also had a lot of fun from the game – true, it was hard for him to attack well-entrenched veteran units of mine, but in the end he achieved well-deserved victory! More games for sure will come – I am glad we had a possibility to commemorate a great wargames designer by playing one of his best works!