I am big fan of Chad Jensen creation – Combat Commander series. I mainly play the European version – you can see my detailed review on this – and whenever possible, advocate to other players the advantages of the system: fantastic rulebook, great replayability and what I like most – the presentation of battlefield chaos and confusion in the game mechanics.

Not having too much options for live play and eager to introduce more players to that title, I am continuing series of asynchronous games with Dave (whovian223). We finished two sessions of Caesar: Rome vs. Gaul and after short discussion, decided on CCE as next.

We use Discord for files exchange as well as for online communication – it works surprisingly well despite all those opportunity fire or hidden mines/wire rules. And let us be honest – we play for fun and are able to evaluate who and when would like to interrupt the other side. So let me invite you to as usually picture rich session report from our first game!

Other Combat Commander related articles:
CCE REVIEW
#1 Fat Lipki 
#3 A Midnight Clear 
#4 Closed for renovation 
#6 One Steppe Beyond 
#8 Breakout Dance 
#10 Barbarossa Unleashed 
#11 Hold the Line 
#6 Paralyzed from the West Down 
#025a Fields of Fire
#025b – Fields of Blood

Fat Lipki is probably the most often played Combat Commander scenario. That introductory set-up gives a good insight to the new players what the game is about, equips each opponent with completely different set of soldiers (good trainign opportunity!) and is pretty small and short. Still, the results achieved vary as I have seen both sides – Soviets and Germans – winning this scenario. So let us see how it went!

You can click on every image and enlarge it for better visibility.

Initial set-up of Scenario 1 is usually pretty standard due to limited options. I was leading USSR forces while Dave took less numerous but battle hardened Germans.
Quick advance from both sides and two objectives occupied by each player. The fun will start now!
The fire exchange on the left resulted in one of my leaders killed, but on the right my main group moved forward and managed to break some of the defending German units in woods. That was very even affair.
Exchange of fire continued till the moment when a good Rout roll allowed me to get rid of one German squad.
And then things really started to move quickly. On my right, after leader was killed, I was not able to muster any attack. But on my left I advanced through the road, withstanding the flanking fire from the German strong-point in the house and then advanced into melee which was won by the battle-hardened Soviets.Great success!
Sudden death roll finished our game at turn 34, with 10 VPs on Soviet side. In the meantime a lot of blaze appeared on the map and I managed to exit one of my units. After melee not much was happening as both sides were too exhausted to start any aggressive actions.
Causalities and destroyed weapons on both sides

Summary

That was real fun to play with Dave. He has good (although somewhat distant) Squad Leader experience so the entry barrier was pretty low. Our game reasonably quickly started to progress flawlessly and some rule checks / clarifications were the only interruptions. The result was of secondary importance, time good spent – top priority! We had such a blast that almost immediately started scenario 2. But I will tell about it in separate article, once we finished it! More CCE for sure!