With the great pleasure let me invite you to already our 11th Combat Commander Europe scenario which we played with Dave in our epic goal to have all Base-Game covered in a sequence. That particular battle is very interesting and I had already chance to play it couple of times in the past. So the expectation was that it will bring so much fun as previously. And believe me, we were not disappointed!

Other Combat Commander scenarios in our camping with Dave:
#1 Fat Lipki
#2 Hedgroves and Hand Grenades
#3 Bonfire of the NKVD
#4 Closed for Renovation
#5 Cold Front
#6 Paralyzed from the West Down
#7 Bessarabian Nights
#8 Breakout dance
#9 Rush to contact
#10 Commando Schools

Time to provide some more details about the scenario. #11 Hold the Line is one more Attacker-Defender set-up, but with a very intriguing twist – a broken tank! It is July 8th 1944 in France; US troops just won the skirmish over the important hill, during which their M4 Sherman was immobilized. The tank itself is represented by the Bunker with MG and Field gun. The Americans (Dave, Defender posture) has to withstand the Elite SS troops counterattack (Michal, Attacker posture) while waiting for reinforcements to arrive. To make things more difficult for my attackers, they have only one column to set-up their forces. Let us see what happened!

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

Our set-up of Scenario 11 – Dave is entrenched in the middle of the map while I enter from right. Key hill is in the center while tank in the open.
After very carefully analyzing Dave’s set-up I managed to find a small path through bocage which was not under direct Field of Fire of Tank. I started to slowly pour the units through it, expecting wire / mines or other nasty stuff. I was of course firing uphill too (with some successes!)
Dave reacted pretty quickly, moving the MG from tank to the woods nearby the hill. His leader on the top position was killed but pretty quickly recovered! Both sides were preparing for an inevitable close combat.
And so it came! I moved most of my troops forward, taking over the hill and even breaking the dangerous squad with Satchel Charge while eliminating (for the second time) Dave’s leader. Game over for Americans? Well, not so fast…
Having nothing to lose and a lot to win, with Advance and 3 Ambushes in Hand, Dave charged with his broken unit into the melee! And he killed my 2-command leader, SS squad and LMG. What an incredible turn of events!
The situation was difficult now for both sides – it was race with time! I got a leader as reinforcements and he managed to reach the hill in time before Dave’s regular reinforcements arrived. I never got the Advance Card which probably would make the battle for hill much easier for me.
Final situation at the game end – in the end, the high ground position and superb firepower (I brought HMG finally to the hill) proved to decisive. I picked US troops one by one (with double elimination points) till the Sudden Death finished the game.
Causalities and destroyed weapons on both sides.

Summary

Another suspenseful Combat Commander game. As many times said, you should never give up here – the miracles can happen! I will remember for long that melee charge of broken US squad with three Ambushes in hand which almost knocked me out of the game. The luck also smiled to me as allowed for a good leader as unexpected reinforcement.

And now we start the last, 12th scenario of the base game! More reports to come!