My & Dave’s great campaign of Combat Commander continues. After playing the whole CC Europe we just tackled scenario seven for CC Pacific. As always, we played asynchronously using Discord and Vassal, and despite possible interruptions for fire / wire / mines we find this a very workable solution. It was already 7th CCP scenario for us – so we are past half through the scenario book. As always, the creation of the late Chad Jensen provides us with a lot of fun and excitement as well as ability to appreciate how deep and elegant the design is! Let us see how it went!

Combat Commander Europe campaign:
#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
#11 Hold the Line
#12 Misty Mountain
Combat Commander Pacific campaign:
#A Grassy Knoll
#B Ambush at Mogaung
#C Ichiki Attacks
#D Operation Cherry Blossom
#E West Tank Barrier
#F Stalemate

#G Bitter Creek is a pretty specific and intriguing scenario. It takes place in the thick jungle of the Kokoda Trail, deep in the New Guinea. It is October 1942 and Japanese (Dave, defender posture) who recently almost took the Port Moresby, are retreating in full swing from attacking Commonwealth Forces (Michal, attacker posture).

But there is more to this battle. Firs and foremost, the title creek. Whoever enters it, becomes immediately suppressed! The only footbridge in the center is very treacherous and rusty, to extent that it takes 3 MPs to cross it! Historically that was a nightmarish assault for Australian forces and the game definitely tries to portray that fact. But they have nice ground support, with bomber / fighter appearing each round.

That will be very interesting game to play!

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

Set-up of our Scenario #G – I am starting to the right, with my Australian forces occupying small hills and jungle. Dave decided to fight for the creek immediately on the other side. That will be pretty decisive clash!
It took me 6 very difficult turns to move through the creek in the center. During the process I lost some mortars and units, the group in the south was pinned and broken, the main assaulting force as well. Kingdom for revive card please…
…and the card finally came! We did a couple of nervous discards but in the and Australians got the possibility to recover and unleash whole power of Enfilade, killing multiple units in the process. The 2-command Japanese leader escaped (for now) but was quickly caught in Crossfire.
Having the path opened, I rushed through we western part of the map, getting scores of points. The special objective chit gives +1 VP to each exit. Dave got Hero in the meantime – that guy will be very important later on.
I was regularly rushing my units through the track in the jungle until Dave decided to attack my leader and squad with the crazy Hero (range 0, can only attack in melee!) With two Ambushes I succumbed to this charge. But I took my revenge in different sector of the map where one squad and 2-command Japanese leader were finally destroyed.
Through the rest of scenario it was a cautious move of the Commonwealth forces west, with Japanese getting Hidden Pillbox and Unit. That did not changed the final result and Australians – historically – overwhelmed Japanese resistance.
Causalities from the scenario – bloody on both sides but one has to remember that Japanese were starting with much smaller total forces.

Summary

That was one of those scenarios with great climax – in this case that was crossing the bridge and close quarters fight between two large opposing stacks. Once the might of Japanese defenders – MG and Howitzer – were broken and the path through the creek opened then it was matter of time before Australians overwhelmed Japanese positions. Congrats to Dave for high spirit and fortitude to play till the (bitter like creek 🙂 ) end!

More reports to come!