After failing to hold back the German hordes in the last couple of games it was starting to become "squeaky bum" time for the British. After the narrow win in the first game Martin only has seven turns to drive me back on to the beaches at Dunkirk, but if he wins this one then he'll have three attempts - with ever increasing support - to do exactly that. I wasn't particularly hopeful, but decided that as I still had a complete undamaged platoon left (the platoon from game two had returned unscathed due to Martin's lightning advance) I would need to give this a really good go, and probably not worry too much about casualties...
The peaceful farmlands on Belgium (or possibly northern France)
The British need to hold the crossroads and drive off the Germans.
The end of the patrol phase before placing jump off points. We both actually thought about this a bit more than previously.
The farm ,ready for deployment
British JOPs circled
The Germans had a JOP at the far end of the road (against the backdrop) one next to the house in the far corner and one at the end of the fields (just on the edge of the picture on the right)
Martin wasted no time in bringing men on to rush toward the farm. Seemed a bit rash, but he had a plan...
A plan that involved caking the entire farm in an off field barrage. Bugger.
Fortunately after a relatively few phases I rolled 3 6s and the barrage lifted. I knew it was likely to come back, but decided to seize the day and hope for the best. Tommies arrived and started shooting at the exposed Germans.
The barrage came back, inevitably. I put a sniper on to try and pick of the JL leading Martin's flanking force.
No JL down, but shock began to mount on them.
The Germans in the field were in bother, despite the returned barrage keeping them out of fire.
Eventually the sniper was overrun. I had Germans in backfield!
The barrage lifted again and the Vickers and Brens pinned the Germans in the field.
Then broke them - morale began to tumble.
The shocked German flankers withdrew behind the building to regroup.
After coming under fire from my remaining, hastily deployed section.
At about this point the barrage was supplemented by the dreaded Infantry Gun and casualties began to mount in the British held barns.
However with the barrage lifted again the Vickers and remaining Brens targeted a second German section
Their tactical stance did little to save them.
Martin threw on his last remaining section, hoping the barrage would return and shield everyone from the British guns - but sadly his calls went unanswered.
Despite being pinned the Vickers had just enough firepower to rout the Germans cowering by the tree and force the Germans to withdraw!
Great game that swung an awful lot. A huge amount of HE from either the barrage or the IG failed to dislodge the British defenders in the barn (or hurt the senior leader, who led a charmed life throughout). I confess when the barrage was first landing (and then called back almost immediately) I was at a loss and considered cutting and running to reserve strength. But some fortune under fire, combined with using the Brens to snipe off German teams and drive down FM) meant I was able to hang on. Crucially Martin was unfortunate with rolling for wounds from the IG and attempts to call in the barrage late in the game - both of which would probably have won it for him.
Not sure what either of us could have done differently to affect the outcome, a lot of it came down to the chance of the exchange of fire.
So now Martin will have to attempt another assault on the farm - though this time with many more points of support. I can already hear the clanking of the tank tracks...