Escape to La Barquette revisited

Put on my little scenario for 'Troops, Weapons & Tactics' by the TOOFatlardies once again. The Secret Wargamer couldn't make it, something about a rendezvous in a car park and involving his dog, strange thought I he hasn't got a dog?!  Anyway he sent along his lovely assistant the Secret Wargamers Friend with strict instructions not to lose. Honour was at stake.

The scene is set;

The view from the American end of the table.
 

    American Blinds advance.

Surprise, surprise the German blinds advance.

And they just kept on going.

Not wanting to be caught out like before. I decided to take two of my squads off blinds. The Germans are awfully close.

The first Fallschirmjager appear. The second half of the squad has occupied the cafe building accompanied by the platoon leader. I see trouble ahead!

The two American airborne squads are left milling around in the centre of the table . The blind in the bottom of the bottom of the photo is my third squad, which has fallen for a cunning bluff by my wily opponent.  

The Americans start to take casualties. Return fire is rather ineffective.

My third squad comes off its blind to deal with a German blind sneaking down the table edge. But its a bluff. The other German squad is on my left flank not my right. I've been had! D'oh!

Some fortunate cards mean I can shake off the wounds and start advancing. I need to dislodge the Germans from the cafe.

Darn' it. I spoke to soon.

I think their happy!












So the game ended in draw which meant I won. Hurrah!

I kept the brief simple since S.W.F. had not played these particular Lardie rules before. Once he had picked up a few of the ideas mooted in this set, a very enjoyable afternoon was had. Yet again the rules gave at times a tense and in my opinion realistic simulation of a small unit action (without any one actually getting hurt). This re-play was not so bloody with the US Airborne suffering 4 casualties to the Fallschirmjagers 1.

The forces deployed were small, and represented units from the 3rd Battalion, 506th PIR, 101st Div., and 1st Battalion, 6th FJR. attached to the 91st Airlanding Div..

The Fallschirmager consisted of two squads each of eleven men, 2x 5man LMG teams plus a lvl 3 big man. The Platoon leader was a lvl 4 big man. I rated them as Good for morale purposes with an EDNA rating of 3 for hand grenades. I classed the jager was Good rather than Elite to represent the large number of new recruits which made up 6th FJR at this time but with good NCO's/Officers.

The US Airborne consisted of three squads; 2x 9man, broken down into a 3xman LMG team, a 5xman rifle team and a lvl 2 big man as squad leader, the other squad consisted of seven men; a 6xman rifle team plus a lvl 3 big man. The Platoon leader was a lvl 4 big man. I rated the Airborne has Elite, to reflect the elan of the paratroopers but with less experienced leaders overall. They had the same EDNA rating as the jager.

The original game can be found here escape-to-la-barquette.

Next time I'll bring in support weapons and try some of the national characteristic cards.