"This is a battle that could probably have been fought, as this town was held by the Germans as the British 4th army and French 1st army attacked the Germans at the Somme on the 1st Sept 1918.
The battle has been raging for several hours in the German forward trenches with the German withdrawing after suffering severe losses. All that remains in the area to stop the British and French advance are some reserve German troops who have been resting from front line duty in the reserve trenches.
These troops are now the front line and must halt the advancing enemy forces heading towards them. The British and French tanks are from reserves rushed forward to exploit the breakthrough and have only one mission (Destroy the Germans!).
Can the Germans hold back this fresh mechanised army or are they doomed?"
(Words kindly supplied by Postie)
On Saturday 3 Rejects turned up for this WW1 game put on by Postie, there was John, Surjit and myself, I was the German player defending a massive trench against a combined French and British tank army played by the other two boys.
British: 4 MK IV Male Tanks (2 facines), 5 MK IV Female Tanks (I facine), 3 Whippet Tanks, 1 field gun and horse team, 4 heavy field gun batteries (off table) and a unit of trench raiders.
Surjit.
French: 3 Char St Chamond Tanks, 3 Char Schneider Tanks, 3 Char Renault 17 Tanks.
John.
German: 3 Battalions of Infantry, 3 HMG's, 3 LMG's, 2 trench mortars, 1 flamethrower, 1 field gun and horse team, 1 A7V tank, 1 Division command stand, 1 Brigade command stand, 6 dugouts, 2 bunkers (1 with a HMG and 1 with a field gun, 5 heavy field gun batteries (off table).
The allied mission was to get 1 tank across the trench and cause a morale check and if I failed I surrendered or get one off table and I automatically surrendered.
21 allied tanks started their engines.....
The initial set up of 8 foot by 4 foot of no man's land...
The town of Peronne, it had seen better days....
The dugouts are represented this way and a list of what's in them is held by the player but one hit will kill all occupants.......
The starting line......
MK IV Male "Black Prince", nearly all tanks were named by their crews.....
3 Whippets and like their name bloody fast.....
The French starting line.......
You had to pre book your off table artillery and roll a 5 or 6 at the beginning of a turn to change it, this pre booking had bad consequences sometimes if you didn't change it...
I kept a lot in the dugouts from previous experience of the rules.....
The first turn and 3 tanks have failed their reliability tests (denoted by a black marker) and are allowed no further movement but can fire their main guns and another has felt the impact of a German shell, 4 down and seventeen to go!
This is how we denote off table artillery, you roll for duds (don't throw a 1 on a D6) and then roll 5 D10s and the grid number corresponds to the dice number and you get smashed on a 5 or a 6 on a D6....
The French Renault 17, fast French bugger.....
This French St Charmond monster has failed the other test that occurs on even turns which is ditching, the dice denotes 2 turns of no moving, if you want to move a tank you roll two D6 and don't roll high....
More pictures and the conclusion of a bloody close game tomorrow.....
