The Sunken Road Conundrum

After a short break, we did some more SCW this week. I've had my mind on a few other things this past couple of weeks, and realised I'd left this a little late to organise. My initial ideas didn't work on paper (they will do eventually - just need some more thinking time) so I set up an encounter battle. 

The Nationalists are coming on from the left, through the passes. Their mission is to take control of the railway line and the cross road on the sunken road (yes, I know it looks like hedges, but it represents a sunken road). The Republicans have to take the hills that control the crossing points on to the plain. It might be easier to look at a map:

Jon, Ian and Steve were the Republicans. Both the Richards, Will and Phil were the Nationalists. The game system for this run through was that the commanders (Richard SW and Jon) had all the cards, and then allocated actions to subordinates with a general instruction of what was intended. Players could act as they chose, and I tried to discourage too much central control of exactly what each player was doing. I think it worked well enough.

Anyhow, turn one, Republicans won the initiative, and advanced onto the board. Ian chose to come on in trucks.

Having moved onto the table, Ian de-bussed immediately. A wise move. The trucks are so tempting, but are really a disaster waiting to happen. Jon had command of the army reserve, and brought on his first battery. I think he was trying to develop a new body of best practice for artillery in this game, but it didn't quite work.

Over to the Nationalists, who sent on a couple of Carlist Requetes, commanded by Richard MNG. His brigade had a cavalry recce squadron. It never made it on the board (unlike the Republican recce a/cars, which were deemed useful as they have MGs on them). 

Jon opened up with his guns, catching the Carlists in the open.

Steve was next on for the Republicans. He put his a/car on the crossroads, and sent a battalion of Popular Army up to the right to occupy the sunken road. This is part of the sunken road conundrum - it's a great place to see off a frontal attack, but it isn't really an ideal place if you are trying to capture objectives on the other side of the board. Finally, his brigade ATK gun arrived.

Richard SW, like his opposite number, had taken responsibility for the Divisional level assets. He deployed his heavy howitzers, and sent an OP to set themselves up in the windmill. Now these are HEAVY howitzers - normally represented by Off Table Asset cards, but this was a game without OTAs. Just to see what would happen. 

Steve brought on more infantry, and Jon's other battery also deployed. Getting a bit busy down here.

No sooner did he have his guns out than Richard opened up with his howitzers, that delivered a crushing bombardment on Jon's guns.

Over on the left of the Republican position Ian deployed one of his elite International Brigade battalions into a firing line along the sunken road.

Ian was trying to sort his other units out in the lane, and seemed to end up milling around about his trucks. In the end he ordered the trucks off table.

On the Nationalist left the Panzers arrived, and Phil brought on three battalions of Regular Army. In typical Phil style he was aiming to fight the battle as much in the enemy's territory as he could.

End of move, and the activation markers have been removed. 

Steve has deployed into a firing line, and brought up another battalion to support them in the woods. He has also hauled his ATK gun out of the lane to improve its field of fire.

Steve was at a loss as to how to break up the advance towards him. Jon's guns had been suppressed by Richard's howitzers, so he sent up his a/car to enfilade the advancing infantry with MG fire.

This was a reasonable idea, only Richard MNG stormed forwards with his Carlists and brewed it up, at the cost of the loss of an infantry section.

It's all going on over on the Nationalist left. Jon has fired his unsuppressed battery on his left at the Panzers, and driven them back, but he does catch the infantry in the wood.

Finally Phil's cavalry arrive. I think he had a spare activation.

Here's an overview of most of the table. Will is moving Carlists up on the right, out of shot. The turn is about to restart. Who wins the initiative could be important.

The Republicans open fire on Phil's infantry in the open. It makes quite a mess.

Having shot their figurative bolt, Richard SW now moves his tanks up to machine gun the sunken road.

Steve replies with at ATK gun, and knocks out one of the sections (each vehicle model represents a number of vehicles - as you can see it took Steve three goes to knock one model out). Then Phil launched his surprise.

The sunken roads are great from the front, giving trench like protection. Alas, from the side, unlike trenches, there are no reverses. Phil gets into the road from the woods, unleashes a round of enfilading fire, and close assaults up the sunken road. In a brief, violent, bout of fighting, Steve's men are evicted with heavy casualties.

On the other flank, Will has got one of his Carlist  MG companies set up to enfilade Ian in the road. His second battalion marches confidently down the road.

Ian unleashes his fire on the march column, causing it a lot of damage.

In the centre Richard MNGs Carlists inflict a similar amount of damage on Ian's men in the road.

Ian desperately tries to plug the hole created by Phil in Steve's position, by hurrying up his armoured car to give them some bursts of MG fire.  

It's about time to call it a night. I'd say the game is nicely poised, but in fact the Nationalists have got the Republicans firmly on the back foot. The sunken road was too much of a temptation, and they never developed an attacking strategy to take their objectives. Also, cunningly, the Nationalists got into the swing of using Zoom chat to plot moves in secret.

I have a notion to modify this scenario and run it again in a month or so. I think it has more to give.