Max and I took the opportunity to play the new v2 of CoC, having used the previous days to familiarise ourselves with the new version.
We decided to play the missions one by one and so ‘The Patrol’ was the chosen mission for our first v2 game, setting was again "Operation Husky" as usual.
Max wanted to play my US Armoured due to the new National Characteristics and so I took over his Bersaglieri (played like the Grenadiers of the Wehrmacht in the rulebook, the 8-shot Belt Fed LMG played as 6-shot Magazine Fed LMG and the Rifle teams increased by 2 Rifleman each, which then corresponded quite exactly to the historical formation).
Of course, we also subtracted the Panzerfaust, as these were definitely not available to the Italians in Sicily.
The Bersaglieri thus had a force rating of -2 and with an FR of +6 for the Armoured, this resulted in 8 support points for the Italians - not too bad, I would say 😎
For the mission itself, 4 support points per side were then rolled, resulting in a total of 12 supports for the Italians - which they would desperately need against the firepower of the US boys, as would soon become clear.
The Armoured patrols advanced towards the enemy lines near the village, while the Bersaglieri patrols advanced to the left of the date palm plantation.
Unfortunately, the Italians were involved in a race around the village instead of securing the olive grove in front of the plantation.
And so it came as it had to - the US Armoured were able to secure the village centre as well as the grove with the fruit trees, while the Bersaglieri allowed themselves to be completely squeezed into the date plantation.
This naturally made them a perfect target for enemy infantry and mortar fire (bunched up target!) and the Armoured took full advantage of this opportunity.
Somewhere near Gela on Sicily ...
the sun is just rising above a small village.
American scout teams push forward after having secured the village ...
... and a small orchard.
Their LMG squad deployed in one of the houses but immediately suffered from mortar fire.
No room to manouvre my Bersaglieri are clearly a Bunched Up target for the US Armoured, suffering accordingly.
And now even got outflanked by another US squad.
But the little Olive groove is not save for long ...
... as I could deploy some more firepower and was able to concentrate my fire on this lonely squad.
With mounting casualities the Armoured squad has been Pinned ...
... and two of my squads attacked them using Handgranaten!
The Plt. Leader of the Armoured Infantry decided it was time to start pushing the Bersaglieri ...
... because my two attacking squads had pushed away all opposition and taken the Jump off Point in the orchard.
Supressing Fire rendered the LMG team almost useless, so the infantry squad tried to attack my thin lines in the date palm groove using Marching Fire.
The US Boys had to withdraw their HQ squad from the houses because of mounting casualities and wounded leaders because of that their Force Morale was dropping dangerously low.
Two squads of my Bersaglieri have taken position in the small orchard now.
After a crossfire of volleys from my infantry and mortars, the US squad's attack collapsed - the ‘Maschinengewehr’ rule with its Storm of Steel bonus can have devastating effects with a bit of luck, especially if the mortar fire also has a similar effect.
Conclusion after Game 1
The new version of the CoC rules are absolutely great, the changes make sense everywhere and the game is even more fun than it already was.
We were constantly running out of CoC Points, which allow for a much more interactive game - since you can now take pinned units out of the line of fire (Reposition), take advantage of opportunities that arise (React Fire), or simply seek cover (Hit the Dirt).
The Armoured could also move their scout teams by spending a CoC point (Recce Action), as well as being able to use these teams as JoP (National Characteristic of US units).
