OK so we are sitting after Rally on German Turn 4
I have retaken the bridge with 5 squads with the 20FP foxhole in overwatch, he hasn't really done much but the threat is real
The tank, went UK, shocked, recovered only to get hit again by the inf gun and die to a 1,4... the inf gun crew was than broken and so was the hs that tried to pick it up but they did their job by killing the tank I suppose. The motorcycles are in the wrong place an extra squad raced up to the sniper if I remember right to join the platoon that started here. We have 2 French squads (Green I believe) splish splashing down the creek while my squad marches up the stream to meet them.
It appears like I can get at least the graveyard too, any French reinforcements will have to deal with a 9-2 on the ridge just off picture left who could finally come on board because his 81mm MTR near the dice cup broke and than Xed out.
Civilian interrogation popped up the 25LL in the village building as well.
In the finger area we discovered the complete line of mines that basically brings this to a standstill for now.
I assume the mines extend one more hex since I cleared the end of the line last scenario. The Foxhole on the upper right has my 9-2 with a hmg/mmg.
When I ran away from his OBA he ran a HS down to burn the immobilized and abandoned tank center bottom. I ran 2 squads back over there because my observer was in the foxhole alone... he tried to jump them and I won the ambush and got the kill. My radio is still broken though. The other tank that was here got lucky and raced across the valley, getting hit once by the 25LL at the top of the valley but a bounce and a follow on miss (and a miss by a new 81mm Mtr at the top of the valley) got me over to the Farmm than he was able to get on top but miss the CC. His 9-2 has absconded to the trench line in the woods and his observer is apparently in the first farmhouse building but got the OBA down on my two HSs in the first trench. One died the other lives. I would like to overrun his observer but you can't overrun a HIP guy... so the Tank will likely have to freeze the observer, bringing him on board so my HS can overrun him but if he fails the 3TC he will get bounced BACK to the trench in the OBA. Interesting times.
So I have a slim chance here to get the Farm IF I can get rid of the OBA, but it involves running across the valley in front of the 25LL and MTR...
Oh and I was able to repair my broken 81mm MTR load it on a truck and get it back assembled, ready to fire on the graveyard right here above this sentence under the motion Truck that could not get out of the way.
Meanwhile... in the Farm area. You can see his extensive trench line inside the trees makes it a bit costly for me to get into the woods. His 9-2 is all the way over on the left now and the 8-1 that was there is over by the farm itself.
You can see where last turn I snuck 2 concealed squads into the edge of the woods but chose to back off. A side goal was to try to isolate these guys but that doesn't seem likely now.
The big stack just outside the woods in the lower left is a -1 leader, 2 old mmgs with HSs, 2 good mmgs with full squads + a hero but it's still going to hurt to try to get into the Trench line. The foxhole in the rear bottom left is 2 old hmgs in overwatch, their goal this turn will hopefully be to shoot his squad off my tank... pretty sure the path with no wire is mined...
Over by the upper foxhole the battle is won by the Germans but the French are pretty solid in the middle of the trees now. Some guys came up from the bottom and some from the top...
The HtH is a beserk guy of mine who he jumped on and didn't get the kill. We will be shooting into that for sure. The really bad thing about this beserk result was he ended up activating some reserves I was not planning on activating... If I remember it was even a reserve leader and/or mmg... on of those cases where a 1,1 hurts more than it helps.
And last but not least, in the woods the main battle may be over for the day...
Most of the exciting action was at the top where my engineers complete with FT showed up. I got a DC down broke some guys, made it up the hill... got knocked back down and than the funny part happened.
See the G control marker in from of my FT? I had a 548/DC there and Neil broke him and decided to try to get the kill by running a squad adjacent on the road. Even though he knew my FT was there (it was concealed but he knew)...
After he moved, I was like I guess my FT will shoot... CR I think and followed up with the inherent... no more squad!
Neil now blames it on the wine he was drinking, granted this was near the end of the session and we were 3 bottles in but... I give him credit for not whining (see what I did there?!?!!?) too much about it.
He had a turn here where I could not reveal any concealed guys he got next to me and these are all the stealthy guys, so I had to self break like 4 or 5 squads up here so that's why the battle is probably going to stagnate for the last bit of this scenario. Hopefully I can keep him here. Not quite as far as I was hoping to get but steady progress and now hopefully he has to defend the village on the next scenario too.
We were both fairly heavy in the woods, I was trying to avoid activating many of his reserves and I did not succeed in that tactic at all last turn...
