Joe Oppenheimer - May 27, 2009 1:05 pm (#28810 Total: 28849) "Holding Ney between his thumb and forefinger, he made him advance three hexagons." - The Club Dumas On The Table: In the Trenches: Opening Engagements: Elan scenario. This is the second scenario in Grenier Games’ World War One tactical battles game. This scenario has French and Germany infantry forces fighting a meeting engagement on August 21, 1914 near the town of Neufchateau. This was fought before the advent of the trench warfare that we usually associate with WW1 on the West Front and is a fast and free flowing scenario. The game begins with few units on the map and both sides rush to seize some hills and woods near the town. The players will have to decide how much of their force to commit to grabbing the hills since the units sent into the woods will be moving too slowly to shift them back to the hills. In my play I wasted some time sending the initial German force to grab the town and threaten the hills; since powerful German follow-on forces come in near the hills these units would have been better used to rush for the wooded area. The French begin with a small force controlling one hill top but they will need to commit some of their incoming reinforcements to holding the hills against the larger German force. The primary units in this scenario are rifle platoons which will usually function as three unit companies allowing them to activate together and derive some formation advantages. There are also a few machine gun platoons. While the rifle units will typically get to move and fire or fire twice in a turn the machine gunners have a special rule that makes them deadly to advancing troops: Machine guns may continue to fire against moving units without being marked Spent (which indicated no more activations this turn) as long as they don’t roll doubles while firing. This means the will be highly effective at stopping advancing enemy units; it will also encourage the player to hold them back for use against moving units since it would be a shame to activate them to fire twice at stationary units while the enemy has movement eligible units in range. The third kind of unit in this scenario is off map artillery. These units take two turns to sight and fire but they can be deadly. I really like the artillery process in this game which allows for concentrated drum fire as well as weaker but more spread out hurricane and barrage fire. There is also an option to use shrapnel ammunition which can be deadly against units in open terrain but will not do so well against units in cover. Unlike the on map artillery I used in the “Cavalry Eclipsed” scenario, off map artillery is unpredictable and can go away. Artillery always makes an accuracy roll to determine if it hits the intended target or a neighboring hex. For off map units a roll of “6” means the attack misses and the artillery unit is gone for the rest of the scenario (presumably representing a change in orders, lack of ammunition, or problem with the guns). In my playing two of the four guns rolled six on their very first shot (one for each side). The other two artillery units inflicted some terrible damage on units advancing in the open, but also went away early in the scenario. If they’d stayed I think it would have made for a very different fight. As it was the two sides began to fight over the hills with the early arriving French digging in to get a slight terrain advantage. The Germans sent waves of troops up the hills and took casualties while machine guns for both sides moved into position to create deadly fire lanes. Meanwhile in the woods the troops slowly moved forward until they made contact. There then followed a deadly period where units advancing to contact in the woods risked a mauling by opportunity fire. In the end the French won by getting to the woods first and so grabbing more woods hexes and holding more hill hexes. The fighting on the hills was touch and go and at one point it looked like the Germans were going to overwhelm the larger of the two hilltops but French machine guns, steadfastness (the French units have a slightly higher Resolve rating which helps on defense), and leadership (in this scenario the French get to use three leader points which give a onetime addition to any of their factors) held the day. I really liked this scenario and remain impressed with this game system. This infantry heavy scenario seems like it will be great to replay since there are some big choices to make about how to allocate your forces. The variable power and nature of the artillery should also make for some very different games when replayed. At twelve turns this is a quick and fun scenario. I’m looking forward to playing it again. I’m also looking forward to completing the trio of scenarios in the set by trying the unusual “Rising Sun” scenario which features Japanese and British sappers and riflemen attacking entrenched Germans in Tsingtao.