After months of anticipation the Two Fat Lardies released the second edition of their popular WW2 Platoon level rules Chain of Command. Rich Clarke said at the time that the new version would be more a bringing together of elements introduced in the 1940's and Far East supplements along with some streamlining of the rules that years of play under version one had highlighted rather than a whole new game. The new version would also benefit from a better layout making it easier to learn and use.
The rules have been in hand for a number of weeks now but time for a game has eluded me until Nye and my own commitments finally allowed us to get a game in at South Wight Wargamers.
We choose to play the Delaying Action Scenario with a German rifle Platoon seeking to hold up an advancing US rifle Platoon in Italy. This would allow us to explore the new Objective rules.
The Forces
The defending German Rifle Platoon with a PAK 40 AT gun and Tripod mounted MG in support.
The attacking US Rifle Platoon with a sniper, .30 cal MMG, Medic and an M4 Sherman in support. With the new army lists in version 2 the US Squads we're a rifleman short each due to a lack of painted miniatures.
The Patrol Phase
Nye always tells me that he doesn't really get the Patrol Phase but he put his extra marker to good use in this game quickly locking down my central marker that allowed him the freedom to establish a solid Jump of Point far down the flank.
The Battle.
The US made good use of their forward jump off point and quickly deploy forces into the fields near to the objective.
The Germans responded bt deploying a tripod mounted MG in the upper story of the objective building.
Up the road the US Sherman appears to support the infantry moving up into the adjacent fields
With a roar a round slams into the side of the Sherman causing it to explode.
However back at the objective building the German tripod MG squad has been whittled down by overwhelming US firepower and finally breaks out the back of the building and heads to hills
US forces swiftly move in to occupy the objective but also to shutdown the German seconf JOP.
Meanwhile US forces have continued to deploy from the rear and are advancing accross the fields towards the farm
With only on JOP remaing the German Senior Leader is forced to deploy to the table bringing a section with him. /thet deploy on the brow of the hill between the the PAK and the broken MG team.
They open fire at the advancing US troops with some sucess.
Return US fire is more succesful as they wound the Senior leader and inflict shock on the LMG team
With the US holding the Objective and the Final Countdown running the leaderless German forces concede the field and withdraw.
The Bit at the End
The original Chain of Command has been a staple over the last few years , We've fought in 28mm & 15mm in a variety of theatres, I've used it for a number of solo games as well and I've been looking at using it as the base for some Vietnam games at Platoon level. So the bar is already high!
Rich's stated ambition was to not replace the rules but rather to tweak, improve and streamline then to provide a core for moving forwards with further expansions. He also wanted to improve the presentation of the rules to make then easier to learn and to reference. Has he succeeded? That's a yes on both counts.
We spent a good deal of time looking up and double checking things to make sure we weren't assuming things hadn't changed. The new book is far better organised, each chapter dealing with one topic and the index makes it easy to jump straight to the information you want.
It's all easy on the eye with clear illustrations and lovely images, Important tables of information are clearly separated from the the body text.
For the rule changes, well we're still exploring those but the new objective and final countdown mechanism we liked.
Your opponent gaining CoC dice points when you start rolling multiple sixes is great as well and we liked the ability to activate the different positions in a vehicle crew using rolls of 1 on the command dice making armour a bit more flexible and unpredictable.
Being able to spend CoC Dice Points to carry out actions rather than having to accumulate a full dice before you can use is going to be interesting as we play more games.
