Eisenhower: First game impressions

Surrounded German lorried infantry

Although I hadn't expected to be able to play it so soon, my good friend Ian agreed to give Eisenhower a try. Although it's too big for a first game, I wanted to play the Operation Epsom scenario as I have the appropriate kit. We didn't use the advanced rules.

Terrain is very simple at this scale and straightforward to lay out on a grid. I got some pan scourers to represent  bocage but hadn't had time to finish them properly. The felt rivers didn't bend along the 4" squares and will need to be rethought. If using a 6" grid I have rubber rivers which should fit, but I'll keep the bocage to 4" squares so everything fits in.

I grabbed some wooden blocks to act as ‘Prepared’ markers but they were much too big and clumsy and need to be replaced with something more discrete matching the unit base frontage, probably a little row of sandbags.

The 4" grid worked fine, kept the game compact and left room round the edges of the playing area for game paraphernalia, which was convenient but unsightly. A 6" grid would look less like a car park, something that always struck me about playing Tim Gow's Megablitz with 1/72 models. I am, however,  indebted to Tim for the original inspiration to game at the 1 base = 1 battalion scale.

Anyway, we diced for sides. I got the British/Canadians and Ian the Germans. Epsom is a very crowded battlefield and Ian's deployment was well considered, pretty much wall to wall and reinforced by utilising bocage and rivers. The Germans are veteran and the British only trained except for the Canadians (which I could and should have used more aggressively).

I had plenty of mediocre infantry to attack the German infantry in the bocage, but as the Germans were all Prepared that would allow them to fire first rather than simultaneously.  Worse still was the prospect of attacking the Superior German armour in the open, some behind a river. When attacking across a river, you have to throw for Friction which means some units may drop out or even suffer a step loss.

Given the daunting prospect of trying to break through, I placed the 11th Armoured Division - my only decent armoured formation  - on the right flank, and they succeeded in sweeping around that flank. By the end of the first day I had eliminated three German infanty battalions and taken two objectives. The German lorried infantry in the bocage (top photo, ringed) lost a combat and were exhausted, but their mandatory retreat was blocked so they effectively surrendered.

On the second day I surrounded two Panzer battalions that would have been isolated by the close of that day and suffered damage (ringed units in the lower photo). I decided to attack them as well using the Shermans behind them but this just resulted in all the units becoming worn.

Surrounded German Panzers

However, attacking anywhere else looked suicidal. At the very least it is would have required successive waves of fresh troops and would  have been very attritional. The Germans also had strong forces in reserve, so although I was pleased with the initial British success, I think the game would have turned in the Germans' favour if we had continued. I'd be interested to hear from anyone else who has played this scenario.

Anyway, the important thing was not so much the detail of this particular game, but to see how the rules worked and what the game felt like. In about two-and-a-half hours, including setup, we got into the second day. This slow progress was mainly down to unfamiliarity, procrastination (especially mine) and the size of the game. We both felt the game worked well and enjoyed it. The mechanisms were simple and elegant especially the use of artillery and we didn't encounter any unresolved issues.

With regard to the absence of reconnaisance functions, raised by Neil Patterson in the comments on the last blog post, we felt that this didn't matter in a game where everything is apparent and there are no hidden units to be discovered. Recce units, if represented, become just another battalion. The vast majority of tabletop games I’ve ever played have shared this Godlike visibility, while the small number featuring hidden deployment have often proved unsatisfying. There is no point in using model soldiers if they are not actually placed on the table. At the end of the day it’s a game not a simulation.