D-Day Part Two - Sword Beach

(click to embiggen)

Sword Beach - Someone appears to have removed the artillery from this German emplacement.

This game was played quite some time ago. You can read about the first game of three we played here.   Looking back at my records, we played it in February - which just goes to show how long its been taking me to get around to blogging. 

(click to embiggen)

But there are still enough troops inside to wreck the Allies day. 

(click to embiggen)

Sword Beach - the Germans ponder their options.  Beach landing scenarios can be difficult to turn into interesting games because the defender often doesn't have much to do other than hunker down and fire at the closest target.   A good game isn't impossible, but in this case it relied on the Germans having some artillery and some limited reserves. 

(click to embiggen)

Sword Beach

Now one of the advantages of playing Memoir '44 is that the scenarios are available and lots of folks have played them.  Consequently there are a lot of statistics available on the games as whole.  The British typically win this scenario 75% of the time, but with a far lower margin of victory than the shellacking that the Americans typically get at Omaha.  They win, but they don't win by a country mile. 

(click to embiggen)

The Allied players were a lot happier with this setup as the terrain wasn't as steep and actually getting off the beach wasn't so challenging. 

(click to embiggen)

Allied armour charges up the beach. 

(click to embiggen)

The landing craft are mainly set dressing - in that they don't have a game effect, but we used them to count victory medals.  Each time the Germans scored a point, we added some smoke to "blow up" a landing craft. 

(click to embiggen)

The British armour is trying for a breakthrough. 

(click to embiggen)

The British infantry slog it up the beach, forcing a lodgement in the centre, while the German pummel them with artillery. 

(click to embiggen)

A British commando appears behind the cafe and knifes a German sentry.  This marked an early lead for the British as they stormed up the beach. 

(click to embiggen)

The German commanders had some tricky decisions to make.  Should they try to contest the allied landing while it is still on the beach, but risk committing their small reserves too soon or should they try and draw them into the close country further up?

(click to embiggen)

German infantry occupy the town, counter attacking the advancing British commandos. 

(click to embiggen)

A desperate German counter-attack onto the beach can't save the rapidly collapsing German centre. 

(click to embiggen)

The Cafe  gets rather crowded as the last few defenders are driven from the beach.  A British victory put the Allies even going into the final game.  We used the 'Allo 'Allo figures as a means of counting victory medals.  Every time the Allies scored a medal, we added another character to the Cafe Rene.

It inspired Edith to give us a bit of a song.

After setting up the next table, we repaired to a local greasy spoon where several mixed grills were consumed.  I had the fish and chips and they were tip top.  Savage joined us briefly for grub, but he'd snorted some absinthe that didn't agree with him the night before and had to head relatively soonish.

Hopefully, I will get to the next post and the end of the campaign before too long, but I'm trying to discipline myself and update J&F at least once a week. We shall see if that lasts.