D-Day - Juno & Sword

The lads getting stuck in at Utah Beach & the American Airborne landings. 

In 2014, Days of Wonder published the absolutely massive D-Day expansion for Memoir '44. It's huge and involves six sprawling maps covering all the invasion beaches and the airborne landings. 

They can be played in a number of ways, but we've had a lot of fun playing as an eight player team game by sticking two of the maps together. 

 

With a pre printed map, set up is surprisingly quick. 

The Germans contemplate the Allied Fleet. 

What I should say right now is that General Du Gourmand went absolutely above and beyond prepping for this game. He printed a huge amount of additional landing craft, bespoke figures and terrain for the game.  While all the terrain you need is printed on the map sheet, adding 3d houses, woods and bunkers added a pleasingly toy-like look to the game. 

Utah beach proved to be a death trap

The Allies pulled off an unlikely win in a close fought game on Utah, but it was touch and go for a long time.  A German counter attack managed to reach the beach at one point and the US Airborne were hanging on by their finger tips, but the Americans managed to get just enough troops ashore to hold it. 

I think historians would be writing about "Bloody Utah" for generations. 

After a pause for an excellent lunch, we launched ourselves into our second game. We played Juno & Sword, the Canadian and one of the British beaches, next.  I got to play in this one and thoroughly enjoyed myself. 

Allied Commander General Nolan giving a pep talk to the troops. His inspirational leadership was exactly what was required in the circumstances. 

"You see that's your problem right there Kommandant.  There seem to be a lot of Allied soldiers that have just turned up".

A gallant but ultimately doomed German counter attack. 

Keeping the reinforcements rolling off the landing craft was very important. 

One of the unique aspects of this particular game is the reinforcement table. This is a chart where the players roll a number of dice and attempt to match them to a menu of options, Yahtzee style.  The Allies have an easier time getting reinforcements, but need to get them off the landing craft which can be a challenge under fire.  If you can clear a beach, itself a tricky proposition, you can place your reinforcements there. 

Kommandants Sydney and Du Gourmand face a growing Allied beach head with the calm and aplomb that only years of Prussian schooling and six pints of stout can bring. 

We had a bit of a traffic jam on the beaches with German fire raining down on the lads while they tried to clear the wire and fight their way up the beach.  Note the Bridge layer tank on the right. 

A Churchill AVRE swings into position...

One of the unique units that the British can bring to bear are specialist armour known as "Hobart's Funnies". We had the option of deploying a couple of these on each beach.  We settled for the Bridging Tank and a  Church AVRE, which is armed with a particularly large mortar. This was specifically designed as a bunker buster and got a bonus against them. 

...and completely levels the German bunker, but somehow leaving the troops inside completely unharmed. 

This particular made me laugh a lot.  I just had visions of the bunker being shattered by the mortar bomb and the shocked German survivors crawling Wiley Coyote-like from the rubble. 

All in all, a cracking days gaming which ended with two close Allied victories, neither of which were a shellacking for the Germans.  We had some new faces (welcome DC!) and a lot of old friends around the table.  I'm looking forward to our next game day in August, which will hopefully be something in a Napoleonic line, though that is to be decided.