Trench Hammer Again

We're in that strange Christmas/New Year period at the moment where out club activities are a little erratic. Unsure if our venue was even open this week, and seemingly with only Caesar and myself actually available we held our last meeting of the year at my house. I taught Caesar to play Trench Hammer, since that's what's currently set up on my table.

He took a reinforced British platoon - rifle, bomber, Lewis and rifle-grenade squads, supported by an extra bomber squad and an assault squad - whilst I had an emplaced machine-gun plus a rifle squad and MG08 squad entrenched in support.

I didn't take many photos. Caesar picked up the rules fairly quickly, which is not unreasonable since they're pretty simple. Despite the simplicity they do offer plenty of decisions. Caesar's initial advances were badly shot up, and an attempt to flank the German position with the assault squad also ended in abject failure.

His success came on the other flank where a bomber squad supported by fire from a Lewis gun on a hill pushed the Germans out of their position before ousting the machine-gun as well. The German squad was soon shot up, but the machine-gun hid behind a low rise to rally. Unfortunately I ended up in a  position where I couldn't support it back into its emplacement, and when Caesar finally ousted my second rifle squad I capitulated.

Caesar had all of his squads badly shot up and lost three out of six of them, so the Germans gave a good account of themselves. The game is prey to wild swings of fortune, but that's really the nature of this style of combat, so it's not unreasonable. Having a plan and a reserve always counts for something, though.