Game Report: Bag the Cat

22nd March, 1945. Somewhere East of Adendorf 0740

Gary Harmon had hoped the war would end before he got drafted, before he could be trained, before he could be shipped halfway around the world to Europe, before he could see combat. He had thought his luck had come good when he was assigned to guard the Battalion HQ, far from the fighting. He assumed he would be able to wait out the war and then go home, safe and sound, whenever this stupid war ended.

And now here he was, leading a group of men through the mud and rain, cold, tired and miserable, to try and hunt down a German tank that was rampaging around the rear areas, with nothing more than their rifles and whatever they could scavenge up from the conflict ravaged land. 

'War really is hell.' he thought. 

The Game

The game area, with the remnants of the Allied convoy whose ambush alerted command to the presence of the Tiger scattered about.

The game pitted a team manning a Tiger tank, tasked to rescue a German colonel with some vital documentation, against a team playing as US Army squads who had been scraped up to try and hunt it down. The US squads had their personal weapons only, and would have to scavenge weapons to bring down the beast, while the tank crew were in a different room, using a web cam to get a view of what their tank could see (with a cardboard screen that was used to further restrict their vision when the tank was buttoned down), so were operating with at best limited information. There was also a dummy camera to cause confusion on the American side too.

As a final complication, stragglers from both sides who had become lost or cut off after the fighting the night before were in the area (activating on random card events).

The Americans arrive, guided in by the columns of smoke from the burning tanks and the sound of an engine.

The Americans began advancing on a broad front, looking to loot the burning vehicles and stacks of supplies scattered about for some heavier firepower. Meanwhile, the Tiger's commander dismounted to check a building for sign of the Colonel they had been sent to rescue. 

No one appears to be home. Perhaps they're camera shy?

The early American attempts at salvaging useful equipment went poorly, the soldiers not being willing to approach the burning vehicles. Unfortunately for the players, they were convinced it was only the repeatedly poor dice rolls, rather than survival instincts, that were stopping them from finding useful equipment. 

Another team, however, found some abandoned munitions crates, and enthusiastically set to looting. They quickly racked up a good stash of grenades, two demolition charges and a single, precious Panzerfaust anti-tank weapon. 

It's not looting, it's surprise requisitioning.

Finally the US players worked out that burning tanks weren't a great source of supplies and began to head towards the other stashes of ammunition or fuel scattered across the field, while the German tanks slowly trundled forwards, narrowly avoiding bogging down as they entered a copse. 

The Americans suffered their first casualty as one of their soldiers entered the central manor house, gunned down by persons unknown. This immediately drew significant attention, with two US players' teams converging on the house from two directions.

US troops sneak up on the house where one of their comrades had apparently been shot and killed.

Meanwhile the third US player's forces had spotted the Tiger (which now appeared on the table), and tried to set up an ambush, with two two-man teams with demolition charges and grenades and a fifth man with the Panzerfaust moving into cover ahead of the expected line of advance of the Tiger and to its sides. Whichever way it turned, some of the Tiger's vulnerable side or rear armour would have to be exposed. 

The Tiger advances into a field, apparently unaware of the threats stalking it. 

The German driver noticed the nearest pair of American troops ahead to his right, and decided to deal with the situation directly. With a deafening roar, the Tiger mounted and then smashed through the wall of the field, directly towards the two American soldiers, who, thanks to some lucky dice rolls, managed to scramble out of the vehicle's way. 

A narrow escape for two GIs

With the tank distracted, the GI with the Panzerfaust took aim at the exposed rear armour, raised high in the air. 

A perfect chance to end the beast.

Naturally this meant that the dice roll was dire, and the rocket went wide, completely unnoticed by the German crew. Attempts to use grenades to damage the tracks of the tank also met with dismal results.

The Germans retaliated, using the coaxial machine gun to open up on a nearby American sergeant. The man, who had been sheltering from the threat in the house, was exposed, and went down.

MG34 fire cuts down another American, narrowly missing another further along the road.

Meanwhile, some of the Americans scavenging on the other side of the table came across an unexpected find, an apparently undamaged M24 Chaffee tank.

Who left this here then?

Despite the clear and present threat of the tank, a significant amount of the American player's attention was focused on the manor house, with several men clustered and ready to storm it. 

The storming party prepares itself.

As an opening gambit, Sergeant Nathaniel Trent tossed a grenade into the first floor window. Or, more accurately, near to the first floor window. The grenade bounced off the wall, landing at the feet of the US troops, killing two of them, but sparing the hapless Sergeant.

Events accelerated rapidly at this point, the scavenging troops who had found the Chaffee started testing it, finding that the cannon worked then they fired the round that had been sitting in the breach. Another man entered the house, sneaking up on a two man machine-gun crew whose attention was locked on the storming party at the front of the house.

Meanwhile, the Americans who had nearby been run down by the Tiger threw more explosives, both grenades and demolition charges towards the tank's tracks, doing some damage, but not yet immobilising the beast. The tank advanced, swinging round towards its attackers and the house, firing off a round at the two survivors of the storming party still out the front of the house, killing one, but again, not Sergeant Trent. While this drama played out up front, the lone rifleman in the house opened fire on the machine-gun team, killing both in a brief firefight.

In their buttoned down tank however, the crew had missed one American, hidden between the tank and the wall of the field, armed with the last demolition charge. He hurled the charge onto the engine deck of the Tiger, where it detonated, causing the beast to judder to a halt and catch fire. 

Man wins against machine

Appalling rolls by the crew saw only one man (the driver) make it out of the beast as ammunition cooked off and the fuel burned, ending the game as an American victory. 

The Colonel the tank had come to rescue had taken advantage of all the chaos to slip away from the area, avoiding the US squads, and skirting around the sounds of combat. He and all but one of his entourage would escape back to German lines, with the vital documents in hand. 

22nd March, 1945. Somewhere East of Adendorf 0910

The Tiger was still burning, regular explosions punctuating the crackle of the flames as individual rounds cooked off. Five men, lying painfully still beneath the blankets that covered them, were gathered in the grounds of the house around which most of them had been killed. Not far off, the bodies of two German soldiers who had been in the house had been dumped with far less ceremony. 

Sergeant Trent was sitting nearby, smeared in blood, a look of guilt writ large across his face. Harmon almost felt sorry for the man, pathetic and repulsive though he had always found him. 

Another explosion drew his attention, another round going off inside the burning tomb of the Germans who had brought him so close to death. But instead they were dead. Perhaps he would make it back home after all.