Rapid Fire resurgent!

I keep threatening Phil and Jon with a WWII Rapid Fire game, but somehow always put it off at the last minute! So, as one year ends and another begins not one but two games of Rapid Fire here in GHQ in the same week! Although the tabletop battlefield remains substantially the same for both games, the battles themselves are quite different. It means that, with the exception of my D Day  landings specific items and one of two planes, the whole of my 20mm WWII collection has been out on the table! Anyhow, enough blathering from me, here are some photos of the action from the first game played with Phil on New Year's eve starting with the rival commanders ~

General Lord Rawnsley organises the plan of attack!

Von Bikkel considers his increasingly limited options!

Germans dig in around Le Grand Bain

German 120m mortar battery awaits the call to fire!

The Germans reinforce their left acting on intelligence from

the 120mm Artillery Battery spotters in Le Ferme Blanc.

What the spotter saw! The Irish Guards supported by Churchill

tanks on the Allied right and Cromwells with a Sherman Firefly

driving for the centre.

While laying down smoke on the Allied centre, the artillery

spotter missed the dash on the Allied left by the Rifles

An Allied Cromwell is halted by German anti tank fire! But

elements of the Irish Guards flush the German spotters out of the

farm ruins!

I really should have paid more attention to these chaps!

With the action hotting up on the German left, a Company of

Panzer IVs drive forward to engage the enemy armour!

Meanwhile, the Firefly trades shots with the emplaced 88mm

Battery and emerges the winner. A serious loss in the German

centre!

To make matters worse, an Allied bombing raid succeeds in

halting the Panzers in their tracks!

Two tanks destroyed and the third routed! Ominous signs for

von Bikkel!

However, its not all bleak news for the Germans, as the Stugs

knock out two Churchills!

And at last the German Reserves enter the battle, although 

not where they are most needed I have to say!

The commander of the Tigers immediately attacks the Allied

Firefly, trading shots to little effect. He really should have paid

more attention to the PIAT group on his left!

The Stugs and the remaining Tiger all fail the Morale Test and

rout! That takes German losses over the Army Morale

threshold and the whole army is 'Pinned'!

With that result, von Bikkel's attempt to shore up his right

flank is thwarted...

...allowing the Rifles to get one company behind the German

defenders!

Its all coming unstitched for von Bikkel now as a Typhoon

attack ads to the Germans' woe!

A shot from the rear of the 25lb Battery. Phil rolled so many

1's for failed radio contact that they hardly fired a shot in anger

for eleven turns!

With the German's pinned for two turns the Allies are free to

rush more of the Irish Guards into action against the weakened

enemy centre!

Allied infantry begin to roll up the German right flank. Its all

up for them now, with four consecutive Morale Tests and a 

dice roll of 1! The army routes or surrenders at the end of

Turn 11.

The busiest man in the German army that day!

A splendid game we both felt in the end. Before the Germans' first Army Morale test the Alies just scrapped through one of their own with a Pinned result. Another day they might have routed then! What we did realise though was how rusty we were with the rule nuances! A natural combination of aging memory and playing too many periods on my part I fear! Still, the second runout tomorrow hopefully when Brigadier Bykleigh's Glider borne coup de main will be assaulted by Kampfgruppe Whytt. Pop back at the end of the week to see how it went...