Chain of Command in Russia, 1941

I thought I'd share a few photos from a game I had about a week ago. No full battle report, just some highlights.

Having recently entrapped another person into this money pit of a hobby, we played a game set during Operation Barbarossa in 1941. This was a probe scenario, with the Germans trying to punch through Soviet lines near a small farming village.

A view from the German table edge. We played at the local game store and used their mat, but all the other terrain is mine.

I didn't want to go too hard on my opponent, since this is only his second or third game of CoC, but I did want to get my T-26 on the table, since I don't think I've gotten to use the model since I painted it up. With that in mind, I did heavily imply that a tank or an AT weapon would be a good choice for him. However, he ended up bringing a halftrack and a Panzer I. The little Panzer never hit the table, which is good, because I don't have a model of one anyway.

He brought his halftrack on quickly, and I responded with my T-26 entering at the other end of the road. I hoped that maybe having the tank come out early would give him time to work around it, but also I couldn't resist a straight shot down the road.

My gunners were not as inspired, and missed two shots before the German vehicle went crashing off the road into the wheat, putting a house between them and the Soviet tank.

I chose not to pursue, rolling my tank into the hayfield to break up an advance by two German squads. For most of the game, my T-26 was the only defense on this flank, although I did keep a squad in reserve.

The Germans fled into the woods on their left flank, though the tank managed to harass them for most of the game. Adapting to the situation, my opponent pushed these two squads through the woods on his left and one squad through the woods on his right. Even with the tank, he handled his troops well, knowing that he could win if he snuck through the woods and made a dash for my table edge.

I had a squad in the woods on my left flank, keeping the advancing Germans at bay. It was only a matter of time before things got ugly, though.

My squad was out of sight in the woods, but the halftrack started pounding a Soviet squad I deployed in the white house in the center of my table side. This was probably a poor deployment, but I ended up getting away with it.

When the machine gun fire pinned my troops, I brought the T-26 back over to stabilize the situation. Without even an AT rifle, there wasn't much my opponent could do to stop the Soviet tank from putting a 45mm shell through the driver's vision slit, making a mess of the two crewmen inside. I put another round into the engine block, hoping to destroy the vehicle and further drive down German morale, but that didn't get anywhere.

Without the harassment from the T-26, the two squads on the German left had moved rapidly through the forest and were about to make a break for my table edge.

I failed to photograph it, but the fight on the other flank favored the Soviets, with accurate fire and grenades breaking up the German squad and wounding Junior and Senior Leaders. However, I had deployed my only SL, so there was no guarantee that my last squad would come on to stop the German rush - they had already failed to deploy once. So despite my powerful tank, this game came down to infantry fighting and maneuvering.

The Germans make their move. The T-26 had turned and was firing at them, but it wouldn't be enough to stop them on its own.

In the nick of time, the final Soviet squad deploys entrenched by the log cabin, unloading on the oncoming Germans in the open. The fire is brutal, but it stops short of wiping them out or pinning them.

With little choice but to keep moving, the Germans sprint ahead. Unfortunately, the combination of Soviet fire and the shock that infantry take from sprinting, the Germans ended up pinned at the edge of the field, mere yards from the table edge and victory. A Soviet victory - but a very tight game.

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I can't speak for my opponent, but I think this was a fun time and a good learning experience. I enjoyed roaming around with my T-26 like it was marauding cavalry, but he also clearly demonstrated that you can win a game of CoC even if there's a tank you can't destroy. I do think that if he had brought something with a little more HE, like the short-barreled Panzer IV or the 75mm infantry gun, he might have threatened my tank, done serious damage to my troops, and pushed right on through using the forests to cover his advance like he did. Either way, I think this and a few other games have gotten him hooked. Before we played, I gave him a box of Warlord Germans he ordered, so maybe someday you'll get to see those.