Country Road

Inspired by a rewatch of Many Wars Ago combined with a couple of situations I came upon while scrolling through Infantry in Battle, I put together a little scenario for the Southern Front.

An Italian column is in retreat when a scout comes under fire and orders a halt. In Many Wars Ago (Based on  Emilio Lussu's A Soldier on the Southern Front), the commanding officer become incensed that the column has halted and orders the scout shot. Hilarity ensues.

In the movie and the book , an already dead soldier is used to convince the commander that the execution was carried out.

 In my scenario, the lead, well you can call it a platoon of four sections and a platoon leader, takes cover in the treeline and the platoon leader organizes an effort to eliminate the gun so the column can pass. The Austro-Hungarian force has improvised some defensive cover on a hilltop. It consists of a machine gun team and a security detail of 8 men (all of my "sections" are 8 figures), and low ranking leader type to oversee the whole thing.

The PL starts in the road. He is very brave or very stupid.

A group of soldiers on the Italian right draws a portion of the Austrian rifle fire.

A section is sent forward on the Italian left and struggles to reach the hill.

In the middle things are going terribly as MG and rifle fire take their toll.

The Italian assault reaches the objective. Bayonets clash!

Alas this did not go well for the Italians. As a result they failed two morale checks and can't advance towards the enemy - except for the one stuck in close combat. The PL takes off at a run to rally them but he is nowhere close.

The PL sends the adjacent section to storm the hill and to relieve the stalled effort.

They reach the top and finish the job. The MG team is struck down and the game is over. Italian victory!

 

Rules were Contemptible Little Armies(CLA), played at the author's stated scale of 1 figure = 1 man (although he's clear that it's whatever you want it to be). The pathetic rifle ranges were adjusted to cover the entire table (I may use Bolt Action's shorter, more cinematic ranges next time). 

Shooting in CLA is figure to figure - which allows the Austrians to split their rifle fire between Italian units. Most rules I have are unit to unit shooting, which would severely hamper the Austrians. That said, in CLA, in practice, I tend to do either figure to unit, or small subset of unit to unit. It works for me.

I think going forward I will implement GASLIGHT's method of distributing hits on a target unit - that way, your group of figures may score three hits on the target unit, but all three end up on the same individual.

The game went 10 turns overall, which surprised me, as I had thought 6 would be sufficient. However, the Italians, due to poor movement dice, took forever to get to the hill let alone engage in close combat. 

There needs to be a win condition for the Austrian force, too - perhaps casualties inflicted or "hold out for X and then retreat", otherwise there is no natural stopping point other than a fight to the last man for one or the other side. I'll be setting it up for another go soon.