Okay, I don’t know if they grow wine that far north in France. I’m being a typical ignorant American.

Let’s just get back to the game, shall we?

So, what is different as we move to turn 17?

First, the scale pulls back a bit. Turns are no longer 15 minutes of “real time.” They are now a half hour. Because of that, a lot of things we were doing once before, we’ll be doing twice.

There will be two events per turn, one before the German fire phase, and one after.

Speaking of German fire, they can now hit two units per chit that’s firing. Fun.

BUT, it’s possible to wipe out a Depth marker AND a German unit in one turn as well.

WE GET THREE ACTIONS PER TURN. Yes, I’m aware that twice the time should mean twice the actions….but Butterfield likes it when we struggle, I guess.

There’s also a lot of new actions that open up all along the map, for both German and US troops.

The Germans will begin to do more actions on their fire phase (Remember those A’s, M’s and other letters on their fire cards? Those mean things now!).

All of our artillery units can now conduct Barrage actions, not just tanks.

Our HQ units can now actually become Command Posts to increase command ranges beyond one hex. (More free actions!)

We can also create Engineer bases, which is how we can direct traffic off the beach. (Even more free actions!)

But a lot of the same rules are also in play. But the German Fire Phase and Engineering phase are probably what change the most, so get ready for that. But first, let’s land our new troops.

After turn 14, Infantry doesn’t check for landing events, only for mines (Artillery still has a chart to reference, however). On this flip, my card for East Sector is showing mines. Lucky for me, only one hex ended up not having a Clear marker on it, and none of my landing Infantry is pointed at that hex, so no explosions for me.

Were that in West Beach, I would have had two Infantry lose a Step each as there are many more hexes that I was unable to clear over there.

So all that Infantry lands (on the High Tide line, right next to the Shingle) and we get our first Event of the second half.

“Remove all Disruption from German Units.”

I don’t know if they can hear my sigh all the way over there in France, but it got somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, I’m sure.

Okay! These cards mean more to us now that we’re in Turn 17. See that Yellow ‘R’? That’s probably the most complex of the new rules, so good thing we drew it first. It can mean 4 things, luckily all starting with ‘R’, so:

Occupied Yellow Reinforcement position with US in its Field of Fire “Re-Supply” (gain a Depth marker). An Occupied Yellow Reinforcement position with NO Us in its Field of Fire will Redeploy (move to a position where it can shoot at us). An Unoccupied Reinforcement Position will Reinforce (Um….it’ll show up) and finally an unoccupied WN position my Re-occupy (also show up).

Get all that?

So now we have to scan the East sector for Yellow Reinforcement positions for: Every Occupied WN and Reinforcement Position, Every unoccupied WN position with German Communication and every Reinforcement position within 2 hexes of a US unit and with German Communication. Remember, Communication means you can draw a line from it to an exit hex without it hitting US control, which is pretty easy at this point.

So here’s a poorly drawn bubble of US control blocking German communication. Meaning the Yellow WN can’t draw a line to an Exit, so no Re-occupy there, but C2 there is within 2 hexes and can draw a line to an exit no problem, so can Reinforce. BUT, it is NOT a VP position, nor does it have a US unit in an Intense or Steady fire position, therefore it doesn’t bother reinforcing.

So that was much ado about nothing, but you learned something.

The More You Knooooowwwww.

Now Green with an M: Mortar Fire. An Occupied Reinforcement Position without US in its field of fire would do this. Can’t teach this because there are no Green Reinforcement positions occupied. In fact, there are no Green positions occupied at all on East Beach. Moving on.

Finally the familiar Double Brown that would damage Armored units. No Double Brown positions. Hopping over to West Beach without incident.

Double Purple that can damage HQ/Hero/Generals. No double purples….I like this trend so far.

Okay, Double Green with an A. This is another “Means 3 things all starting with A”: Occupied Reinforcement may Advance. Unoccupied Reinforcement may Ambush. Occupied WN may conduct Artillery Fire.

Before I start taking pictures and everything, I know there are no Green Occupied WN bunkers, so no Artillery Fire (which just causes any unit with the symbol on the card to lose a step….anywhere on the map). There are also no Green Reinforcement positions occupied on West Beach, so no places to Advance. But what about Ambush?

Strangely, no. That would just be a Reinforcement Position that has a US unit within its Field of Fire. Basically a unit pops up out of existence and Disrupts a unit there without warning. Unless it’s in an Intense FoF, then you’d lose a Step. Which stinks. But hey! A whole turn and NO DAMAGE. And that’s with no Disrupted Germans!

So that brings us to the next change: Our second Event of the turn:

“Place a Hero Marker on any US Unit in 1st Division, and add a Depth Marker to one German Unit (9.2)”

Wellllllllll……that’s certainly interesting, isn’t it?

1st Division is the East Beach. Things are…..difficult there. I have the two units up against the Purple Bunker and the Brown Reinforcement right behind it. Then I have a smattering of damaged units on the West side dealing with the Red Bunker. OR I could give it to one of the fresh units that just hit the beaches.

Hmmmm….

Okay, I’m going to give it to one of the units that USED to be a part of 29th Division, but that was given over to 1st Division due to the craziness that is war. It’s the one that’s been fighting the Red Bunker but was stymied by the NA requirement on the Depth marker. The Hero will negate that and I’ll be able to finally get rid of that damn thing.

But now I also have to add a Depth Marker. Priority goes to WN positions, then those with lower ID numbers, so WN position 60 wins over 71, so Purple Bunker on East Beach gets a Depth marker.

And now the Engineer phase. Again, completely new.

In this phase, I could flip over my HQ chits and establish Command Posts. Here they become immobile, BUT then they start moving up on this little track:

Each Engineer Phase a marker will move up on that track and the radius of the Command Post’s range will increase based on the number on the track. Anything within that radius will get all their actions for free, as well as RD for attacks and it makes it easier to do that coordination of tank and artillery support fire (remember you have to be commanding the infantry AND the artillery, which is much easier when you have a 4 hex range!).

You can’t form a Command Post if you’re in a field of fire of a German, and if you get shot, you immediately flip back over to a HQ chit, so you have to think about where you set up where you can do the most good.

Along with that, you also have your Engineers. You have 4 at your disposal, two for each Beach, one for each Draw. Each phase you place one, or increase the Range of one per Division. Which is a hell of a choice, I tell you what.

Engineers do the following: Any German positions in Engineer ranges can not be occupied. Awesome.

Shingle spaces can be moved over by tanks and stuff. Really, any hindering terrain can be moved over that ain’t a cliff.

Move actions are free.

So. All good things.

Engineers can’t be placed in active fields of fire, so Draw E-1 can’t be touched, so it’s easy to see where I can place the first one on East Beach. Same with West Beach as Draw D-1 is also blocked.

HQ decisions are…..tough to make. Where is the best place to put them? Where will they do the most good? Surely you want to establish Command Posts early so they can get the widest range and do the most good. But you also want good placement and not overlap with your Engineers too much and waste space.

I’m not going to establish any Command Posts yet. My goal is to get my East HQ closer to Colleville-sur-Mer and establish a post there and direct traffic inland. On the West Beach, I can easily (HA!) get into Vierville-sur-Mer and set up shop there, and get some of my gear out of Exit G.

For now they’ll help clear up some of these beach defenses.

The WN are blown up, but Purple pulled up a Tactical Reinforcement. Downside to this is that those chits are fresh out, which means I pull from Divisional Reinforcements, which come with their own Depth markers automatically. So that Red hex now has some Oomph to it. Also the attack on the Brown hex had the Flank requirement which caused it to gain a Depth marker as well, making that corner a dangerous place to be. I moved 62AFA closer to the Engineers so it can start moving inland. Once HQ is set up, it’ll be nice to have a 9 Strength, Unlimited range Artillery at my disposal.

West Beach is tying up some loose ends. You’ll notice some two hex movement. That’s a great benefit in these new turns. It doesn’t come up as often as you’d like, but it does exist for Infantry and Leaders. However, you can’t do it in bocage hexes (unless using a road) nor in Intense or Steady fire spots on an active German field of Fire. You’d be amazed at how much those restrictions come up. I am moving some Artillery over the Shingle onto my Engineer over on draw D-3 there. That should be fun if I can get that together. I don’t land my other HQ until turn 19, but I’m hoping to have a bit more of the end of that draw cleaned up by then and then I can start raining down hellfire.

But that ends the first turn of the extended game.

Exciting isn’t it?

Turn 18….Remember Turn 1? Simpler times, then.

Oh who am I kidding, I had 10 Bunkers filled with machine guns firing down at me.

ANYWAY, Turn 18.

No landing Phase as there’s nothing landing nor queuing up this turn. So we jump right to an event.

BUT WAIT!

I just noticed VASSAL automatically drew one Landing check card so I did a double take, and wouldn’t you know it….over there on West Beach is one bit of Artillery that was supposed to land on TURN 10, but got delay after delay after delay.

The lil’ scamp.

So I guess we have to check what happens….and yes, it could be delayed 3 turns again (it could also be delayed until June 7th….ie. removed from play). And a Diamond is result B which is…..Delayed until June 7th. Poor bugger goes home.

NOW we go to event. As if that wasn’t eventful.

Add a depth marker to one German unit. Hmmm….okay. Pretty standard here. There are a couple Germans with US within one hex, so it looks like it’ll go to the WN at the end of Draw D-3.

BUT, the WN Depth pool is depleted. When that happens, we don’t put Depth markers on WN positions anymore, we choose Reinforcement positions now. Looking at the Reinforcement position with the lowest number is D1, which is right in front of that WN position. Awesome.

Okay, let’s do this. First we have a double Purple with Patrol capabilities. We haven’t seen Patrol yet. It’s a weird one. Instead of firing as normal, occupied Reinforcement hexes only Disrupt units in intense and steady fields of fire. If there aren’t any in those fields of fire, it’ll Disrupt one unit within 3 hexes of that position. So it’s a weaker attack that can stretch pretty far as a kind of surprise. There are no Purple Positions (I just spit a little saying that), so we move on to Blue. Advance or Ambush.

The Blue Reinforcement position Ambushes G/2/16, but since it’s not a Triangle, it doesn’t lose a step. And then they fade into the distance. Phew.

And Green Resupply, Redeploy or Reinforcement….which is exactly what happens near Spalding. It’s 2 hexes away from a Unit and is a VP position, so a unit and Depth Marker appear there. Drat.

I hope you’re hearing a little “Ding” sound effect every time you see that word in my pictures. I know I am.

Purple has Mortar which is normal fire if in range, and Mortar fire if not, but there’s no Purple units, so I’m lucky there. Nor are there Blue or double Brown. The Brown WN does un-Disrupt, though.

Second event:

German Plugging Fire: Treat sporadic fire dots in beach hexes bordering protective hexsides as steady fire dots. Wow, that’s the first I’m seeing this. However, because it’s happening after the Germans already fired, it’s treated as no event.

So on to our Engineer/HQ phase. Again, I’m not going to do anything with my HQ’s….yet. As much as I’d like to increase ranges on my Engineers, I can place both my other units down, and having SOMETHING there is better than nothing at all, so all four with Range 0 is….something. So that does that. On to US Actions.

Getting our Artillery off the Beach and some further movement inland. Took Optional Attrition on the joint attack on that Brown Reinforcement. The Depth Marker required Artillery, so I had to take a hit. Hrmph.

HQ is in position in Vierville-sur-Mer. Morse took out the Yellow Reinforcement (don’t know why Red Pen was clicked there) and I’ve got quite the force ready to take on the brown WN in the back there.

Still looks like I’m cleaning up beginning of game objectives, but I’ll have to start concentrating on getting end of game goals. How to change gears to those will be the subject of the next post.

Hope you’re still following along. I’ve been noticing it takes about 30-45 minutes per turn to take the moves and write everything up, so you can imagine what kind of time investment 18 turns has been so far.

But for our soldiers, it is merely 11am…