Square Bashing - German assault

Another trip over to James' house for a game of the very enjoyable Square Bashing.
After wasting quite some time laying out trees and craters on a a terrain mat and then watching James' daughter perform handstands and cartwheels on it (it's for another game at Partizan - though without the cartwheeling daughter) we adjourned to the kitchen for some Square Bashing.
James has recently created a mat from fleece with craters and roads cleverly "burned" into the surface. He'd made this one for a Verdun game but has plans for another for Arras at Partizan.

We threw down some of the rather nice houses he acquired at Crisis to create a small town and decided that for a change I'd be on the defensive.

 The war ravaged settlement of Abeillesville

 The British dig in

 The Germans prepare their assault

The initial depletion didn't do much damage to the British forces, with only a couple of stands removed and a single unit of reservists forced to pull back

Soon the pinpoint barrages began to crash in and my left flank came under pressure

 The firestorm erupts

Friendly fire

The German forces summoned an aircraft to assist with guiding their own shelling, whilst the rest of the force advanced.

 von Mauritz flies over the battle

And calls in deadly fire

The initial German advance slowed down and fire was being exchanged across No Mans Land to little effect.

Despite throwing up some hasty defences the left end of the British line was under severe pressure, especially as flame throwers were bought up.
Desperately I ordered a suppression barrage - which stalled the advance for a turn but inflicted equal casualties on both sides.

Another British shell falls short!

Inevitable the German assault went in on the British left...

 It's no good lads, pull back

...and the plucky Tommys were evicted from their makeshift defences

Over on the right some concentrated fire for the advancing Germans also forced the other British flank to withdraw

And with that the battle drew to a close with us adjudging a narrow German win and the British forced to cede the town.

These are very jolly and surprisingly quick games. You can pretty much play with just the QRS and the choices, especially for the defender, are quite limited - there's little point in storming out of your defences. Looking forward to a few more games and then putting on a demo at Partizan in May.