Cancon day two review

Day 2 is finished and despite sore feet and fading voices we are looking forward to day 3.

Pegasus Bridge with our intrepid Generals.

Today we set up the Pegasus Bridge board with the 3 stage game.
The best part was our new young player who played a short battle yesterday with me and who today played the FULL DAY.  Thanks to his Mum and Dad who saw the light in his eyes and let him play for the day. This is an impressive effort from an 8 year old, energised by the excitement of playing a fun wargame.
Part 1 was the initial assault with the first glider of 28 veteran tough fighter British Airborne including Major Howard verses the much outclassed inexperienced shirker Germans defending the bridge.
Although over matched, the German challenge was to cause as much casualties as possible.  Our new recruit did much better than me in our test games and only lost about 10 men.

The reduced squad which close assaulted the bunker

The end of this game had the second glider landing and once all opposition was cleared rushing along the bridge ready to confront the awakened German defenders on the other side of the bridge.
Although they were also inexperienced shirkers, the Germans were in cover and all facing the open end of the bridge.
So it was a matter of charge ahead and get in range for more close assaults.
It takes a bit of practice to ignore all the guns facing you and charging right in.  The veteran tough fighters were able to minimise their own casualties until they ploughed into the defenders and defeat them in close assault.
At the end of this part the survivors had to reposition themselves and wait for the German counter attack.

We're ready!

Once more our new player did better than me and there were enough troops to mount a defence. 7 order dice across about 20 men to stop the German counter attack with a Marder III, 2 10 man regular squads, 2 8 man Volks Grenadier squads, a sniper and 3 man HQ.
"Hold until relieved" were the orders, and even though Major Howard died in a heroic frontal assault in game 2, the British held out.
Great fun all round.

Overall we have continued to enjoy ourselves supervising the demo games.

Stop shooting me and let me fire back!

The other game had Russians vs British (we ran out of Germans with the rather large requirement of the Pegasus Bridge game).
In the photo to the right the Russian T34/85 had 4 pins as he was being fired at by the Cromwell, 6 pounder and PIAT for continuous turns.  No penetration, just pins.

Tomorrow we will have the same boards for more of the same.

Thanks to all the guys who popped over during breaks in the tournament.  It was great getting to meet the real people behind the names I had liaised with on Facebook and the forums.
The strong and supportive Bolt Action community, consisting of fellows spread across Australia, is a great feature of the Australian Bolt Action scene.  Keep it up guys!