D-Day Upon Us – D-Day+10 Battle Report Part II: The Revenge of Zombie Whitman

By Michael Rafferty

D-Day Upon Us – D-Day +10 Battle Report Part 2: The Revenge of Zombie Whitman

It was Saturday morning and time to start the battle. I divvied up the sides as people arrived, those getting here early were able to pick the forces and the last arriving got assigned the remainders. We had 11 people for the event, making it one of the largest for our local group this decade! Ok, this decade is only four years old, and we haven’t run many events, but I was happy with the turnout.

The Allies had the first turn, since they were the ones on the offensive. Against Caen, the 101^st’s first company came on and started moving on the Fallschirmjager. In retrospect, I probably gave everyone too much artillery, but I definitely gave the Fallschirmjager too much. They were also entrenched in the city and surrounding area, so they were hard to kill. This brings us to a house rule we used for this event and will use going forward.

In order to speed up play and allow things to die quicker, we changed bulletproof cover. Instead of forcing a firepower roll, creating a separate roll for every failed save, we had it give the team a +1 to their save. This made play smoother, which letting weapons like machine guns do more damage. There were a lot of Fallschirmjager and not many died to the initial Allied shooting in Carentan, but more died than would normally happen. By the end of the game, the paras were pushing the Germans out of Carentan but had taken heavy loses.

The US Armored troops moved up on the Luftwaffe Field Jagers near Caen and started inflicting heavy casualties. The Luftwaffe had a lot of AA, as befitting them, but not a lot of HMGs. They did have some 88s and Hornisses backing them up, so were able to inflict a lot of damage on the Shermans in return fire. Several Khornate-style assaults were made by the armored rifles. This is the second house rule we did.

The amount of shots it takes to pin a unit is tied to their morale. Five shots are needed to pin a 5+ morale unit, eight for a 4+, and ten for a 3+. This allowed more assaults to go off, leading to us actually having to use the assault rules. Sean, our resident 40k players turned American officer, ordered these assaults and threatened to shoot anyone who fled. I told him at the end of the game he’d either win a medal or be executed for treason. I let him roll for it, but on a one he was only awarded a .45 round.

Villers-Bocage was an interesting fight. The 7^th Armoured was driving through town with two Cromwell companies with an armoured car company and plenty of artillery support. Their initial opponent was Michael Whitman, the best tank ace of the war according to reputable German magazine Signal. Whitman charged ahead and knocked out a few tanks, then was unceremoniously killed by a 17pdr.

However, this was not the end of Whitman. Don, one of the founders of The Nerds of War and one of the commonwealth players, focused on Whitman and wanted him dead. He moved significant resources together to make sure Whitman and his tiger platoon were taken out. However, at the start of turn three I had a surprise for him. Zombie Whitman drove onto the board to terrorize the allies again.

After the cries of the ruination of our perfectly historical battle stopped, the allied players got down to stopping this new threat. Along with Zombie Whitman, a group of Panthers joined him to hit the flank of the 7^th Armoured. This wasn’t the day of the Typhoons, but the allies rolled well enough to bring in a typhoon and throw it at Zombie Whitman.  A few rolls later, and Zombie Whitman bit the dust before he could do any damage.

Meanwhile in Caen, the Canadians were trying to displace the German infantry and capture the critical assets in town. What were these assets? Europe’s first Taco Bell. Our commitment to historical accuracy remains unblemished.

Defending Caen was a mix of Panzergrenadiers and the 21^st Panzer Division. I almost had time to paint the new box set to complement my older one, but the week between release and our game was not enough. With the first turn, the Canadians managed to flame thrower a few German teams, but overall the Germans barely moved and still held all the objectives around Caen at the end of the game.

After five hours of play, we were getting tired and a few players really wanted to leave so we decided to call it. The American Paras were pushing into Carentan and would have overwhelmed the Germans in the next few turns, despite stiff resistance. The American armored forces were rolling up the Luftwaffe troops and would have been in place to support the paras.

The British had secured Villers-Bocage but were encountering the main line of resistance. Mecha-Whitman had not arrived yet. Overall, it was a win for the Allies with heavy losses in the face of stiff German resistance. It was a fun game and great getting everyone back together, we’re looking forward to our next game in September which will be Market Garden.