Fighting for the chateau

I met Olli over Combat Commander: Europe yesterday. If I count solo games, this was my fifth game so far. I've played the first four scenarios and one randomly-generated (had to try it; the generator is easy to use and works well).

Scenario four has a group of Germans holding a Belgian chateau against Americans. Both sides have Elite troops. Americans have strength in numbers, Germans have some machine guns and an infantry gun. The terrain surrounding the chateau is tough: there's lots of small patches of trees in the yard, which offers Americans some cover while they approach the chateau.

I played the Germans. After two and half hours and the first sudden death check, the game ended when Olli made an advance into melee and beat my Germans over the surrender level. Had the game ended on the sudden death check, I would've won. So, it was very close. I made some mistakes; worst of them by far was the setup. I had the left side of the chateau pretty much unguarded. As a result, my heavy MG didn't fire a shot against the Americans.

Olli did take quite a while to get close to the chateau, but when he managed to do that, it was pretty bad for me for the rest of the game. I went a long time without a single Recovery order - and they were badly needed - and when I got one, an air support event broke the crucial defenders soon again.

So, tough luck on the cards. Lack of Recovery cards was definitely one reason for my loss, but I can't blame everything on that. I was already going down, it just made the downhill just a little more slippery. With better play (and I made mistakes a plenty), the lack of rallying wouldn't have been such a big problem.

After my five games, I do like the system. It works for me, it's just the right amount of complexity and detail. I would prefer if the games were slightly faster, scheduling three hours per game is a bit much in my current situation. Still, CC is a game I very much want to explore further.