CSI MEMOIR 44 - St.MERE EGLISE

[MagnusNygaard]

So, Air Marshals and Sofa General, here's one of the other classics.

The famous airborne raid on St.Mere Eglise.

https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=312818717

[MagnusNygaard]

So, for our second encounter Edocentric and I had to deal with St.Mere Eglise. Since Memoir 44 was made for the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, of course it had to include an actual paradrop scenario. But, as many of you might have noticed, this mechanic isn't used much in other official scenarios, and there's a reason for that.
It's not fun.

IRL it's tolarable, because you do feel you have SOME control over the dropping of the airborne troops, but online, where an algorithm does the work for you... not so much.

OK, so our game pretty much showed the weaknesses of this scenario. While center cards are important for the allies - they're virtually useless for the Germans (except later in the game, but you don't have time for this, so...)

I started out with pretty much the perfect hand as the defending Germans: I had AMBUSH, INFANTRY ASSAULT and ASSAULT RIGHT FLANK. And as soon as Edocentric played THEIR FINEST HOUR - and got a very mediocre roll (one Infantry), I knew I would win - I just had to make sure I didn't let him have too many kills.
One of the advantages of having Ambush played early (by you OR your opponent) is that you nolonger have to worry about it. Ambush is deadly on maps with mostly INFANTRY - not only because of the kills, but also - as shown in our game - a single flag can be the difference between victory and defeat.

Continuing my extreme luck, I picked up FIREFIGHT after I played ambush. The rest was a mopping up expedition.

Second match was again full of luck for me. I picked up AIR POWER, which, again, is a card I just like to know where is at. Since my opponent had to go for brokes, I knew I could just play it calmly, maneuvering so I never had any units in grave danger (pulling back a 2 fig infantry, even though Ambush had already been played, something I would probably not do if I needed to score points quickly).

Overall, this is possibly my least favorite scenario - certainly of the base game.

Thanks again to Edocentric for coming up with the idea for this little series.

[edocentric]

I'll start off by saying this is one of my least favorite scenarios - mostly because the game comes down to "do the Allies have enough left flank cards to press the attack on the German infantry?"

US strategy: the decision where to drop the paratroopers comes down to the initial card draw of the US player. If there are lots of cards to sustain an attack on the left flank then dropping a lot of paratroopers near the town of Neuvill-au-Plain and the hill allows the US player to rack up a lot of medals on the 4 German infantry holed up in the corner. I thought I had a good hand to really press the attack, but a bad roll on Their Finest Hour (only 1 infantry) combined with a lethal Ambush / Firefight combo from Magnus really put me on my back heel. I wound up playing the rest of the round in a more defensive posture which allowed the Germans to deploy their tank in the open field. When that happens, the US player is in bad shape in this scenario - as what happened here and I wind up losing 4-1 in the first round.

German strategy: I usually try to move my units forward so that I don't lose any figures to no retreat path (especially on the right flank). Since Magnus had such a huge lead from the first round, he only really needed to wipe out the German infantry in the town of Sainte Mere-Eglise to really cement his victory. So dropping his paratroopers in the center section makes the most sense here. As the game progressed, I only drew center section cards so I was caught in a pickle not being able to fully deploy my troops from the left flank - I hope they enjoyed their snack of beer and bratwurst while their mates were fighting! A resounding 4-0 victory for Magnus in the second round.

Overall, I tend to avoid this scenario where possible - I don't find it particularly enjoyable and luck plays a major role in how the game plays out. Also paratroopers don't show up in a later scenario so it's an odd rule to only play in this one scenario. It is a good learning scenario as it introduces tanks and hedgerows and the city terrain plays more of a factor than in Pegasus Bridge. This would be a scenario to play once as a learning exercise and then put back on the shelf - there are so many more enjoyable scenarios out there!