Mr Hitler takes a ride

Our friend Bill Miller was back up from London and Mr Ray was back from the States last week so we had a get together for an interesting and unusual WW2 game at Colin Jack's, but anyone who knows Colin would realise that unusual is normal for most of his games.  Bill and Ray took the German role while Colin and myself were the Poles. We used Bolt Action rules for the game and Colin supplied all the terrain, 28mm figures and vehicles.

German briefing
It is September 1939 and the war has been going well for the Germans and Adolf Hitler is flying to Warsaw to take part in victory celebrations, unfortunately his plane has developed engine trouble and has had to make an unscheduled landing in an airfield outside of the Polish capital so the rest of the journey will have to be made by road.

Apart from the Fuhrer there are also two important staff officers
who will also have to be transported safely

To escort the VIP's you have an SS squad of 6 riflemen and the driver of the staff car also has an smg. The commander of the airfield has also sent an escort of a squad of Luftwaffe troops, an officer and 6 men armed with rifles or smg's. For transport you have the staff car already mentioned as well as a Kubel Wagon and truck for the Luftwaffe infantry. The crew of the downed plane can also act as a reserve if needed and are armed with pistols and an Lmg.

Polish briefing
It is September 1939 and the war has been going well for the Germans and the Polish army is all but destroyed and you and a group of 6 soldiers have been separated from your unit during the retreat and have been sheltered by some local villagers.  Word has reached you that a German plane has been forced to land at the nearby airfield and that a convoy is being set up so perhaps someone important is on board and this could be your last chance to do something for your country before the war ends. The local villagers are also keen to help so the village elder and 6 men have volunteered, it's just a pity that they have no military training so not much can be expected of them.

Victory conditions
The Germans get 1vp for every Polish village taken out and 1vps for every Polish regular and 5vps for every staff officer you get off table.
The Poles get 1vp for every Luftwaffe person taken out, 2vps for every SS man and 5vps for every staff officer. If they kill Hitler they will win the game whatever the other outcome is.

The game
The Poles started in ambush anywhere they wanted as long as they were more than 12" away from the airfield and we weren't sure if the Germans would just stick to the road for the extra speed bonus or go across country. As commander of the Polish troops I took the regulars and set up ambush 1 in the large ditch alongside the road which covered the road as well as the gap opposite and the open ground behind should the Germans try to sneak off that way. Knowing of the poor quality of the villagers I set them up as a last resort in the village at ambush 2. Knowing Bill I guessed he would hide Hitler away in another vehicle instead of the staff car and probably disguise him as an ordinary soldier even though I doubt Hitler would ever have agreed to that in real life.

The game started with the German truck moving out of the airfield and down the road followed by the two Polish ambushers passing on their move, then next came the Kubel wagon and the end of turn followed so the staff car was still in the airfield. Move two saw the truck move gingerly down the road but still no ambush followed and the staff car joined at the back of the queue and the end of turn.

At the start of turn three Ray was starting to get a bit jittery especially when he kept getting asked to test and failing to see if he could spot any Poles, so he promptly debussed his men and slowly crept down the road. Bill commanding the other two vehicles made sure he kept well back allowing Ray to trigger any ambushers but still no fire came. By move four the German truck was about to enter the village so Colin opened up with his men but failed to hit anything and it was at this point that the Kubel wagon turned off road to the left so my ambushers let them have it.

Not only did my fire bring the vehicle to a halt with a shot to bits engine I also hit one of the passengers who had more than one wound, was this Hitler?

The SS also got out of the following staff car and also ran into a hail of lead losing two of their number and the driver pinned in the car unable to use his smg. It was around this time that Bill started cursing my dice rolling as it is normally rubbish but this night I wasn't rolling anything less than a 5 or 6 for shooting. I just know it will all go horribly wrong in the next game.
In the next few moves my riflemen joined Colin in shooting up the Luftwaffe while my BAR gunner kept hitting the Kubel wagon and my officer dealt with the SS himself.

The remaining troops from the wrecked car fled from the scene so it was obvious that it wasn't Hitler in there but I was determined to take him out as the others were too far away and behind cover to get a shot. Perhaps one of them was Mr H? all would be revealed at the end of the game.

Back in the village the Luftwaffe were coming of the worst being caught in a crossfire so the officer and driver in the truck decided to leg it leaving his men to their fate, that is until Colin's men shot the driver leader ran out and lobbed a Molotov cocktail at the truck and destroyed it. For the next couple of moves Colin's and the Luftwaffe leader had a ding dong fist fight going on which neither seemed to be able to win and as Bill's remaining figures crept off the table we called an end to the game and to discover the fate of Hitler.

The German shooting was horrendous in this game and they only took out 1 Polish regular and 3 villagers and got one staff officer off the table scoring 10 points. The Poles on the other hand because of my great dice rolling took out 5 SS men 5 Luftwaffe men and a staff officer scoring 20 points.

What of Hitler I hear you ask! Bill being devious as ever decided not to even risk the Fuhrer's life and left him back at the airfield, he argued unconvincingly that all his men had just been sent off to get more reinforcements to escort their leader safely to Warsaw which wasn't the idea of the scenario so the Poles were awarded an overwhelming victory.