I think that these links to the DOW memoir 44 scenarios no longer work.
Historical Background:
Operation Market Garden
Briefing:
I don’t have a digital version of this scenario briefing, but it’s the briefing of the official Market Garden Overlord scenario that came with the “Tigers in the Snow” expansion.
Conditions of Victory:
13 medals
Special Rules:
Tiger tank rule and British stiff upper lip rule.
Scenario link
I think that these links to the DOW memoir 44 scenarios no longer work.
I offered this scenario to two of my longtime wargaming friends to get to know Memoir '44. I had never played an Overlord scenario, but I had read several (after) action reports here and on dedicated Memoir '44 forums.
The two of them preferred to play as Allies, with me being “forced” into the role of Germans.
The first couple of turns I got blasted in Valkenswaard with a combined artillery and infantry attack, followed up by tanks that annihilated my single fleeing German infantry unit. The second German infantry unit in Valkenswaard held fast for several more turns, though. After they were finally whittled down to one figure, the Allied player in the south started to gather his tanks to start steaming north towards Eindhoven.
I managed to distract this Allied player by launching a half hearted attack with my German tanks, resulting in him pulling several tank units towards the east, instead of those tanks racing towards Eindhoven. Still, the Allies racked up a three medal head start, with my three command cards severely limiting my response.
At the same time all of this happened, the other Allied player launched an all out assault by the British paratroopers at Arnhem. By pulling both the lone Tiger towards the shore of the river Rhine (in a forest hex, for extra cover) and by racing my elite Panzer unit from the east to the bridge, I made him feel more vulnerable than he was, and he tried to move towards the north of Arnhem, in the hope of being blocked by the city itself from the fire of my Tiger and elite Panzer units, instead of moving those British paratroopers into Arnhem right away.
The single dug in German infantry unit in Arnhem survived several attacks, before the German tanks and infantry that started to the north of the Rhine moved closer to Arnhem and started to really hurt the British paratroopers there. As that Allied player tried to pull back his badly mauled British paratroopers, they found themselves coming very close to the two single German infantry units that started out to the west of the paratroop starting zone. That resulted in the British paratroopers being completely removed from the battlefield, and several quick medals and additional command cards for the Germans.
I immediately used those additional cards to my advantage to move the few German units closer to Eindhoven, with elite infantry joining the other German infantry in the city itself and the Panzer units taking up position to the south east of Eindhoven. There they were in a position to slow down the inevitable Allied tank columns moving north. The first German Panzer unit got mauled by the mass of Sherman tanks, but the second Panzer unit, together with the two German infantry units in Eindhoven managed to severely blunt the spearhead of the Allied tank column. As the Allied player scrambled to make room for his badly hurt tank units to retreat back to Valkenswaard, I used the time to take some pot shots at the 82nd Airborne infantry, thinning them out quite a bit. That gave the Germans the breathing room to start sending Panzer units from Arnhem south, to Nijmegen.
Since the Allied player that had concentrated so hard on taking Arnhem, had not moved the 82nd Airborne units, it became relatively easy to close in on them from all sides. I moved the German infantry west of them into the forest, the German elite tank units from near Arnhem ended up on and to the north west of the Nijmegen bridge, the Tiger unit parked in a forest on the northern bank of the river Waal, and the German units east of Nijmegen moved into the city of Nijmegen itself. To top it off, four German infantry units dug in, both in Eindhoven and Nijmegen.
Too late the Allied players started to move their mass of 101st and 82nd Airborne infantry towards the cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen. But now those cities had been turned into strongholds, all the bridges were firmly in German hands and very quickly the 13 German medals were collected.
It was a very good lesson in several ways, both for the to Allied players not to wait to long with moving the mass of their armour north, and not get too distracted by German pin prick attacks all along the “Hell’s Highway”, but also for me as German player, seeing how the frustration of having no (useful) command cards could quickly change into not only having ever more command cards, but also to use little distractions to the maximum advantage.
I would be very much interested in hearing about how experienced Allied players deal with this Market Garden Overlord scenario. Do you just blast your armoured units down the highway, bypassing the cities and going for the bridges and Arnhem? What is the most effective way of winning the Market Garden Overlord scenario by both the German and the Allied side, and what is the best counter to such a winning strategy?
Until now I had only played the scenarios in the rule book, and this large map and its many sectors and units was an interesting change. I thoroughly enjoyed this scenario, and I look forward to playing it again. It did take me more time to setup and explain everything than I had expected, but in the end it took us about 2 hours and 45 minutes from start of setting up to ending the game. I think that the next time, (due to everyone very carefully reading each and every command card and me doing quite a bit of explaining in between this first game) we can probably finish it in around 2 hours.
Starting situation:
End of the game:
