Memoir '44 - The Fall Gelb Campaign (Part 5)

The Sickle-Cut campaign

Don, winning the last campaign, chose this as the final campaign in the Grand Campaign. When asked why he chose this, he said that it looked like the Germans had more of a unit advantage in the scenarios than with The Crossing of the Meuse campaign.

If the Germans win this campaign, we will fight the final scenario, Dunkirk, which grants the winner an additional Campaign Victory Point (like Bodange did).

Game 10, The Sickle-Cut campaign, Bouvignes Bridgehead scenario

This scenario is interesting in that it has a wall of hills with a cliff on the river side. This severely restricts the mobility of the French to reinforce any attacks coming across the river. I had two choices:

• Try and oppose the crossing of the Meuse River at Bouvignes and (West) Dinant for as long as possible; or
• Line up all of my units on the cliff and blast the Germans once they crossed.

I chose the latter strategy. As this seemed like a good scenario for using reserves, I applies a token when I was able to roll up an armor unit for reinforcements. Don received an elite infantry unit for his reinforcements. He also found out that he is out of armor reinforcements for the entire Grand Campaign because of the loss of the Airborne Operations campaign.

My plan was to move all of my infantry and tanks onto the cliffs and rain metal down on the Germans as they attempted to cross and after they succeeded. This left two units hanging, giving the Germans easy victory points. I was able to execute my plans and basically stopped the Germans cold at the river, except on my left flank, where they assaulted through Houx Island with the elite infantry. Don's artillery tore up my infantry units, one by one, but he lost units faster. It ended in an Allied victory 6-4. I was unable to destroy a single Panzer unit.

Allies 47-39

Game 11, The Sickle-Cut campaign, Battle of Flavion scenario

As an all-armor battle, this was going to be interesting. Plus, this was going to be the first chance for the Germans to score objective points by killing Elite (Heavy) French armor units.

Although I was outnumbered in units, I did not feel I could afford to use a reserve token. Further, I rolled infantry, so I definitely did not want to throw them into this scenario, which promised to be a little more fluid than those with infantry and artillery. Don chose to use a reserve token as he had rolled an artillery reinforcement.

Due to my winning the last scenario, I was able to move first. I knew I wanted to attack one flank or the other, and my first choice was the German right flank, but Don had placed his artillery unit there and I was not going to go near it, if at all possible. So, shifting to my right flank it was. After the card deal, however, I could see that it was going to be more of using the center section, as I started with the Assault All in Center and Armor Assault cards.

I started by moving my French elites away from the left into the center and moved one armor on the right to use a Recon 1 on Right card, getting more center cards. I then sprung the trap and assaulted with five armor in the center and destroyed three German armor in a single turn. I spent the rest of the game chasing down two more to win the game, 5-2. (The two units I lost were not elites, so they yielded no objective points.) As I had destroyed five Panzer units, I gained an additional objective point.

Allies 53-41


With only 11 medals available to the Axis in the two remaining scenarios, the Axis have to win big to stay competitive in this campaign. If they lose this campaign, not only will they lose the Grand Campaign, but the Allies will have changed history and the debacle at Dunkirk will have been averted!