“?? ????? ???ℎ ??? ??????? ?ℎ? ?????” – by Mark Hollett

I’ve always been a bit snarky about corporate mission statements and the like, but I’ve always appreciated the simple clarity of purpose in that commonly cited mission of the infantry. The Last Hundred Yards is a game that focuses specifically on closing with and destroying your enemies.

A motivated force in an improved defensive position is very hard to dislodge if they don’t want to go anywhere. Yes, you can blast them with artillery, encircle them, or just bypass them and that will work a lot of the time. But sometimes you really want the ground they are holding, and they will not leave unless personally escorted off the premises. The Last Hundred Yards series focuses on these latter types of engagements.

To that end, it models small units – squads and sections — typically up to a company or two’s worth (100-300 men), plus mortars and few supporting elements like heavy machine guns and armored fighting vehicles. While those combined arms elements are included, they are really just supporting elements in the game, just as they were in these types of battles. You are not going to see major tank-on-tank action, sweeping exploitations, or massive artillery barrages. All the big guns you have access to are simply there to enable your infantry to get up close and do their dirty work.

And getting up close is the real challenge in this game. Defenders will typically be few in numbers but holding key defensive terrain, so you can’t just saunter up and knock on their door. You need a plan for how to approach them without getting torn to shreds in the process.

Your plan will fall apart at first contact, but that doesn’t obviate the need for a plan in the first place. What the game rewards is the ability to be flexible, identify gaps and weaknesses in your enemy, and move rapidly to exploit them. But not too rapidly, as you can very easily overextend yourself and end up becoming the weakness that is being exploited, instead of exploiting your enemy’s weakness.

The Last Hundred Yards series captures the principals of assault very well. You need to locate and identify your opposition, select an appropriate point to target, isolate that point from it supporting forces, concentrate overwhelming force on that point to either kill or displace it, then consolidate before the enemy has a chance to retaliate.

Similarly, on defense you are rewarded in the game for following fundamental principles – setting up mutually supporting positions, overlapping fields of fires, layered defense, covered routes of retreat, and putting up obstacles to covered avenues of approach.

In my latest playthrough of the game, a small German force held a highway that the Americans needed to capture. The Americans had two (reduced) companies plus some supporting elements attacking a reduced German company that had some machine guns and an infantry gun in support. Some forest provided cover on the west, but there was still some open ground to cross, with a hill overlooking the open area and a small village as well.

On the west side, the Americans ran hard into the German defenses. The Yanks deployed in the tree line to try and attack a German observation post that forced them to deploy. However, this post had numerous positions that could provide supporting fire, so the Americans had tremendous trouble closing with the position. Despite having tremendous numerical superiority, the terrain was just too exposed to advance across. And even once the Americans managed to get to the German position and assault it, the small German squad managed to fight off their attackers!

The lynchpin of the German defenses was a 75mm gun and machine gun on top of a small hill overlooking the entire map. The Germans pulled a squad off the eastern flank to reinforce the town, allowing the Americans a gap which the rushed through. This set the Americans up to assault the hilltop position, which they prepared by hammering it with mortars and advancing most of a full platoon right up next to it. But then, it happened.

Despite having the initiative for most of the game, the Americans stalled right as they were preparing to assault. Why? Who knows – maybe a platoon commander got cold feet and hesitated. Maybe communications broke down between the assaulting and supporting elements. Maybe it wasn’t anything the Americans did – maybe after being on their heels for 45 minutes, the Germans realized what was about to happen and NCOs kicked enough asses to get ahead of the Americans for those critical few minutes. A lot of potential issues get balled into one simple die roll.

And that was the turning point of the game. In those few minutes the Germans were able to disrupt the assaulters, forcing them to withdraw and another platoon move up. Key defenders were able to recover from their panicked withdrawal and put fire back on the attackers. And all that was enough to drag the attack out long enough that it was a failure for the Americans.

What I like about the Last Hundred Yards

• The rules melt away letting you focus on the situation. When playing I’m not thinking about “I need to move this unit before this one in order to maximize the chance of Z,” I’m thinking about the board situation – what is the weak point in the defense I want to attack? How can I isolate it? If my attack stalls, how can I continue to advance towards my objectives?
• Table space is quite small – most games are played on a single 11×17 map. There are a few bigger ones for fun, but a lot of the included scenarios are relatively light footprint.
• It uses semi-simultaneous manner of resolution that reduces (but does not eliminate) the “God’s eye view” challenge of so many wargames – the fact that you as the player have an omniscience real commanders did not, and that knowledge affects how you play the game.

There is no shortage of squad level tactical board games. Of the ones I’ve tried, The Last Hundred Yards best nails the balance of complexity, time, and just nailing the principals of this level of conflict. I don’t normally pick up multiple volumes in a game series – one is generally enough to give me what I want out of a game system. But this one I’m getting the whole series, as it really covers this topic well.

Setup. German defenses. The very topmost position contains a 75mm gun that can overlook nearly the entire map, except some spaces beneath the village in the center right. The position in the bend of the road on the center left is only a small half-squad, but all the positions surrounding it can project fire onto and across them. These overlapping fields of fire caused tremendous grief for the attacking Americans.

The Americans called for mortar support against the Germans in dug-in at the bend in the road. The other American company moves around the other side of the village where they cannot be observed. They must clear the Germans from the central road running north-south for the entire length of the map.

After the Germans pulled the squad from its far-right position to reinforce the village, the Americans pounded, advancing quickly east of the German positions using the hill and village as cover. Due to heavy fire, the German were disrupted and withdrew toward building farther north.

The Germans have been steadily falling back, just trying to delay the American advance. Mortar fire managed to knock out the machine gun and disrupt the infantry gun in the key hilltop position, allowing an American platoon to advance on the position in preparation for assault. But just then the Americans lost the initiative. The 75mm gun recovered and the Germans were able to place enough fire on 2^nd platoon, disrupting their assault and forced them to withdraw.

Game end – After an hour of battle the Germans still contest the northern part of the highway, making this an American defeat.

The fighting was intense, and chaos reigned.

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