While it’s done a pretty good job of marshaling its infantry assets thus far, CMBO’s TacAI hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory on the angry house front. I don’t wish to take anything away from the Comment Commanders, who’ve choreographed their armour superbly up to this point, but questionable tank orders from the CPU have made life easier than it might have been for the Bogen Bouncers.

A couple of turns ago, the Allied bid to take the castle gates looked to be in real trouble. The unexpected appearance of enemy reinforcements had left Hood’s vanguard bloodied and backpedaling. In Turn 27, bolstered by halftrack-delivered replacements, and fire support from within the castle, the determined Brits regain the upper hand.

The closest Allied Armoured Recovery Vehicle to Nottingheim is over twenty miles away. If the churning caterpillars of the Churchill VIII don’t grip something solid in the next turn or two, Sergeant Johns and his crew have a long, frustrating wait ahead of them.

Ouch! Comment Commander Colonel_K might want to pour himself a stiff Bovril and take a seat before reading the following turn report. In the 25th minute of this nailbiting play-by-comment CMBO contest, the AI-controlled Germans positively savage the small human-orchestrated Tommy infantry force that’s approaching the gates of Nottingheim Castle from the south.

Turn 23 ended on a cliff edge. The Comment Commanders’ most valuable (?) armoured asset – a late-war Sherman – seemed seconds away from an unpleasant encounter with an unidentified German heavyweight. In this sixty-second instalment of intricate WEGO wargaming, the mysterious tank reveals itself and expectorates a couple of 88mm rounds.