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Strategy Tips for "Hedgerow" Scenarios

#1 · 2025-05-23, 20:42

Quote from GeneralHowitzer on 2025-05-23, 20:42
There are some scenarios in which everybody is well-entrenched and in strong defensive position.

It is very much a positional battle where each side is able to only make very small single dice roll attacks.

Truth is, I do not enjoy these scenarios. But I have been studying to find out why. So here are a few things I have learned to improve my score:

1. Be Patient!

This is the number one rule. This is not open warfare. This is sniper war. You will not be making gigantic tank attacks and wiping out three figures at once. You will be picking them off, one by one, or not even that. It will be slow, brutal fighting hedgerow by hedgerow.

Here is where I think that the makers of M44 have perfectly captured the real-world difficulty of hacking through those hedgerows and fighting for every foot of advancement.

Fighting through the hedgerows in Normandy during World War II—particularly after D-Day in June 1944—was one of the toughest and most brutal aspects of the campaign in Western Europe. These thick, centuries-old hedgerows, or “bocage”, were not just simple shrubbery or bushes. They were tall, dense walls of tangled vegetation growing atop earthen embankments, often several feet high, and reinforced by deep roots and stone walls.

2. Play a Positional Game

The movement through hedgerows is extremely slow. And again, Memoir 44 has perfectly captured this slow pace by requiring that a unit cannot enter a hedgerow unless they are right next to it, and once they come out, the can only move to the most adjacent hex.

Because it is so slow, you are not going to be able to move your troops rapidly across the battlefield. So they will remain pretty close to where they begin. So get them into a good solid position that gives you control of your particular section.

3. Mass Your Troops

If you can, get them together to mass a multi-unit attack against enemy forces lodged in a hedgerow.

So these guidelines may help you in the 'Bocage' battles:

1. Be Patient!

2. Play a Positional Game

3. Mass Your Troops

GeneralHowitzer.com

There are some scenarios in which everybody is well-entrenched and in strong defensive position.

It is very much a positional battle where each side is able to only make very small single dice roll attacks.

Truth is, I do not enjoy these scenarios. But I have been studying to find out why. So here are a few things I have learned to improve my score:

1. Be Patient!

This is the number one rule. This is not open warfare. This is sniper war. You will not be making gigantic tank attacks and wiping out three figures at once. You will be picking them off, one by one, or not even that. It will be slow, brutal fighting hedgerow by hedgerow.

Here is where I think that the makers of M44 have perfectly captured the real-world difficulty of hacking through those hedgerows and fighting for every foot of advancement.

Fighting through the hedgerows in Normandy during World War II—particularly after D-Day in June 1944—was one of the toughest and most brutal aspects of the campaign in Western Europe. These thick, centuries-old hedgerows, or “bocage”, were not just simple shrubbery or bushes. They were tall, dense walls of tangled vegetation growing atop earthen embankments, often several feet high, and reinforced by deep roots and stone walls.

2. Play a Positional Game

The movement through hedgerows is extremely slow. And again, Memoir 44 has perfectly captured this slow pace by requiring that a unit cannot enter a hedgerow unless they are right next to it, and once they come out, the can only move to the most adjacent hex.

Because it is so slow, you are not going to be able to move your troops rapidly across the battlefield. So they will remain pretty close to where they begin. So get them into a good solid position that gives you control of your particular section.

3. Mass Your Troops

If you can, get them together to mass a multi-unit attack against enemy forces lodged in a hedgerow.

So these guidelines may help you in the 'Bocage' battles:

1. Be Patient!

2. Play a Positional Game

3. Mass Your Troops

GeneralHowitzer.com

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