Review: Dispatches From The Bunker #26

Walter Eardley

The ASL Fairy left a prize in my mail box this afternoon. Dispatches #26 was waiting for me. This publication is rapidly becoming one of my most anticipated deliveries each year. This issue only confirmed my belief that they are one of the better TPP out there. My typical way of looking at a new ASL offering of this type is to go straight to the scenarios. When I pulled it out of the envelope, I happened to be looking at the back page. I spy an article titled “Welcome to the (Concrete) Jungle: City Fighting in Stalingrad”. Being a Stalingrad nut, I stopped and read. Nice little article talking about how nasty debris is. When I finished, I turned it over and took a look at the cover. Typical stuff on the front for this publication so I start turning pages. While working my way to the scenarios, I ran into a tasty article on The First Bid by Jim Torkelson. I stopped and read the entire article. There is some good stuff in this article without giving away too much. I was intrigued by The First Bid but now I want to play it. So before I ever even looked at the scenarios, I am two articles deep. Usually I do good to read the Historical information on the scenarios much less two articles before I even look at the scenarios.

All three scenarios have made my Wanna Play list. In order of my own personal interest:

1) Shock at Kamenewo – 7 T-34s (mixed M40 and M41s) and 3 KV-1s manned by a 9-2, 9-1 and 8-1 AL and supported by 18 squads with decent leaders and some motorcycles get to have some fun on boards 44, 11 and 4 with 5 PZIIIs and 2 PzIVs (with 10-2 AL) supported by a mix of 468s, 88L Flak guns and 105 artillery pieces. The Russians have to kill a bunch of Germans and cross a bridge. This looks like a Walter and Rob special (with have this bridge theme going). The Russians look pretty tough in this one. Better settle in for an all day match if you pick this one.

2) Commandos Hold Fast – A small force of 648 Brit Commandos is trying to hold of two waves of 9 467 Germans. The second wave is supported by two PzIVHs. At 6.5 turns, it looks a nice smaller scenario for a game day or an afternoon among fast players.

3) Murphy, Go Help the British – This one features 20 666 American squads with some supporting halftrack assault guns T30s attacking along the widths of boards 15 and 9 placed end to end. The Germans get a mix of 9 468 and 467 supported by an SPW 250/10. The objective for the Americans is to clear Level 4 hill hexes. With only 4.5 turns, they will need to move along. Again this looks like a good game day offering which some toys on each side.

If you do not receive Dispatches, I would highly recommend subscribing.

Walter

AAR: OM3 - Hill 107

German Fallschirmjaeger:
Nick Drinkwater [ELR4, SAN 2]

British & Commonwealth:
Victor Behar [ELR4, SAN 3]

A moment of history - Houston's highest rollers face off against each other for the first (and probably only) time! As many of you know, I can roll really bad in very grim sequences but by reputation, Victor is famous for being worse! Can't wait for this one to see how long these bad streaks continue.... As its a Saturday, we both want to try something a little bigger and the new ASL crack-product Kreta: Operation Mercur is just begging to be played. Of course, if you're going to do a HASL, you gotta try out the historical map rather than the geomorphic scenarios, right? There are seven scenarios set on the main map, two of them on the smaller side and the monster OM7, but there are 3-4 good sized ones somewhat in the middle which should be good for a day's play.

Victor was then being murdered as the German's in an ongoing CG of Cemetery Hill so he's not so keen on doing a paradrop, (evokes bad memories) but he's happy to try a Glider drop. The big "Get the Bridge & Get the Bofors" OM2 scenario looks like a perfect one for another day with three people, so we opt for the more manageable "Get the Hill" OM3 alternative instead. In this the Fallschirmjaeger have 7.5 turns to take a minimum of 18 hexes of level three terrain on Hill 107, and take the named summit hex itself. If they knock the clunking great 3" AA Guns emplaced openly on the hill, they need to take 2 hexes less of Level 3 real estate for each gun they capture or eliminate. In addition, for every squad actively ordered to move at the beginning of Turn 3 by the Brits from two dedicated "numbered" platoons, the Germans need to take three less Level three hexes from their required total.

All Allied units are unable to move and advance in the first two turns, and the two Allied dedicated platoons, start on "No Move" counters until their moment of decision comes along in Turn 3 (they are released from this restriction if any German unit or glider comes within 2 hexes). This is what makes ASL so cool - interesting decisions with no simple and obvious answers.

The Kreta module is full of fun stuff and some interesting Terrain issues. Most of this doesn't impact this game but there is an abundance of olive groves, vineyards, shell-holes, walls, hedges and small stone huts which make glider landings precarious. Victor is set hard to dominate both ends of the long Level 3 ridge and any gliders coming down in the slightly open area between these strong-points will be encircled and murdered in very short order, and will also be confronted by really tough approach routes for the gliders with big chances that the crashes will be unfavourable. The SW and NE flanks of the hill are more appealing and hill topography means that at least one of the AA Guns is likely to be nullified, as will a good chunk of the defending infantry.

I decide to put everything down on the SW Level 1 and Level 2 plateaus that offer good approach routes to the NW headland of the hill. I will be aided in this approach as the scenario designers have decided to give the attacking Germans a leg-up by making Moderate Dust in effect for Turn 1 and Light Dust for Turns 2-4. This is massive as it will really assist the Germans to get up-close and personal to the British foxholes and keep the damage limited...clearly scenarios aren't much fun for anyone if 1/3 or more of the attackers and their SW all get blasted out of the sky on Turn 1, so moderate dust it is. The other reason to try and take on the NW headland is that partially through set-up restrictions and partially through choice, Victor has split his force into two big groups with the line of the Level 3 hill relatively sparsely covered in between. The two dedicated 'numbered' platoons are separated by SSR, one on Level 2 immediately below the NW headland who will be needed to be reduced by the Paras, and one to the far SE corner - these guys may never even come into the game unless Victor chooses to activate them in Turn 3. His more mobile groups on the main part of the hill include five squads with LMG and a viscous 9-2 leader, and these guys could be damaging. By SSR, the AA Guns have to stay in AA mode until Turn 4, so the key on all this for the Germans is to move, move, move when all these defender restrictions are still in place: this will be where the game is lost or won, as if I'm not firmly entrenched on the far end of the headland when the Brits wake up, I'm going to be in real trouble trying to dig them out.

The Germans have 8 squads, 4 crews, 4 leaders (including a -2), an HMG, MMG, a batch of LMG, and interestingly, a 50mm and an 81mm Mortar and a 75mm RCL, all coming in by glider. If the German can get all that lot running and into position, then he packs a hell of a punch. Of course, it would be good to get all this lot dropped onto the victory objective directly so they can be running hard from Turn 2 onwards, but discretion is the better part of valour so I opt to reduce risk and land a short distance away and then walk in. This means my bigass SW are probably not going to be doing much until Turn 4 at the earliest as all this 5PP iron is difficult to lug around, but they could easily be the game-swinging punch I'm going to need after the casualties of the initial uphill assault.

The landing goes pretty well and I had no complaints at all as almost everything touched down untroubled. The hillside-flank landing meant that the bulk of Victor's Brits were out of position and I took only one AA shot from one of Victor's big guns...this caused an evasion and a crash and I lost a half squad from the get go, but I would have taken that at the start of the game. The rest of 'Team Hill' landed in one piece on the Level two plateau where Victor's long shots with dust modifiers pinned a lot of things but just couldn't really damage me too badly. We both had several 8+1(+dust) or 16+1(+dust) shots but for a couple of turns we couldn't scratch each other - pillow fight! I managed to get a squad adjacent to a hilltop foxhole but they broke on a FPF from Victor and then promptly surrendered, no-quartered to leave me down to 6.5 of my initial 8 squads.

In turn 3 we continued to trade blows but with a killer DC charge, with a mere NMC, I broke a squad and leader and then chased them off the hill a long, long way, Victor rolling a 10 on a self-rally when he needed a 9. Despite a nasty sniper whacking one of my squads in an exposed position, I managed to save them by breaking the advancing British 9-2 on a measly 2+0 Subsequent First Fire when Victor rolled a 10 - my guys quickly routed away to safety. By end of Turn 5, I had taken all the headland part of the hill, was gobbling up hexes in the main saddle area and all my principal support weapons were now firing (accompanied by much scrabbling through the rule book to check the rules on Recoiless Rifles) - one of the Big Guns was now destroyed and Victor kept rolling high on his better attacks (particularly a 6-2 shot against my 9-2 leader / HMG which I brushed off). When Victor's entrenched squad on the summit broke with nowhere to go but into the cage, Victor resigned. He was now going to start having to recover territory with only 2-3 squads left and the -2 leader against dug-in 8 morale troops with multiple heavy support weapons and strong leadership, and
that wasn't going to happen in a hurry.

This is not a bad scenario, in fact its quite fun, though a little dull for the defenders at the beginning. Any damage done to the gliders is going to help the Brits, and they probably need to concentrate together as much as possible in the set-up or they will be defeated in detail. This is very hard to do, especially under the various restrictions the Brits are under for the first two turns, but it does help to roll low on some of those big shots! The question of whether to activate the other platoon is a tough one: certainly the Germans will almost certainly activate one of your platoons as they roll on towards their objective but its a tough decision for you to give the Germans back 6 Victory hexes for a measly two squad addition to your attack force. Like Victor, I too would probably not have activated them either considering the tactical position of the game at that time.

So thank-you, farewell and good luck Victor in your move to SoCal...we wish you bon voyage, and hope the dice gods take a change for the better for you in the Sunshine State! But wait, that makes me officially the worst die-roller in Houston????

Oh crap.

Nick

2008 Texas ASL Team Tournament(16th Annual!)

We're just three months out! Begin making those plans to attend, the pre-registrations are already coming in. We're lining up some great sponsors, from Bunker Hill Games to Osprey Publishing.

Texas ASL is proud to present:

The 16th Annual ASL Team Tournament
Austin, TX June 19-22, 2008

Thursday 9am - Sunday 8pm

The ASL Team Tournament returns to the La Quinta Round Rock located in north Austin.

2004 North I-35
Round Rock, TX 78681
Phone: (512)255-6666
Fax: (512)388-3635
AAA 3 Diamond Rating

4-Day Registration $36
3-Day (Fri-Sun) Registration $31
Saturday Only Registration $21
Room Rates (tax not incl): $62

Make sure to mention the "Central Texas ASL Club" to get the reduced room rate.

Texas' Largest and Longest running ASL Tournament brings you four full days of ASL nirvana kicking off with a Thursday start.

Thursday will be an open gaming day and will not count towards the tournament standings. As always, Thursday games count towards the coveted Major Johnson award. Games related to the official tournament standings start Friday morning at 9AM.

For those looking for a little different head-on-head action, The ASL Team Tournament is pleased to announce two mini-tournaments this year:

• Opening Assault : A One Day Thursday Mini-Tournament
  
• TEXAS HEAT : A One Day Saturday Mini-Tournament

Remember to Pre-Register -- Besides you never know what goodies you might find in your pre-registration packet. In the past there has been sneak preview scenarios, local CTASL scenarios in color on card stock, personal leader counters, and usually a handful of other goodies from our sponsors.

All these details and more can be found at our Texas ASL website - Just follow the tournament links found here http://www.texas-asl.com.

Rick

New Product Review: Kreta: Operation Merkur

Nick Drinkwater
Thought I'd try my hand at a brief product review for the newly released Kreta: Operation Merkur.

As some of you are aware, there has been a major stirring of angst on the Gamesquad Forums about this product, principally about the perceived thinness of the map and also a lack of very final, final, final editing on some of the text. I'll address those below. The short summary is that is another very strong output from the HOB boys again, which, though not their best, is certainly right up there in terms of overall quality and fairly high in terms of bang per buck. Personally I think the High Ground pack was their best to date, shading Onslaught to Orsha and the first two SS packs by a nose, but overall this is definitely a very good product. At $65, its not necessarily the absolute best value for money of all the recent splurge of ASL products we're received in the last three months, but it is still pretty good value all the same, and I don't think anyone will be disappointed if they add this to their collection.

So what do you get? The pack comes in a simple loose-leaf folder with a representation of Paratroopers falling out of Junkers 52 over Crete and a knocked out Matilda - direct and to the point. The inside of the loose leaf folder has a black and white representation of the map together with the disposition of the Anzac troops, and a simple table for tracking scenario CVP and CG victory point. All straightforward stuff.

The Map:
This is a map of fragile beauty and is a beautiful work of art - massive congratulations to all those involved in this. The map is large (56" x 40") and will need a big table to layout if you don't wish to cut yours up. However apart from scenario OM7, all the other six Operation Merkur scenarios all look like they will play out on sections of the map that are actually away from the main central fold, so the map could be folded (or sliced) to reduce the playable area needed. The hexes are a little on the small size but they will probably be OK as there won't be many super stacks developing in this. The scenarios set on the map (see below) focus on Maleme airfield and Tavronitis Bridge, Hill 107 or the small villages (Maleme and Pyrgos) dotted around the map. The map is dominated by four principal topographic features...Hill 107, rendered in the shades of brown we are all used to from standard boards, the airfield (a dirt field rendered in a tan shade),
the dried up Tavronitis river bed which is portrayed as sand-coloured hammada, (much like the stuff we are used to on Boards 25-31) and the northeast corner which is a mix of grain, vineyards, olive groves and villages split by a gully - there is even a small strip of beach in the very north (but no ocean). "Normal" level one ground away from all the hills is in the normal green colour we are used to from geomorphic boards - this is mainly covered by vineyards and olive groves and a few small Cretan hamlets of stone buildings. It is wonderful and I can't wait to play on it...under Plexiglass!

Yes, it is 'thin', but with all the hype from the online doom and gloom community, I was expecting something like finest tissue paper, and it is definitely thicker than that. Handled with care and it should be fine, though I could see concerns about colour permanency along the creases with repeated use (but then this is true of some of the older maps from MMP as well). I think personally that this issue is a bit of a storm in a teacup...with all the money we have invested in ASL over the years, getting this map laminated will not be too big a bugbear to carry, and I think it is a crying shame that this has deflected praise from an overall very good product. I see that from the Forum conversations, some of the principals of HOB have either decided to chuck in ASL for good (Klaus Fischer) or are pulling their hair out in frustration about these issues (Steve D), and there is a big part of me who think that it would be a massive loss to the hobby if they
did fold...please say it ain't so! If you want more on this debate, you can easily find it on the Forum archive and check it out yourself.

Terrain types:
Overall, a deft touch has been exercised here...just enough flavour to be juicy without being swamped in a sea of chrome. As remarked earlier, the Tavronitis river bed is treated as Hammada so you will need access to a simplified Chapter F ruleset for this, as you will also for many of the scenarios where light and moderate dust is in effect for the early turns. Due to the nature of the fighting, there are few scenarios with vehicles, so hammada immobilisation checks will be limited, though some seriously degraded British armour (matildas and mark VIs with lowered B numbers and red MP) are present, still suffering from a lack of spare parts after the "advance to the rear" from mainland Greece. In this map, the bridge is a two hex structure, and the hexes below the bridge are rally terrain to the Germans only. Irrigation ditches appear on the map, as do slopes, steeples and narrow streets (you'll need Pegasus Bridge rules at least, though some of this is
in ASLRBv2), and the Perimeter Fence at Maleme is treated as a barbed wire fence (KGP rules). During the brief stay in Crete, the RAF were busy and built aircraft revetments (walls) and gunpits (treated as small, 2-unit trenches) for their AA Guns and the runway will be difficult for all infantry to cross (runway rules). Vineyards have been printed directly onto the map, and their is also a Reedbed terrain type which acts as a lighter form of marsh. As this is Crete, olives play their part in this region and the Olive groves come in two flavours - normal (as per Chapter F rules) and olive groves lite, which are less difficult to move around and through.

The other thing that may come into play is the creation of Cretan flat roofs on single buildings in a single hex. This is interesting as this creates a separate location from the house itself and the opposition can move onto these exposed positions (+1 TEM) from an outside stairwell, even if the inside of the building is occupied by the enemy - though they face TPBF if they do so...ouch. At least one of the OM scenarios involves a fight for one of the villages so this may come into some use at some point.

Unit Variantism & Counters:
This has all been kept to a merciful absence. Your standard counters are all going to work fine in this pack. HOB have provided a small half-sheet of counters (all marked unobtrusively with HOB) which mainly consists of more gliders, Junkers 52 planes, some German leaders and unarmed German para counters together with some dm recoiless rifles etc...not quite HOB's best efforts (Fortress Cassino counters are fabulous) as the gloss on them is fairly heavy, but still very useable. There are also a few Brit leaders and some captured German guns. Overall though, in this whole module your Anzacs stay as standard Anzacs, your German paras stay as standard German paras and your Cretan irregulars are portrayed as partisans (but poorly armed and with few tricks apart from ability to declare H2H CC and No Straying bonus). If you do receive the Maori battalion in your OOB, you get some tough H2H -1 CC dudes who can kick some serious ass, but this is all very
straightforward and handled well. The Allies also get to salvage some crappy RAF weapons from the burnt out planes on the airfield which is a nice touch - these come as new counters. Note also that it is not only the Commonwealth who get punished with crap-ish weapons - the Germans get no elite bonus for their SW in this due to their entering by air assault, representing limited access to fresh ammo.

Airlanding:
For those who like Glider and Para assaults, this module is heaven for you. If you don't...well, there are still some options and several of the scenarios are set at post-airdrop phase, so they may be smoother for some of you. In the big monster scenario OM 7, "Too little, Too light", the Germans get to reinforce by Junkers 52 landing on the airfield...the rules for this are basically glider landing rules, but if the Junkers miss the airfield, they will be in trouble as the crash drms are nasty. These rules all look very straight forward to apply, being a variation of the already existing rule-set and should pose no problems. Note that in some of the scenarios and in the main additional rules, the Allies get the option to have more of their weapons in AA mode and for longer...this could hurt the attacking Germans somewhat, but it probably is mitigated by the dust modifiers that are usually in place for the first couple of turns in some of the scenarios.

Editing and Proofing:
A shame and a little frustrating, and for me this was more of a detraction from the whole product than the map thinness issue, but it is still not that bad. It would seem that the transfer of proofing files from Germany to the USA and back meant that the final product went out with some small but annoying typos due to configuration setup differences. As a result, parentheses (inverted commas) around certain words were transformed into weird zingbats symbols and occasional overprinting in the text blocks of the scenario cards in particular, which makes it a little harder to read. This seems to have applied throughout the layout process and so even Scenario Titles have this issue - so "Stentzler's Wary Reconnoitre" reads as "Stentzler~s Wary Reconnoiter", "Morning's Peril" reads as "Morning~s Peril" and the trusty British 3" AA Gun comes across as the 3$ AA Gun in the VC of OM-3, Hill 107.

Really frustrating for the guys at HOB and I can see why they are pulling hair out on these gremlins - it is this tiny miss in the final editing and the map thinness issue that has raised so much scorn and criticism online. Yes, it is very annoying, yes people will feel (rightly) aggrieved at something that could and should have been picked up, but I hope this does not cause the demise of HOB... I am sympathetic to some of the stronger criticism that has been raised on this issue as people are fronting up $65 for this product, but I hope patience and forbearance can rule the day. But note, HOB do need to get this right in the future. Teething troubles with paper stocks and intransigent printers is one thing (the map here, the back to front counters in RbF4)- a final edit of the printed product using US-based software is quite another and could have been caught.

Scenarios:
Similar to Onslaught to Orsha, the pack is divided into two parts - seven scenarios that are set exclusively on the new map, (identified by the OM terminology), and ten more that are played on geomorphic mapboards, labelled AoC (Assault on Crete) scenarios. This is very cool value for me and I think this contributes a lot of value to this pack. None of these scenarios are micro (smallest is 5.5 turns), a few are on the small size, several are on the medium tournament size (6-7 turns), and there are a couple of real biggies, including the pack monster OM-7 at 13 turns. As noted earlier, some, but not all, involve glider, airlanding and paratroop drops and due to the inherent uncertainty of these and the ability to shoot and kill the Germans before they even get started, some people understandably will shy away from these. Like the glider attack in Pegasus Bridge however, if the worse does happen and the Anzacs get lucky and shoot down a third of the
attacking force, then maybe just pull the counters and start again! Personally, I love all the esoterica of ASL so the more the merrier! Night scenarios are limited to one-quarter of OM-7 only and there is not much other oddness going on here, apart from limited SSRs adding flavour, not Chrome. Note also that if big combined arms assaults using King Tigers is what floats your boat, then this too is probably not for you either as only 5 of the scenarios feature vehicles (mainly bad British, tanks, carriers and one motorbike scenario...low level elite infantry fighting for their lives is what this pack is all about and I am really looking forward to trying these scenarios out.

OM-1: Morning's Peril.
Daylight glider assault with early dust.
This is a recreation of the old Annual 89 scenario "Bofors Bashing", but played on the historical map and set on the NW corner of the airfield. 13 glider's worth of paras need to capture all 3 AA Guns in 6.5 turns, with 4.5 squads of Kiwis in defense. A no-move on Turn 1 SSR means that the defense starts confused. Looks small and bloody!

OM-2: Glide Path to Hell.
Daylight glider assault with early dust.
Another reincarnation from the 89 Annual, this time its the old "Descent into Hell", where as well as destroying the AA Guns, the Paras need to capture Tavronitis Bridge, again in 6.5 turns. Set in both the river bed and the airfield, as well as achieving the VC of OM-1, they now also need to control the bridge and approaches. The paras receive another 9 gliders for the bridge assault while the Brits get boosted by 6 more squads. Again, lots of grenade and knife action.

OM-3: Hill 107
Daylight glider assault with early dust.
Eight para glider squads with tough leaders and good SW (including a dm RCL) need to take the level three heights of Hill 107, the number of hexes they need to take being reduced for each AA Gun they knock out. Nine squads of entrenched Kiwis and Royal Marines plus two big AA guns stand in their way. Seven and a half turns to do this, though the glider landings here look quite rough.

OM-4: The Umbrella Men.
Daylight parachute assault with early dust.
Eighteen para half-squads look like they are going to have a very tough landing on the olive groves, vineyards and stone hovels of Maleme and Pyrgos - to win in 8.5 turns, they need to control the majority of the buildings and eliminate the lone Bofors gun. The Kiwis are weak in this one (second line), but they have help from Cretan partisans and four (yep, count em, 4) MMGs and a captured Pak 37. If the paras don't get too knocked up in the air drop, they should have the quality to see this one through.

OM-5: Stentzler's Wary Reconnoitre.
Ground assault only.
Eight turns for a very strong force of paras (17 squads) to take a chunk of Hill 107 real estate from 17 Kiwi squads with light SW help. Movement restrictions on some of the Kiwi platoons give the Germans the early freedom of movement they will need to fulfil this one. Straight-up infantry fight with little complications.

OM-6: Waltzing the Matildas.
Combined arms ground assault only.
The clue's in the title I guess. Six and a alf turns for two Matildas with moderate infantry support to either go for a CVP win or take the bridge back from 8 para squads with mortar and AT Gun help. The tanks are critical here as the runways will be hard to cross. Their is a 22 CVP cap on the commonwealth (though the tanks don't count).

OM-7: Too Little, Too Light.
Combined arms ground assault, with OBA, air support and a brief night rules section.
The monster in the pack. Thirteen turns in total, the first four using night rules, where the advantage is with the Kiwis. They receive Maoris and some real bad tin can tanks (Mk VIs) in Turn 5, but the Germans can use the Bofors guns with no penalties. The Kiwis have to clear a batch of Level 3 hexes from Hill 107, and capture at least 3 Gun pits, and a batch of building hexes. The Kiwis start strongly with ~33 squads in the first two turns against 16.5 para squads, but the paras get to reinforce 9 more squads direct to the action through Ju 52 airlandings in the later turns. This has it all and looks like a must play...a swirling chaotic melee that is not for the feint-hearted!

AoC1: Rushing Hill A
Ground assault with air support against entrenched infantry with late arriving armour.
The first of the non-historical map scenarios, this has 15 very well supported paras trying to capture the heights of the Board 39 hill, with help from a RCL and the 105 mm MTR - tasty! This time its the Aussies in the fight and these guys are extremely tough and they get some 100 mm ART guns and good MG and Matilda support. Set on half boards 39, 38, 17 and 6. To make it even more interesting, some scattered survivors of earlier decimated airdrops are scattered amongst the Aussie positions on Hill 39. Seven turns. Another one of the more interesting scenarios in the group with some interesting setup questions.

AoC2: The Venetian Fort.
Ground assault in urban terrain.
Dual entry on to half boards 21 and 23, the six British squads and fifteen green Greek squads need to evict 11 para squads from a medieval castle with very thick, high battlements. The quirk in this one is the SSR representing height advantage and CC across the venerable castle walls. Seven turns and bloody looking, especially with a bunch of Greeks bent on revenge.

AoC3: The Olive Oil Factory
Ground assault in rural terrain.
One of the shorter scenarios in the pack at six turns. A mixed group of Aussies and Greeks need to evict a bunch of mixed quality and walking wounded paras, suffering from ammo shortage in a factory on Board 49 - half boards on 44 and 49 are in play. One of the simpler scenarios in the pack.

AoC4: Town and Country
Ground assault in rural terrain on Deluxe Boards.
The sole deluxe scenario in the pack set on Boards d, h and f. The Brits need to get 14 VP onto Board f by the game end (Turn 5.5) offset by the number of surviving para units. No H2H CC is allowed by SSR and this is really a very straightforward all-infantry assault, with two carriers to assist.

AoC5: At the Apex
Dash for victory ground assault - straight up infantry.
A desperate escape from encirclement back to a friendly perimeter held by the Black Watch is what the Australians need to achieve here and they need only 8VP back in safety to win over 5.5 turns. In their way is a motley group of 11 para squads, but the Australian's friends in the Black Watch have limited movement options at the beginning, so its not completely straightforward. Has the feel of a Schwerpunckt scenario in that the tactical challenge is going to be interesting to resolve here. Set on boards 46, 4, 44 and 12 and Cretan rooftops and light olive groves are in effect.

AoC6: 42nd Street
Infantry ground assault with a ton of hand-to-hand melees!
Wild swirling H2H CC melees inspired by the Maoris, amongst the olive groves surrounding the dusty road of "42nd street" is the name of the game here. Sixteen para squads face off against 27 Kiwi squads and the Kiwis need to inflict 20 CVP at game end (modified by the number of surviving para squads on boards 35 and 38) - you can just see these guys lining up to do the Rugby Haka war dance before they kick this one off! Carnage across boards 43, 35 and 38 in 5.5 turns - looks awesome!

AoC7: Their first and last.
Infantry ground assault.
Probably the smallest scenario in the pack, 8 welsh squads need to have suffered less than 14 CVP versus 10 para squads with SW support. A fairly straightforward scenario with few real surprises in this one. Seven turns long, set on boards 44 and my favourite, the drumlin board, 18!

AoC8: The Game's up Aussies.
Combined arms assault versus a tricky fighting withdrawal
This looks like a fun version of ASL 1 "Fighting withdrawal" with a twist, as the Australians conduct a last-stand defense with a small group of the rearguard, while some of the rest of the force try and hold on to key Board 38 buildings for as long as possible. At the same time they also have to try to get some of their force off the south edge for extra CVP. This one looks like a good tactical challenge with many choices on both sides on what to commit, where to commit it and when it gets a' movin'. The Aussies probably have the harder task here as they will need to be played with finesse to get their withdrawals just right. The Germans however get the fun toys - kettenfreds, motorcycles, light tanks and trucks. This could be my favourite in the pack due to the tough questions being asked and the fun toys involved. Oh yes...the Aussies get fun Italian guns to play with too! Eight turns on Boards 15, 50 and 38.

AoC9: Unsung Heroes
Infantry Ground Assault.
Straightforward infantry attack by sixteen para squads (including engineers) versus sixteen very lightly armed Greek 1st line squads. The Germans win by controlling all buildings on Board 17 and most on Board 43 and this is all very normal, apart from the fact that these are some desperate Greeks. VERY desperate Greeks as they can all declare Dare-Death status! Love it! Ten turns for the paras to cross Boards 44, 17 and most of 43.

AoC10: Glide Path to Invasion
Daylight Glider Assault.
Set on Board 30 with the escarpment overlay in play - groan, I hear you all say, but give this one a chance. The Gliders, with eight squads need to land on top of the escarpment and destroy three big nasty AA Guns, but the desperate gun crews receive infantry and carrier support in Turn 2. Interesting pin rules on the defenders govern the initial landing of the gliders - if a gun goes unpinned, it has a chance to shoot down one of the offending gliders - special SSR govern this process and this could leave a nasty hole in the attackers. This actually looks like a quite fun scenario and I like the Escarpment overlay and desert terrain. Set on Board 30, seven turns long, but clearly dominated by the escarpment. Carriers are fun too!

Campaign Game:
This is very different from your usual CG, being more similar to the linked theme Market Garden scenario set of the 91 Annual. No perimeters, RG teams, battle-hardening or anything like it. Instead, the CG consists of six OM scenarios played in order (OM2-7: OM1 is not played as that is already incorporated into OM2). Each scenario card has certain VP awarded to it and these are marked next to the title - the winner gets full VP, the loser gets half. In addition, an extra point can be won or lost depending upon the CVP inflicted in the scenario, according to the chart on the scenario pack inside cover. And that's it!!! All very simple, and perhaps not what everyone was expecting, but the designers explain this as being a result of the Allied lack of reinforcements. Basically, everyone was in place already when the air assault began and there was little opportunity to get reinforcements in during the time-frame of the battle.

For me, that works pretty well. I just rarely struggle to get time to play a full CG these days, but I can easily see me being able to play these six scenarios in order against someone over a few months. Again, this may not be for those who really want a RB style CG, but it is different and I applaud the designers for trying this.

Overall Summary:

B++ for me...if the final editing had been that little bit more tidy, would have definitely moved up into my A- or A category. Still, a really good, infantry-dominated slug-fest between the elites of the nations involved, set on a beautiful, outstanding map. What's not to like?

AAR: FrF14 Patton Breaks Loose

Zeb Doyle

Americans: Matt Schwoebel
Italians: Zeb Doyle

President's Day: a time to reflect on the past leaders of our country, but more importantly, extra free time to waste on ASL! I was one of the fortunate few to get the day off, and bee-lined it over to Matt Schwoebel's house. We bantered a bit over who exactly was our best leader, and although Matt finally managed to persuade me that Martin Van Buren probably was a heroic 10-3, I still think giving him commissar abilities goes too far. We then got down to business and settled in for a game of FrF14 Patton Breaks Loose. This is a typically excellent scenario from the Friendly Fire guys with simple SSRs but lots of tough choices for both sides and it ended up being a lot of fun to play.

The date is 1943, the place is Sicily, and a company of unenthusiastic Italian infantry, ART pieces, and tin-can tanks are hunkered down on board 46 just trying to stay out of the way until the war is over. Unfortunately for them, a bunch of noisy American tourists have just shown up to ruin the peaceful quiet of the countryside. The Americans get twelve squads using the heights of board 9 as a springboard for the attack, while an assorted mix of MG-armed jeeps, half-squads, MTRs, towed AT guns, and a HT enter on board 46 just to add to the fun. They have 5.5 turns to clear a road across board 46 of all unbroken Italian MMC on or adjacent to it. That's the simple part of the scenario.

The complicated part is that the Italians can't just hunker down in the village end of board 46. Although the infantry can freely set up anywhere, the two 75mm ART pieces are forced to set up on the rural half of the board, which also happens to be the end on which the American jeep force enters. One might be tempted to write off the two guns, but the jeep force is tantalizingly small, with only four crews and two half-squads. So, positioning a few Italian squads to support the ART pieces could turn them from speed-bumps to game-winning road blockers. Of course, the American player can always divert a few squads of his own from board 9 to counter this, and thus the aforementioned tough decisions and the fun begin!

In fact, it was a tough decision for Matt just to pick a side to play. Both forces are predominately 6ML, which led to much hemming and hawing on his part. Eventually the logic of "the American 3-4-6 HS is better than the Italian 3-4-6 full squad" was too compelling to resist, and Matt stuck me with the defense. It was a bit of a challenge to decide what to do, and I ended up deciding to risk only two squads on the rural half of board 46 with the guns. They got a 45mm MTR and an LMG to provide a modicum of long-range firepower, but the majority of my troops, including all three leaders, the HMG, and the MMG hunkered down in the village to await the American onslaught. Either force could in theory be in position to cut the road at game end, but my money was on the village force accomplishing the goal.

Based on the American attack, Matt seemed to be of the same opinion and he sent almost all of the board 9 infantry company aggressively towards the village. My HMG was able to cause some damage on an unlucky 6-6-6 via a boxcarred MC, but otherwise the Americans were able to move forward in good order. Meanwhile, on the rural half of board 46, the jeep force entered and discovered an ART piece commanding the road from a level two hill hex. Matt was aggressive here as well, giving me a 1-2 shot from a long range LMG shot on a 7-0 and two squads coming off of board 9 to reinforce the jeeps, but no damage was done. At this point, we effectively had two separate battles: the rural half of board 46 pitted my two guns and two squads against MG armed jeeps, AT guns, two 3-4-7s, a 75mm gun HT, and two 6-6-6s, while in the village roughly ten squads on each side did battle.

The early game was a bit of a pillow fight for both sides, with lots of ineffective attacks and high rolls. That was great for me in the rural battle, where multiple 12+2 shots by Matt did nothing against my gun and really slowed the jeep force down, but terrible on the other half of the map, as hordes of 6ML Americans passed NMCs and 1MCs en route to the village. I finally managed to bloody them a bit with a turn three 6+1 snake-eyes shot against a 9-1, HMG, MMG, 2x 6-6-6, but by that point their lead elements were already starting to engage my troops in CC. Here, Matt took the kid gloves off and engaged in some revenge for the death of his kill stack. The first three CCs featured CX American half-squads against my 3-4-6s, and in every case Matt got an ambush and immediate kill.

That really hurt as I'd expected those CCs to act as speed bumps for at least a turn and that put Matt in very good position in the village. My HMG ended up trapped in a steeple and had to fire a do or die 12+1 at an adjacent 6-6-6, but ended up doing nothing. That really turned things into a mini-disaster; I lost a squad for FTR, had to self-break my 9-1, and was very lucky to get him back in the next RPh by rolling a 4 on a self-rally. He ended up manning the HMG by himself, which slowed Matt's onslaught a bit, but things were looking ugly. Meanwhile, over on the rural half of the board, the pillow fight continued. I had numerous shots at jeeps, needing 5s and 6s to hit, but only ended up Xing out one of my ART pieces. My other ART piece was unmanned because I'd skulked the crew, twice rolled a six trying to recover it, and then got pinned adjacent while trying to skulk again...the only good thing was that Matt's return fire was equally ineffective and by turn four I'd only lost one of my two squads in the area.

That brought us to turn five, and as my feeble resistance in the village crumbled, it became apparent that the rural battle would likely decide the game. With the clock running down, Matt decided to step up the pressure there in a big way. Since my ART crew was standing near their gun but not actually manning it, he drove his 75mm gun HT up next to to my last 3-4-6. Here, my dice heated up and I flamed the vehicle with a lucky LMG TK shot, although the resulting smoke gave his two squads some nice cover as they came over to join the party. His AFPh didn't do much, and we went into my turn five with my 2-2-7 and 3-4-6 staring down Matt's two 6-6-6s and a 2-2-7 of his own.

This was my final MPh, and after much pondering on to get everyone adjacent to the road, I decided to try and recover the ART piece one last time. The gun crew moved on to the gun, weathering a 6+3 in the process, and on the third try finally found it. In the AFPh, I got some more hot dice, and the crew cranked out a snake eyes CH to splatter one of Matt's precious squads before once again dropping the gun and advancing back adjacent to the road. Meanwhile, my last 3-4-6 advanced into a stone building that was adjacent to both the road, and the remaining 6-6-6. It was now the American turn six, and my lucky snake eyes had put Matt in a tough position as he had only two remaining units to deal with my two units, both of which were now adjacent to the road. He fired a 12+3 at my squad in the stone building with his adjacent 6-6-6, but as with every other 12FP shot in the entire game, he rolled high for no effect. In my DFPh, my squad returned the favor with an 8+0, and the resulting 1MC broke Matt's unit and ended any hope he had of victory.

It was a really fun game with lots of action for both sides. I obviously was the beneficiary of several good rolls, namely the snake eyes on Matt's kill stack and especially the CH at the end, and that played a large part in the final outcome. That final CH was especially fortuitous when one considers the sheer number of 12+2 shots that the crew survived over the course of the game. However, I do think Matt could have utilized his resources slightly better, especially the jeeps and antitank guns. Those units spent most of the game driving across to the rural part of board 46 avoiding my ART pieces, and never really ended up doing anything. That probably wasn't such a huge loss with the 37LL AT guns, but the MMG and the .50 cal on the Jeeps could have come in in very handy. As it was, by the time they were unloaded and assembled, it was already turn five or six and they just didn't have the time to accomplish anything. I mention this only because Matt played such an great game elsewhere and the finish was so close that the machine guns could well have been the difference.

At any rate, it was another fun evening of ASL and another excellent scenario from Friendly Fire. The design philosophy of medium-size scenarios and simple SSRs and VC that somehow combine to make intricate and tactically puzzling situations is truly fantastic. Finally, many thanks to Matt for his hospitality, although I still have to express some doubt about his ardent protestations that Calvin Coolidge was the proud owner of a mechanical bull. Thanks as well to you for reading!

Zeb

Tournament AAR Scenario 1: MP11 Vulcan's Forge

Nick Drinkwater

German: Rick Reinesch [ELR 4, SAN 3]
Russian: Nick Drinkwater [ELR 4, SAN 3]

Intro:
So its Owlcon Precon at my house, and in the fine tradition of the event, we settle down to synchronous playings of the nominated scenario for Ferocity Fest, "Vulcan's Forge" from one of the Melee Packs. This was an excellent scenario to choose Ferocity Fest for the potential for carnage and bitter close combat and its chess-like setup conditions and nicely, was playable in 5-6 hours. My opponent in this was Rick Reinesch from Austin who runs and organises the excellent June Austin Tournament - massive fun to play and Rick plays at a nice quick clip which meant we were going to be comfortably placed to get through the game in a good length of time. Looking forward to playing Rick again, hopefully in the summer.

Setting:
The scenario is set on the southern most part of the RB play area and is really two games in one. To win (and we used the German balance in all cases), the Russians must control seven more stone locations (including cellars) than they began with. The big gulley splits the board into two parts, with the Russian right flank being dominated by one of the RB factories, while the Russian left is dominated by a series of 2-3 hex multi-level buildings in a kind of worker's housing estate, so one of these alone is worth 6 Stone Locations.

Scenario Considerations:
Setup is interesting - the two sides swap placing a counter each time and all counters are revealed to your opponent, after three designated H2H melees are created in the front line of the German setup area. There are about another 15 counters to place including about 8-10 more squads, support weapons, leaders, and for the Germans some concealment. The question each player has to face here is how much strength to give each side and how then to react to any thrusts they can detect being made by their opponent. This is quite a challenge, but a couple of things should be borne in mind - if the German gives up the factory after a token resistance, then they are handing over 8 stone location - this means they need to get back only a couple of locations in "Workerville", as it will be hard for the Russians to transfer any units from the factory to the housing estates in time to make a difference. Note also that the Russians will be fanatic in the factories and for Turn one only, they will be facing the Germans at their weakest when they are missing their nastiest support weapons and have only access to 2nd line troops. If the Russians can spot an opportunity to bum-rush and eject the Germans in Turn 1, they should - the phased reinforcement schedule means than within a turn, the Germans can get Sturms and Engineers up and in to the factory quickly and this means the factory could become much harder for the Russian to occupy, especially if the Germans get the Breach-Flame "Blowtorch" combos going.

Reinforcements to the Rescue:
The other thing both sides need to think about is how long it will take reinforcements to get into the action - you will need bodies before toys, so get the footsloggers on first in the schedule, especially for the Russians as they have further to go to have an impact. Also note that Platoon Movement means it just takes time to get anywhere on the RB board. The sequential arrival of the reinforcements for four turns is a nice touch as both sides get some nice flexibility and can feed help in just where needed to assist with any desperate situations. Finally, it is possible to get creative with your placement of the AT Guns - the Pak 40 in the factory is difficult for the Russians and could just tip the balance in any Turn 1 Russian rush. Notice however, the Russians also have options to have fun with their gun - it is a nasty beast against both the German armour and their infantry.

The problem of the Factory:
Zeb has already commented on a perceived slight advantage to the Russians and I agree with him, even with the German balance in play - if the initial H2H's go well for them, they are even better placed and they have a great opportunity if they go for broke in the factories in Turn 1 - as long as they have a squad or two at the far factory wall they can really dominate the approach paths of the German engineers in the Debris and Shellhole field and the Germans will really struggle to get the factory back. Unfortunately my RB experience was a bit limited and I missed seeing the tactical advantage of a fast hard push with fanatic 8 morale troops, so I settled down for a safety first policy. This meant that Rick and I ended up in a "chicken" stalemate as he was able to get his engineers up quickly with their potent weapons. Any kind of move by either of us into no-mans land of the centre factory would have meant exposing your unit to withering 20, 24 and 30 FP shots at +1 (or worse with FTs) so a bizarre paralysis took over until Turn 6 with everyone too scared to move.

Workerville:
On the housing estate side, I had a dream start as Rick was a little bit light with troops over there and I eventually won the two at-start melees. In Turn 2, I had managed to break everyone I could see and pushed hard to gobble up more buildings and try to enforce a FTR on the one key squad, LMG and leader that were in the middle of my push. I thought I had these guys bang to rights and was getting ready to take them off the board, but Rick was more awake than me and routed them upstairs - I forgot about multi-storey buildings! Of course, these guys rally with a "4" next turn and thus its my turn to go reeling back in the face of just-in-time tough engineer reinforcements and I was forced straight out of two of the three buildings I had just claimed. Aaargh - SO close!

After that, we jockeyed for position in the houses - I pulled off a beauty to reveal my AT Gun, which on its fourth attempt, found a shell to kill Rick's big assault gun (Intensive Fire to boot), but then failed to hit a single German for the rest of the game even though it was two hexes away from buildings stuffed with them. My armour also failed to do a lot with multiple one-hex adjacent misses. Ugly. Rick also had his share of crap dice as his AT Gun failed to nail my KV1 and did little else.

The End:
At the start of German Turn 7, I held 10 new stone locations, but was resigned to losing one in the factory as Rick was able to get his engineers moving there. I should have been a couple more locations to the good, but I had critically pinned with one squad in my Game Turn 7 so I was unable to advance, and likewise a berserk result for me meant yet another non-advance to miss out on another hex. An engineer blowtorch in the factory netted him another two hexes (I thought he was only placed to get one more and didn't realise his stack contained two units), so I was now down to the minimum-required seven new stone locations. Rick then pulled off some star moves in his turn - his gun crew almost got through but I got a very last chance break on them as they were in the final stages of dashing through.

He then pushed as hard as possible to get other units through my thin lines, but an intensive fire shot with a snakes from my T70 removed the last of his 'thrusters', and so it all came down to a close assault on the one new building I still retained. With desperate fire, I manged to pin and nail a batch of attackers in the street and I was looking good in there as I still had two concealed engineers shrouded in a German smoke who had shrugged off everything to date. Rick then pulled out a Bomb-squad and crucially my two guys both lost concealment on a PTC from the subdued boom. Finally, he then dived in with some engineers of his own for the game deciding CC - if I killed them or avoided complete death myself, then the game was mine as I was going to hold onto that critical last location....

So, off we go...

First off, no ambush!

Then, I roll a .... 10....! Rick rolls a....4!!

Post-Game thoughts:
German win, just, on the last die roll of the game. Can't ask more than that and it was a monster emotional rollercoaster of a match and we had a blast. Look forward to playing Rick again. We both knew that neither of us were in the running for Ferocity Fest (half the game had been more timidity-fest), but that was the least of our concerns - it was just a great game fought to an unbelievably intense conclusion. Well played Rick!

The critical moment in this one was the escape from death and subsequent Must, Must, Must Rally of the German 447, LMG and 8-1 in the Housing estate: in half a turn, a really promising situation for me had been turned around completely and I had lost a squad for FTR and the Germans were one street ahead of where I wanted them to be. That hurt and I was never able to regain the initiative on that side at all. Rick also played the factory better than I did - he stepped out with his engineers a little bit sooner than I felt comfortable in doing and it probably resulted in one extra location for him and that made all the difference.

Though I lost, I still think that even with the balance, this is still every so slightly Pro-Russian overall. The initial Germans could probably do with a little bit more of a boost - perhaps a couple of 548s instead of all 447s, but much replay value all the same. Thanks guys for setting this one up and putting the time into it to make Ferocity Fest competitive.

0-1 for Owlcon on the last die-roll of the game! Awesome.

Tournament AAR Scenario 2: SP147 The Zebra Mission

Nick Drinkwater

German: Eric Gerstenberg [ELR 2, SAN 4]
American: Nick Drinkwater [ELR 4, SAN 3]

Introduction:
After the initial marathon game session in Vulcan's Forge, I was actually quite happy to take a couple of hours off on the first evening, put my feet up, and watch some games. However, Rob needed to bail out at the 11th hour and so I replaced him as the Americans in a very fast game of "The Zebra Mission" from Schwerpunkt 13 against Eric Gerstenberg. This is one of those classic end war scenarios where a fast US armoured combined arms force has to take the village from your average bunch of late war Germans. In this case, this means nine US elite and 1st line squads ejecting two 548, four 447s and three 436s from an enclosed road net of buildings on SK Board Z. To offer the Americans a bit of latitude, half of board 49 has been glued to one side of the main action area to allow some armoured envelopment options.

Pre-Game Thoughts:
The twist in this one is that the Germans receive a Nashorn and a Wirbelwind as fire support for their beleaguered defenders, who must know they are going to receive a pasting of the whitish, phosphourousy kind from the US bazookas and Shermans. Bizarrely, the Pershing is probably the least effective weapon on the board - yes, it can instantly kill anything it hits, but then so will both Shermans and they come stocked to the gills with smoke and other fun stuff, so they are actually the more valuable assets in this one. The one other key unit the US get is a 9-2 - he will be useful to unlock any end-game defense in the big 5 hex stone building at the back of the road-net. Like all SP scenarios, the US needs to move fast but the 9-2 will help keep the pace up a lot.

Flanking Fun:
Eric set up a very concentrated defense essentially with everything already tucked back within the victory defining road net apart from two suspiciously isolated three-deep "?" stacks in woods just east of the village. With no HIP capability for the Germans, I can now proceed unimpeded through all the forward outskirts of the village with impunity by eight of the nine foot squads, but I also send a squad as a rider and the M3 MMG HT on a deep flanking manoeuvre to the back of Board 49 to envelop the defenders. These guys quickly disembark, and after shooting an outlying dummy stack, the crew goes through the laborious procedure of abandoning and scrounging the .50 cal.

Meanwhile, with the freedom of movement I can now exploit from Eric's die-in-place defense, I quickly shove some squads into the face of the now Phosphorous-shrouded defence. I almost get lucky and come close to bagging the Nashorn with a 8-1 led bazooka shot but miss on a 10, and the lucky crew realise its their lucky day and go off any buy lucky lottery tickets at the back of the village and keep out of the way and hide - open topped vehicles are no place to be when 6 FP US troops are running rampant.

Keeping the Momentum going:
In the village, pressure begins to tell and the prisoners start to mount up - 436s are just no challenge in CC vs 666s. I continue to push on and keep the pressure on despite some fairly bad dice rolls for a spell on my part and some hot rolling by Eric. His vehicles pass several MC and PTCs without blinking and then in the moment of the game, one of Eric's 447s marked with a First Fire, decides to fire a Shrek at my 9-2. He pulls out the only single roll he can which can both hurt me and not hurt him with the back blast (a 7 with a coloured 5). He then rolls a K/3 on the effect which of course kills my 9-2 on the wound check and CRs, ELRs and breaks the squad with him on two failed MC! To add salt to that wound, his next attack is to spin his Nashorn 3 hexes and fires an intensive fire AP shot at an adjacent 666 which I had patiently sweated into position to toast the Nashorn, and they of course break on the lowly 2FP attack.

Despite these setbacks, I am ultimately well placed to wrap this one up. After burning the Wirbelwind with the Pershing (a case if ever there was of using a hammer to crush a nut) I do the dance of death on the Nashorn with the three tanks. This blocks off all the rout paths for Eric's infantry from the back of the road-net, and despite one squad escaping hand grenades, knives and rifle butts when I roll a useful 12 in CC for Eric, the end cannot be denied and the last couple of squads go down heavily outnumbered in a flurry of CC.

Post-game thoughts:
I think Eric hurt himself with his setup as he instantly ceded all initiative to me and left me free to manoeuvre wherever and whenever I chose, especially once I had worked out quickly with my first shot of the game that his two outlying stacks were just dummies, and that everything was rooted to the village net. As a result of being on the back foot, Eric failed to get any real effective shots off with either the Wirbelwind or the Nashorn and they ran out of boltholes to sneak back into. This one definitely needs some form of speed-bump to impede the Americans as they are just too smokey, speedy and shooty to be be held back for long. Fun to catch up with Eric at last and like all my opponents this weekend, someone that I would play again in an instant. 1-1 for the weekend.

Tournament AAR Scenario 3: RPT1 Ferenc Josef Barracks

Nick Drinkwater

Hungarian: Ken Havlinek [ELR 3, SAN 4]
Romanian: Nick Drinkwater [ELR 3, SAN 3]

Pre-Game Thought:
I was going to live up to Ken's prediction and have a big bitch and moan about this scenario, but scared of coming across as a poor loser, I will instead carry out a pensive, insightful but short review instead.


Very hard to win as the Romanians.


I would have initially have said "Impossible to win as the Romanians" but I realised afterwards that we missed out on playing the increased rear Morale for both sides, which would have helped the attackers a little more, and there is of course, always the chance that the Hungarian 3ROF machine gun would fail, the Romanian Flamethrower would not "X" out and would in fact remove KIA 5 squads (one per game turn) and that the Romanian sniper may nail the chief Hungarian honcho through the head. Still, just a simple analysis of time and distance needed to be covered by the Romanians show that they would probably need to be completely un-threatened in their approach, would have to execute a close to flawless in their attack on the buidling, pass all their MCs and find a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow to get a result here.

VC and setup Analysis:
The Romanians come on from the SE half-board edge on one-half of Board 51 - they have to cross diagonally across the board through rowhouses and wide long city streets to get to the three-level victory building in the central NW area. Note that even if unopposed in their onboard entry and approach, that will take the Romanians a minimum of two turns just to CX and normal move and to be in a position to assault the house from the neighbouring rowhouses. Assuming the Huns are naive enough to let them walk openly up the street like that, they then have three turns to evict all good order Hungarian MMC from a six-hex building where the Huns can both stay concealed and conduct a "fill-the-two-stairwells-with-bodies" defense. Note also that in their approach to such an attack, the Romanian units may be facing some 20FP (-1) attacks from the Huns from a squad, HMG and leader combo. And lets also add that 95% of the Romanians are 3 FP troops and they will be attacking against 7 morale troops in a stone building defense? Note also that the increased rear morale (which we missed) also helps the Hungarians on their defense and rallies too. Ummm, am I missing something here?

The trouble with Stairwells:
Ken (and Brian I think too) had already worked out that by deploying like crazy everything that he could, a smart Hungarian player could then pack the VC building with so many bodies that he actually virtually wouldn't have to fight at all - ally this trick to a ~2-3 squad speed-bump platoon in the Romanian entry area and there seems to be no way that the Romanian can do it. Instead of this, Ken, being a gentlemen, opted to play a more normal gentleman's defense, where he kept his heavy weapons at the back in the VC building ready to do some end-game death-dealing, but put a ring of concealed units (some dummies and 3-4 real squads) upfront to interdict the Romanian entry area and the first paved road they have to cross as soon as they walk on. I did all I could to try and shield myself from damage with a half-squad blitz but 4, 2 and 1 Residual Fire on paved roads is lethal whatever you do and I had to accept a bit of a safety-first policy.

The end:
After that first round of nasty fire and several broken units, Ken conducted a skillful retreat backwards - even where I did detect a chink in his defense and was able to push my leader and MG combo hard, I ran up against another layer of concealed defenders lining the road in front of the Victory Building. This again meant more caution, not helped by the presence of the Hungarian HMG dominating all who came close to the final building. Ken cleverly conducted the required stairwell body defense and I was left stuck at the beginning of my last turn Prep Fire with a single squad in one bottom location of the VC building, wistfully hoping for a KIA from my FT to clear a stairwell and free access to the rest of the building and then win about three CCs whilst CX vs concealed troops. As you can imagine, that didn't happen.

Post-game thought:
The appeal of this scenario is its length. At 4.5 turns with 8-12 squads per side, it looks very manageable in 2-3 hours, which was indeed the case for us as we played this one as filler when none of the ASLSK people showed up. As listed though, the general consensus around the room was that this was flawed at best, broken at worst and thats a surprise as this is out of the Schwerpunkt stable and they are normally very reliable. The strairwell-body defense is an absolute bugger to beat with limited time and, as related, even if my Romanians had been completely unmolested in their approach to the building, even three turns of assaulting concealed troops in a multi-hex, multi-level building would have been pretty tough to get through...there really was no way I was going to do it in less than two. At time of writing, ROAR has this has 18-6 for the Hungarians - I'd love to hear from those six Romanian winners and how they pulled this one off!! Did we miss something completely here? And if anyone's wondering, we didn't have access to ROAR when we selected it.

The recommended balance for this was to add a HMG to the Romanians, but a clunking great 5PP weapon is the last thing they need in this scenario with the big time issues they face. What they really need is either an extra FT, an extra turn or even for the VC building to be reduced to a single-storey building with inherent stairwells in every hex. That way they would have a much better chance.

Anyway, well done Ken for both being and playing the gentlemen and trying to give me a real chance...you played the fallback defense really well and snuffed out any remote hope of a Romanian win and quite rightly so! So now I'm back to 1-2 for the tourney and just playing for the fun of it!

Tournament AAR Scenario 4: ITR1 Debacle at Sung Kiang

Nick Drinkwater

Chinese: Bill Dorre [ELR 3, SAN 3]
Japanese: Nick Drinkwater [ELR 4, SAN 3]

Pre-Game Thoughts:
Game four was my other big monster scenario for the weekend. I was itching to play some Japanese vs Chinese mayhem but had been warned off some of the other classics (The Grand Canal, Shanghai in Flames, The Drive for ChertzyHungyThingy) by more knowledgable folks than myself, due to some perceived balance issues. Then I remembered this one out of the brand new pack, "Into the Rubble", from the recently resuscitated Bounding Fire Productions. This is actually one of the smaller scenarios in this pack with about 17 or so squads on each side and six and a half mayhem-, bloodsoaked-, action-filled turns. The scenario is designed by Scott Holst, who despite the many, um, interesting aspects to his online persona, is a bloody good scenario designer. I think this could be another one of his great scenarios just due to the fun and mayhem factors alone. Bill Dorre, another man who's a bloody good laugh to play, was looking for some fun and graciously agreed to play me in this new beast!

Scenario Considerations:
Its 1937, so prisoners are still being accepted, and its non-PTO terrain for once, this one being set on the transitional board 49 and one of the beautiful new railway-heavy boards produced by BFP for this pack. The Japanese are on the attack in this one and they have to extract 11 multi-hex buildings from the clutches of their Chinese opponents. Many of these buildings are wooden sheds (actually factories using the new rules), but all the transitional board 49 buildings and several on the new board are stone and multi-level. The Chinese can fortify 4 locations in this, and any of them can declare H2H CC at will, though they still get Dare-death capabilities as normal. Finally, the many railroads on the new board are EmRR, and so act like hillocks (broad walls). Finally, finally Storage tanks and Water Towers are both in play on the new board, rules familiar from RB and elesewhere.

Chinese defense options:
Keeping the Japanese out are a very thorny force of sixteen Elite and 1st line Chinese, with good leadership, two 70mm ART guns, and wonder of wonders, two armoured cars: words you don't hear in ASL very often: "I'll just look up the Chinese Vehicle notes for their Armoured Cars". These are archaic and with twin B11 MGs don't really pose too much of a threat to their IJA opponents. Their infantry SW HMG and MMG will cause me more problems however. Bill set up mainly on the Board seam, covering all the more open approach routes on Board 49, and particularly covering the big E-W lateral road I had to cross. His right side looked lighter than his left so I guessed that may be where his ART guns were hidden, but there were numerous scary looking 3 and 4 counter stacks scattered around all over the board.

Japanese attack options:
In response to this, I had been provided with a whopping sixteen 1st Line Japanese squads and a single solitary 448 whose job it was to man the Flamethrower. Four leaders come with these guys together with a couple of MMGs and crews, and three Knee Mortars which were clearly going to be my principal asset to crossing that lateral road in one piece. I setup heavy on my left which meant running directly into Bill's more numerous stacks, but I felt this offered me a little bit more of a covered approach to the main game area. This was also the side upon which there were more Multi-hex building victory objectives too - on this matter, the playing area is naturally divided into four areas: the area in front of the main E-W railway contains 11 multi-hex buildings, while there are approximately 6 more behind it. The main Chinese area is also split by a N-S road which cuts their area in half.

Hence the Japanese can try and wrestle control from all 11 buildings in front of the tracks or perhaps push on and gobble up 2-3 more in one of the two back corner quadrants. This is good for the Japanese as they do not need to decide immediately on their exact plan of attack, but can see how the game plays out and in Game Turn 3/4 if reqired, make a decision to push hard and fast into a back quadrant to claim the extra buildings. In contrast the Chinese must remain aware of the threat from any deep penetrating Japanese flanking attacks and keep the edges of the playing area guarded. More reasons why this is a fun scenario as there are some decisions to be made early and then yet more decisions to be made in the mid-game. Both sides need to be on their toes and look out for opportunites and suitable responses.

The Japanese also get three of their own Armoured Cars, equally archaic and equally as bad as their Chinese equivalents, but these could be more useful for cutting some late game rout paths and enforcing some failure to rout options on some beleagured Chinese - they will need to be preserved.

Flanking attacks?
With my main attack path decided upon, I had a bit of a think about how I could support this - the knee mortars are the key for this and I opted to push them into some scattered woods in the middle part of the board where they had a nice line of sight to some critical road crossing points. In addition, I put a strong 5-squad reinforced platoon down my extreme left side to keep Bill's defenses on that side from getting a free-ride and translating across to support his defenders on my main attack sector. Realising the weakness of the vehicles to attacks by both the 70mm guns (unknown at game start) and the ATR (also unknown) and also the MGs (also unknown), I decided that discretion was the better part of valour and kept them well to the rear to be used as needed in Turns 4-7, once all Bill's AT assets had been smoked out.

AAR - the main assault:
That was the plan anyway, and for once, it actually worked. The start was horrible - a leader and a squad went berserk and charged straight into the face of a MMG squad. In my Prep Fire, I tried to save these guys with a well-aimed smoke or WP from the only knee mortar I had in position but could find neither, so those guys went down in a hail of lead. Despite this, I kept pushing hard on the main attack side and soon, I was poised to leap across the road, but Bill pulled off a great lateral shot from one of his guns that knocked several units back. Bill then shot up another couple of squads from an upper level building location with 2 x 447, a MMG and an 8-1. Ouch.

Cracking the left?
On my left side, my flankers pushed forward really hard and Bill forgot to shoot his other gun at them when they were in the open and marching nonchalantly forward without a care in the world...its difficult to keep tabs on all the key units sometimes when there's a lot of stuff going on. My flankers pushed on hard, finding one dummy but then getting dumped out of another location painfully by a two squad "?" stack. More ouch. On my right flank, my main attack was eventually able to get some squads across the lateral road, but I was forced to be extremely careful and assault move only as I was aware of a four unit "?" stack that was looking very menacing there and covering all the approach routes. Progress was being made but it was slow and by the end of Turn 2, I was feeling like I was moving six feet forward but sliding five feet back. Frustrating and a good tough defense by Bill.

Everything kicking off...
Turn 2 is when everything happened. First off, Bill's overwatch MG broke down and then X'ed out for good and that took a little of the pressure of my main force. With my left flankers, I then ran into a concealed HMG, 447 and 9-1 combo which then went on a 5 shot 3ROF spree of hell as Bill rolled five times, rolled Snakes twice and never less than 5, and yet missed my sniper! Scratch two more Japanese squads. Don't get me started on 3ROF weapons! Feeling aggrieved at this, for one of the few times in my life, I had my own little moment of ROFness immedaitely in return and one of my MMG had his own moment of fun in the sun and scratched off 1.5 Chinese squads in return.

Next up, I was able to sneak a squad onto Bill's laterally-facing 70mm Gun and the crew went down in a brutal CC attack. With his HMG, Bill then made another of my leaders and accompanying squad go berserk - YUK! They were one-hex away at the time from the HMG, yet miraculously they survived a 30 -3 shot when adjacent, and thus also forced Bill's other 70mm Gun to declare IF - lucky for me, only the leader succumbed and the squad charged straight on into the HMG hex. This was huge as the resultant CC opened up Bill's right side completely as in a follow-up, I was also able to destroy the Gun crew in CC as they had used up all their fire opportunites trying to nail the zerkers.

Grinding through in the middle and right:
In the middle, more sharp shooting and the finding of another of Bill's fortified building the hard way meant I was still grinding forward way too slowly. Something needed to change for me to force a result on this side. My now striped and CRed Flameboys needed to be brought into action to crack this fortified thorn in my side which was completely dominating my whole centre and left. Thinking quickly, I managed to relocate Bill's lateral 70mm ART Gun, and managed to find one of the Chinese' own Smoke shells to give my flame boys some freedom of movement and lightly toast these bad boys - massive STYLE points! And even better the plan worked - light toast was produced to order and as no-quarter isn't in effect, I even managed to persuade these diehards to surrender...I expect they regretted that one afterwards.

To match this piece of style on my side, Bill pulled out a corker of his own on my right flank. Having worked very hard to advance a DC bomb-squad onto Bill's menacing four-unit stack, imagine by disappointment when the resultant BOOM removed a stack of four dummies! Classic poker move Mr Dorre, carried out with a classic poker face and I was had, hook, line and sinker. I'm still wandering why I didn't bother to test that one with a bouncing half-squad move, but I'd already convinced myself of the threat it posed. Nicely done Bill.

Stalemate:
After the clear-up of the middle strongpoint, I'd pretty much reached stalemate on my main attack sector....my units were pretty beat up over there and I lost another squad to a nicely declared dare-death attack when my guys pinned so I decided I was best off holding on to what I'd got, especially when my FT Xe'd out on its fourth shot of the game (it had paid for itself though). I had pretty much conquered everything I could on that side and we both had to settle for stalemate over here as another squad loss for either of us would mean the other would be pouring through the line.

End-game:
In contrast, on my left flank, the loss of Bill's guns and the HMG was proving critical - I destroyed one of his armoured cars with a shot from a MMG, and then one of my AC immobilized the other, forced the crew to abandon and then I shot them down in the street with Bill's own HMG freshly captured - Sweet!

Added to that, my only effective sniper shot of the game broke one last cricital squad and I was off to the races. One of my armoured cars went chasing deep into Chinese territory to keep a squad DM, another killed a broken squad for FTR and the third helped to encircle Bill's last fighting squad who went down in a big CC. At that point, I had claimed the required 11 buildings, but I was placed to capture at least three more deep into Bill's back yard with nothing there to stop me. We ended it with one Chinese and one Japanese turn to go.

Post-game thoughts:
A really fun scenario with tons of what makes ASL such a great game - two berserk leader charges, bluffing concealment stacks, hot snipers, working flamethrowers, fortified buildings, hand-to-hand combat, crap tanks, captured weapon use in improbable situations and so on. An absolute blast. I'd say this is pretty balanced - we both had severely interesting dice in this game and all sorts of weird stuff going on, and Bill admitted he was caught in the classic dilemma of both trying to defend up front and defend in depth, tried to do both, but ended up doing neither as well as he would have liked. The big critical rolls were the loss of the MMG from the multi-storey stone building, the second berserk squad which though it looked horrible for me, was the key to cracking open Bill's right flank, and finally the finding of the Smoke shell to assist my FT to break Bill's central strongpoint. Huge fun and strongly recommended. And I'm back to 2-2 and all square for the tournament.

Tournament AAR Scenario 5: SP14 The Green House

Nick Drinkwater

Japanese: Zeb Doyle [ELR 4, SAN 4]
American: Nick Drinkwater [ELR 3, SAN 3]

Pre-Game Thoughts:
Game 5 of the Tourney and fate has pitched me against the Owlcon champion for the last two years - I've just finished the monster game with Bill and we still have three hours before we get chucked out of the gaming hall, and Zeb is free, having just completed yet another game with John Hyler. Despite feeling shattered, I'm always up for a game against Zeb - we've become good friends, and its always a blast to play him both from the learning perspective (he is one of the best players in Texas) and the running commentary of extremely dry witticisms which he peppers the conversation with.

The Doomed Platoon:
We opt for "The Green House" from SP2, one of their earlier offerings that has an interesting premise behind its storyline. Basically, this is a rescue attempt to save the doomed Second platoon which is stranded in a multi-level, jungle plantation wooden building (an overlay on Board 19) across an open meadow (the main part of Board 19). The rescuing Third platoon starts on neighbouring Board 38 (the airfield is covered by Hutville) and needs to quickly move to the jungle edge in Turn 1 to try and lay some covering fire for their stranded colleagues. Further company support is due on in Turn 1 (heavy weapons) and on Turn 3, a platoon of Stuarts stuffed with Canister will arrive to add some more oomph.

Japanese Vice:
In return, the Japanese have executed a nice trap here. A platoon of infantry is about to appear close, dirty and concealed to the Green House and a second platoon is due on in Turn 2 on the opposite flank to shut the jaws tight. To stop the Americans from fleeing back to safety, a flanking MG and Mortar platoon has just popped up in a nasty overlay jungle pillbox-bunker nest and can interdict all running GIs in their tracks.

Tough VC:
This is a Schwerpunkt scenario of course, so the big emphasis in this scenario, as ever, is a set of VC tied to a fairly tight timetable (4.5 Turns), but in this case, there is a twist. The Americans can claim an instant win by getting 5 CVP of 2nd platoon back to the safety of the jungle - they have 8 CVP at start (3 x 666 and a 8-1), and this could be possible in Turn 1 or even in Turn 2, but the Firelane potential of the HMG is huge and the 9-0 leader with it adds to the risk with no cowering. If they can't do this, then the US must ensure there are no good order Japanese MMC either in the jungle-bunker complex of the flanking weapon support platoon, and none in or in hexes adjacent to the Green House. This is a tough ask.

Japanese Considerations:
The Japanese have a fairly standard setup with little ability to get too creative, though they should remember to use their tunnel in a clever way, for some last-turn CC surprises. They need to try and eliminate the 2nd Platoon as quickly as possible but they have been given the tricks to do this - note eliminating all the US and being scattered in every level of the +2 TEM Green House will be a much more daunting problem for the US than if there is some die-hard Ami squad / leader in the upstairs position hanging on for grim death.

US Considerations:
In contrast, the US needs to plan quite hard on their stacking and MF / PP cost combinations for their offboard Support Weapon platoon and their pathway to the main playing area, as they get very little time in this scenario to get their 81mm MTR and HMGs operating (probably two turns at most). They also need to keep an eye on the time needed to clear the woods of Japanese troops and use their tanks and any spare infantry to clear all the Green House adjacent attackers. This is not easy at all. They will almost certainly need to get one or two WP shells in to cover any infantry moves across the field, and use the Mortars and long-range MG to suppress any Japanese adjacent to or even in the Green House. At the same time, they may still need this FP to suppress the Bunker-complex defenders, and to support the attack the US 666s must pull off to clear them out. Tough choices all around and not easy to get the balance right.

AAR - tiredness all round:
Probably due to a touch of tiredness and a failure to grok (awful word) the scenario, I can't say I really understood what I needed to do in this one and kind of blindly stumbled through it, finding the way to resolve issues by chance more than any real judgement or nous on my part. On small scale tactical issues, I played it quite well, especially in the ultimate endgame - it was more the bigger issues on timing and force balance that I struggled with and there were moments where I couldn't see how the Americans could do it all (yeah, I had a moan and a whinge (questioning the integrity of the scenario?) but I was tired!). So, for the last turn or two I got a bit unit happy and just sent guys on missions to see "what could be done", more in hope than expectation. The early game had actually seen Zeb on the receiving end of some hot dice from me and I had successfully whittled down the odd half-squad here and there (also stopping Zeb's knee mortar from firing at all), and found a couple of dummys by wasting bullets on them, but I had also ruled out early on any kind of dash by Second Platoon across the meadow.

Desperate times...
My Green House defenders did some damage to their creeping concealed nemesis but all the squads were ultimately broken and FTRed by the end of Turn 2, and that on some very average Morale Checks. Critically however, my 9-1 stayed alive (and encircled) in the top level of the house to the very end and I was able to pin or break any Japanese who got close to taking him out with long-range fire. Despite my decision making problems, I ended up doing the obvious things with the Mortars and using them to Phos both the Pillbox nest, the Green House and the adjacent jungle, before they ran out of Smoke shells. This set me up for the end-game dash: thinking I was in a hopeless situation I just sent a batch of squads against the Pillbox-bunker nest, and by US Turn 5, these guys were poised to wipe out all the remaining Japanese, despite losing two squads to a measly 8+1 shot, and Zeb's smart play in putting the leader outside of the Pillbox to ensure I had to go through two rounds of CC (no Tunnel use from Zeb though - he was tired too!).

...Desperate Measures:
Things were even more desperate around the Green House though - thinking I had nothing left to lose and getting a bit Canister fixated, I manoeuvred the three Stuarts into position to threaten the jungle at a three-hex range. However the Japanese were now covered in my own WP, so I had to re-start and drive straight into the jungle to attempt to suppress them with MG FP - probably the better manoeuvre as they will then need to come into your hex to get you! I also had one squad and an 8-0 dash across the meadow to help the solo 9-1 in the Green House - in fact these were the only guys I could get there, and reflects my problem with getting division of forces right. These guys withstood the 2-2 Firelane, but their passed MC caused one of the CE Stuarts to take a Sniper Shot between the eyes. This manoeuvre did enable me to threaten one of Zeb's half squad when I moved adjacent to it - even better, they generated a hero on a MC of their own which really opened the game for me. Another hot sniper removed the second of my Stuarts to a dead Tank Commander, but my last tank was able to charge into the jungle and threaten this annoying HS.

End Game at the Green House:
In final Turn 5, I had one of those situations where I had to have a whole series of events go for me. Firstly, I was able to Pin by Tank MG Fire Zeb's annoying half-squad in Prep Fire, adjacent to the hero, squad and leader, when he critically failed a PTC on an 8 (2FP shot rolled a six). This freed up by Leader and Hero to advance in and ambush and kill the HS in CC with a base 9 on the normal CC roll. Next my now freed-up squad advanced, with the sole 2nd Platoon survivor (the 9-1), into a hex with Zeb's only other Japanese half-squad, again managed to avoid being ambushed (just!) and then wipe out the Japanese with a 3-1 CC roll. So all good on the Green House side of the Board.

End Game at the Bunker:
On the Pillbox nest area, I was left needing to win two more CC's - the first was against a crew in a pillbox and again no real surprise there, that was succcessfully completed. The final one was the toughy - having just seen two squads break and run earlier in the turn, I was down to two half-squads vs a Japanese half-squad. The tension was big here....advance in, dodge (just) the ambush and again, normal CC and I think after mods, I needed an 8 for the win...rolled a six!!!!

Post-Game Summary:
Frickin Awesome. Still not quite sure where that one came from as I never felt like I was really in control in this game at any point...it all had the whiff of desperation. The key rolls in this scenario were the turn one loss of the Japanese Knee Mortar, an initial successful US defense of the Green House and Zeb's failure to completely capture it and Zeb's forgetting the tunnel. The real kicker however was Zeb's pinning of his HS next to the Green House and my generation of the Hero. I was now free to send the leader and hero against the pinned guys and use my squad for the harder job against the non-pinned guys with their bigger fire power. I had actually failed to deploy this squad that turn and so without the options created from generating the hero, I would not have won it, as I would not have been able to get units into both of the reuqired CCs. I was lucky to miss ambush and subsequent withdrawals in all these CC's and was also lucky to roll four times under an average of nine to win all the CC, but best of all, I never actually had to ATFP against Zeb in this game (ATFP - "assume the foetal position" - something I do when Tom and Zeb normally play me with their crushing dice rolling!).

Final Comment:
An odd scenario - it seems weird that your biggest weapons barely get to fire at all in this one before the end game-rushes in two separate directions are upon you. No smoke from the two Mortars would really crimp the US player as there is no cover in that field whatsoever, though maybe you could do some Turn 4 armoured assault to get across it. The Japanese have little to do apart from some clever concealment and squad recycling tricks, but it does play quickly - we were done from start to finish in 2.5 hours. Moderately recommended if only because of the tactical challenge it poses.

Tournament AAR Scenario 6: SP125 Numshigum

Nick Drinkwater

Japanese: Rob Purdon [ELR 3, SAN 4]
Ghurka: Nick Drinkwater [ELR 5, SAN 4]

Pre-Game Thoughts:
The last of the weekend's scenarios was one of the shortest but a complete blast to play. Rob was my opponent and this was the third new player I had played in less than three days - this is the great thing about Tournaments in that you get to play new folks and this gets you out of playing style ruts and makes you think about new challenges and be outside the proverbial box. Also Rob was my fourth opponent from Austin - I only dodged Roy, Matt, Brian and Jeff during the weekend.

Scenario Analysis:
This fun little scenario is set on one half of Board 50, and involves a very tasty but lightly armed force of Ghurka Paratroops (9.5 648 squads) with moderate leadership and an all-important airborne light mortar with its nice smoke option (note these are elite so the depletion numbers are raised by one - we missed this). These gutsy guys need to evict all good-order Japanese MMC from an L-shaped hill mass between hexrows X-DD, south of the stream. One arm of the hill projects down to the south board edge whilst the other projects to the east board edge with light jungle masking most of the approaches in the 'elbow' between the two. The hill has a wooded Level two location on the east arm and a bare level two plateau at the join between the two arms and this will probably be where the Japanese make their last stand. To the north of the stream is another Level two hill - from here the Japanese reserve of a 9-1 and HMG can dominate both the wooded eastern knoll and the approaches to the central bare knoll. The Japanese have 6 squads in total to play with, a Lt Mortar, a MMG, the HMG but importantly, no HIP by SSR.

Ghurkhas attack plan:
Thus its a fairly straightforward run and push assault for the Ghurkas and their biggest issue is going to be time as they only have 4.5 turns to get the job done. The assault fire bonus and the H2H option plus modifier means the Japanese are not scary to these bad boys at all (BRING IT ON!), but the thing they need to watch is leaving a gap in their cordon that a sneaky Japanese half-squad could sneak into in the bottom half of Turn 4. It will be tough going in this terrain and there may be some advances in difficult terrain and the ability to keep concealment will be hard due to the problems with not being able to do assault move uphill in jungles. However paths along the axis of the east arm of the 'L' and another through the jungle into the elbow of the 'L' offer some fast routes into the core of the action - only problem is the Japanese know this too and can respond accordingly.

Japanese Defense:
Rob set up a very dispersed defense to clearly offer me a bunch of targets that I was going to physically have to chase down and check for dummy status. I pushed on hard and fast with six squads and the mortar entering on the south and three squads and a 9-1 climbing directly onto Level one of the east arm to face the three "?" stacks Rob had there. My first shot of the game was an assault fire bonus 6-flat and I roll a nice juicy three. Rob immediately rolls a 12 on the two check - scratch the first 447 squad who drop the Knee Mortar to the ground cold and unfired! Sweet!

The Ghurkas Push on...
I peel a squad and a half off to the 'point' of the southern arm and remove the first dummy while the core of the force pushes hard into the 'elbow' - I have misplayed my Airborne Mortar which is out of position, but no matter as my super hot dice continue to cause Rob all manner of problems. DFF versus a Ghurka squad causes them to go berserk adjacent to their Japanese tormentors which is perfect for me as I was CX before that - no ambush needed and straight into H2H CC! Kill, dispatch, destroy and that one's all over. After striping a nasty 2 x 447 stack, I jump into CC with another Ghurka squad - if I can win this, I've virtually won the scenario in two turns as I will have killed four of Rob's six squads - for once, I get ambushed and killed, but I am able to get these guys later with more aggressive assault fire, stripe, ambush, kill tactics later on.

Give that man a medal!
Rob's two MGs are my biggest headache and are really the only things keeping him in the game. I am able to Smoke in the MMG in its Level Two plateau hex foxhole with my only Smoke shell from the Mortar, but the HMG north of the stream is dominating my platoon on the eastern knoll as it goes on a nasty ROF3 streak (3 ROF weapons - sheesh! Don't get me started...). My sniper goes hot but picks a dummy and I move, bump and remove his last dummy, but I am still stymied on the east where Rob now has me pinned and broken. This is now serious as all three squads and the 9-1 are broken over there and I am reduced to a sole hero....Victorious Cross to this guy though, as he shrugs off about three 1MC and MC unscathed and he is left in Japanese Turn 4 as the only unit I have who can stop an adjacent 447 from running around the north side of the hill for a last-ditch win. By this time, I have whittled away the main hill defense to a half-squad, a striped crew and a leader. My sniper gets hot for one last time and stripes the HMG crew (I was lucky in this one), but I am hopelessly out of position with my unbroken units to stop Rob's end run.

Rob does the 'manly' Japanese thing and starts to run his brave 447 away from my lone hero - I have one shot only as he moves these guys under the adjacent heroic Sten Gun and I have to kill them all - a CR or a Stripe is not going to be enough here. We both know the critical importance of this one roll as otherwise, this will be the biggest escape since Clint swam out from Alcatraz - roll the dice.....drumroll....SNAKES!!!! Bam, bam, bam, twitchy bodies everywhere and a lone Gurkha pensively smoking a Woodbine...ten dead Japanese, all in a good days work.

I love this game...!!! Did I say that I was lucky in this one?

Still not over:
BUT wait, there's more! The desperate Japanese limpy types on the main hill could still win this one yet...the way to go is to dash over to my eastern flank, where now of course the hero is isolated and alone, smothered in cigarette smoke and with a First Fire counter on his head. Rob could still snatch victory from the jaws of defeat from this one yet. Only two squads of my main force can see these guys at all as they go on their mad dash for victory and they will be firing into the jungle. Hmmm. To make it worse and to get even more MF, Rob declares Banzai with the hero as the target and runs headlong into the hero's hex. I fire off vainly but these bad boys are in there screaming and they are mighty PISSED OFF! Of course, as we're in Banzai no ambush is possible for me or Rob (which would have been -2 in my favour (Stealthy, vs Lax) and my hero is simply going down.

And then we both wake up. The banzai is a cool trick with its extra MF, higher morale and lack of chance to be ambushed, and Rob has gone and shoved them into the face of my hero. However, the hero is currently one hex north of the area stipulated for the VC, and with no ambush possibility, there is now no way that Rob can now get a MMC into the victory hexes!! Its all over. Good guys win. Ooops.

Strike one for Nepal's finest!!

Post-game thoughts:
Big bad error, but didn't offset the fun the two of us had playing this - this was a blast and Rob was great as he smiled through the complete dicing I had inflicted on him from the beginning until Turn 4. We talked it through and realised that instead of being hero-fixated and banzai-ing, he should have motored his guys along the eastern 'arm' path to the very eastern board edge. This would have DMed my eastern platoon again and left my main force facing the unpleasant notion of crossing a -2 firelane from the HMG and then a batch of -2 moves in the hexes adjacent to Rob's last few guys; this would have been almost impossible for me to pull off. I got lucky again at the end! Overall, even though this may look a bit dicey at first with only 4-5 Japanese squads, it actually isn't - the 2 and 3 ROF MGs are great levellers so even if the Japanese get hurt hard in the first couple of turns, they will still have a chance to win, especially if they have retained a leader and a couple of MMCs at game end...just make sure you know where hexrow X is!!!

All in all then, 4-2 for the weekend with a 3-1 record against Austin's finest (smelliest??), including that scorching victory against the Owlcon champion himself, Mr. Doyle. Awesome weekend and awesome gaming and awesome gamers. Thanks all!