AAR: FT77 Suprised Buffalo

 

Ed Beekman

 

Italians: Jim Ferrell, Ed Beekman

Americans/Partisans: Zeke

We had three players so we looked for a scenario that could work for three.  We agreed upon FT77 Surprised Buffalo.  It is a December '44 Italy scenario with second line Americans and some Italian Partisans defending a town from a large Italian force wielding German support weapons.  The Americans are strung out in a picket line across the town and on the mountain behind.  The partisans are hiding in the approaches to the village.  The Italians have to cover a board's width of snow covered terrain to either take the majority of the buildings in the town without losing about 40% of their forces OR eliminate 20 CVP of the Allied force without losing an equivalent number of CVP.  Both sides have brittle units with 6 morale but the Italians have a small contingent of elite 7 morale troops.  It is also one of those rare scenarios where both sides have artillery.

Zeke wanted the defending Americans while Jim and myself split the attacking Italians.  Jim took more troops since he was attacking into the village section with more buildings while I received most of the elite troops since I was attacking into the teeth of the mountain behind the town.  We made a dispersed charge and Jim was able to cover the board width in a few turns without much trouble but I had to deal with the American .50 cal HMG, 60mm mortar and Battalion Mortar OBA.  Several squads were eliminated and the precious 9-2 Italian leader was lost to back to back boxcars but a rare Italian Hero emerged from the carnage toting a dismantled German HMG.  The American mortar lost a duel with the Italian 81mm Mortar while the artillery observer and .50 cal HMG team were eventually obliterated by Italian artillery.

Jim started forcing his way into town in what was turning into a tough battle of maneuver. I was also moving into town but the defense was manning a few locations that looked like a challenge to reduce. Unfortunately we had to call the game due to time about halfway through with the issue still in doubt.  We all really enjoyed the scenario, it has fun "toys" on both sides, many unusual aspects and definitely is worth a play.

Ed

AAR: LSSAH21 The Brickyard

Ed Beekman

Ed: Germans

Zeke: Russians

I played Zeke in LSSAH21 The Brickyard.  Zeke took the Russians since ROAR has it 2:1 pro-Russians and deservedly so.  The Germans have to take a 3 hex stone building while staying under a 31 CVP cap.  The Russians have a 2:1 infantry advantage which is significant even though they are 1st Line Russian Rifle squads to 5-4-8 SS squads who are mostly deployed in small halftracks.  I also had an smg halftrack and three Mk 4 panzers but they would be countered by 3 T34s on turn 2. 

My plan was to try and encircle the victory building to weaken the Russian numerical advantage with morale and fire modifiers.  Not gonna happen.  The left flank bounced a dummy stack while the right flank thought they had a LOS free approach to the brickyard.  NOPE, there was a HIP Russian squad that Pinned all three half squads although it broke on the FPF.  My smg HT was recalled by the Russian sniper before it could do anything.  The Russian AT gun nailed two half tracks when it revealed itself and a Russian ATR accounted for another.  Just over one turn down and I was already half way to my CVP cap.  When the Russian tanks came on in the required platoon movement, the middle tank immobilized when they rolled into position to fire on one of my tanks.  I had the advantage in the resulting gun duel and destroyed the lead T34  while maintaining rate but didn't get to use it.  The immobilized T34 responded with an APCR critical hit to burn the Mark 4.  The Russian infantry accounted for another halftrack and then the ATG, manned by a squad, intensive fired to hit and kill another Mark 4 throwing me over the CVP cap.  Congratulations to Zeke on his successful defense of the brickyard.

I am writing to relax.  I am hyper having just pulled out a colonoscopy win in the last turn of my VASL league game.  After being smacked around like a red haired stepchild for most of the game (my opponent averaged a 4 on his first 5 or 6 IFT shots).  I can't complain about those rolls though, I had several useful low rolls late in the game including snakes on a mortar hit versus a concealed HS in the jungle that would have sealed my fate and another snakes with a captured FT into a melee in a VC location that killed everybody.  That's why we love this game.