First Impressions: St. Nazaire: Operation Chariot

Zeb Doyle

Before I get into the latest Le Franc Tireur offering, I want to offer up a huge thank you to the Banzai editorial staff. Matt Shostak and Rick Reinesch do a huge amount of work behind the scenes to bring us Banzai and their efforts are worthy of public praise and acclaim. It's always a pleasure to download their latest opus and it's due to such unsung heroes that the ASL hobby is alive and thriving. Thanks, guys!

Now, you might argue that most or all thriving hobbies have similar people volunteering their time and effort and that's probably true, but I still think that ASL players go above and beyond. In large part this is because of the flexibility and depth of ASL. With clever SSRs and some thought, you can simulate a vast range of different actions and that really frees people to create and design some amazing things. Just recently, for example, I played a very enjoyable scenario featuring an obscure 1943 Japanese-Italian clash. Great stuff, and a testament both to the strength of the ASL system and to the dedicated hobbyists who dig this stuff up and produce it for the rest of us. The ability of any individual to pursue their passion, no matter how obscure, and translate it into ASL is one of our hobby's great strengths. Whether it's scenario designers spending hours playtesting or Matt and Rick spending hours proofing, the rest of us all benefit greatly from their labors.

Before you think I've overdosed on Prozac here, let me admit that nothing is perfect and there is a dark side to all this. As designers seek out ever more obscure actions to simulate and the consumer becomes ever more jaded and sophisticated, there's a bit of a trend to the esoteric and the complex, and this often puts more of a burden on all of us. When Recon By Fire #4 came out, the included German captured vehicles were pretty cool. Their chapter H notes showed that a huge amount of work had been lavished on them and the research behind them was really impressive. I punched and clipped the counters, played a few scenarios with them, and now they languish in a dust-covered Plano in my closet. I have to tip my hat to Chas Smith, who designed it all, but so far the time I've spent enjoying his work hasn't come close to justifying his effort. It barely justified my own efforts reading over the notes and punching the counters. This goes double for the Spanish Blue Division counters I picked up somewhere; they have a neat divisional insignia mark on each counter, but otherwise they are identical to German units. There are what, ten or fifteen Spanish Blue scenarios total? The time I'd spend punching, sorting, and storing those counters would probably exceed the time I'd ever spend playing with them. Sadly, some devoted hobbyist somewhere decided to spend a lot of effort putting together some really nice counters, but all that work is effectively wasted for me since it's just not worth my time. It's a real pity and it brings me squarely to my thoughts on Le Franc Tireur's St. Nazaire: Operation Chariot. For those (like me) who knew nothing about this, Wikipedia has a good overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nazaire_Raid

First, the disclaimers: these are just some rough first impressions. I've opened the package, glanced at the counters, and barely skimmed the rules. As such, it's not a review and I may very well change my mind on some or all of these comments. Reader, beware! With that out of the way, let me say that Operation Chariot is a very impressive-looking labor of love. I bought it with low expectations and more because I'm an ASL junkie than anything else. Even when the postman brought me a very attractive box, I wasn't moved. Le Franc Tireur always has really nice graphics. When I opened it up and started looking over the contents, though, I started getting excited. Even the box itself is pretty cool, really being more of a sturdy folder. As I mentioned, it's graphically very nice and it's also quite functional. I'm actually going to keep it around to hold everything, a stark departure from my usual habit of tossing the box and figuring out a less bulky method of storing everything. I can't remember the last time that happened and it's a pleasant change. Inside the folder are two big mapsheets, a rules book, 200+ new counters, five reference sheets, and 15 new scenarios. Seven of these scenarios are on geomorphic boards and represent WWII actions around the world, and the remaining eight focus specifically on Saint Nazaire and take place on the included map.

The map, like everything else in the package, is quite attractive and seems to do a good job of portraying the port of Saint Nazaire. I don't have a ruler handy, but I'd guess the two mapsheets together are about as big as the Red Barricades maps, and are roughly half water and half land. It looks like a fun playground for 600+ British Commandos to storm ashore and blow up dry docks and lock gates, thus denying the key port to the Tirpitz, sister ship to the Bismarck. The physical quality of the maps is quite high. They're printed on thick slightly glossy paper and thus look something like HOB's first edition Operation Merkur map, but without the tissue-paper thickness problem. I would have preferred a matte finish, and there is a noticeable difference between the two sheets in the green land color (one sheet has a brighter, vibrant green, the other a duller green), but this will only bother the most obsessive among us. Looking over the credits, I see our own Sam Tyson did the map design and he appears to have done a great job. Nice work, Sam!

Moving on to the rules book, we encounter the perfect example of that esoteric and complex pursuit of passion that I referred to above, and here's where my excitement started draining away. As with the map, the physical quality of the components are very high, and I'd put them on par with anything MMP produces. The entire book appears to be very well thought out and playtested, with everything from designer notes to rules to Chapter H notes. There are 12 pages of rules for Motor Gun Boats (MGB) that are required to play all of the scenarios (giving options like cruise speed, battle speed, sea haze, camouflage, torpedoes and deploying anti-boat mines) and another 15 pages of rules specifically for the St. Nazaire map and scenarios, covering everything from new terrain (power stations, U-Boat pens, buried fuel tanks, tidal mudflats) to new units (searchlights and HMS Campbeltown, the explosives-packed destroyer that carried in many of the commandos and was then detonated to destroy a key caisson) to the special circumstances of the raid (ruse de guerre). Finally, there are 8 pages of chapter H notes, which are just as comprehensive as the rest of the rules, and include motor gun boats (MGB) for virtually every nationality. Everything from captured or commandeered fishing smacks to JFK's PT boats are included. If you ever had the hankering to drive a German Schnellboote-100, a Japanese armored barge, or even a Russian patrol boat armed with T-34 turrets and 132mm rockets, all in ASL terms, then this is the product for you!

Therein lies the rub. I'm not sure that many of us ever had that hankering to begin with, and I'm positive that even fewer of us are willing to master 12 or 27 pages of new rules to do so. The 12 pages gives us access to only the seven non-St. Nazaire scenarios, and although 27 pages lets you play all 15 actions, these rules do not appear to be for the faint of heart. Looking over the five reference sheets (which, like the 200+ new counters, are gorgeous and equal to MMP's production values), we have rules for things like squadron keeping, searchlight defense plans and decisions on where to stash commandos in the Campbeltown (below deck starboard aft zone, on deck port midship zone, or perhaps the on deck bow zone?). In a sense, there's so much in the box here that it's almost an entirely different game, and that seems to be the product's real strength and weakness. It opens up an entire uncharted area of WWII, but it's so new and so foreign that there are lots and lots of new details to cover. There is no way to pull off the shrinkwrap, read over ten or twelve new SSRs, and jump into the action here.

To further cloud the picture, many of the fifteen scenarios are rather small. I've included a very brief overview of the seven non-Operation Chariot scenarios below, but here, let me note that of those seven, only two of them have over twenty total squads. Of the scenarios that do take place on the historical map, it's a bit harder to gauge the size as some of the German force is randomly generated, but five of them also seem to be quite smallish, with three MGBs and fifteen British squad equivalents total in those scenarios. At this point, you're probably wondering just how quickly these games will play after you've spent all the time and effort to learn the ins and outs of MGBs. Well, Le Franc Tireur is nice enough to put an estimated time of play on each of their scenarios, and although I can't say how accurate they are, many of these games are expected to play out in the four to five hour range. If you total everything, including the bigger full-on St. Nazaire raid scenarios, you get an estimated 37 hours for the Operation Chariot stuff and 28 hours for everything else. That's 65 total hours, which would seem to amply repay your efforts in reading rules and punching counters, but it also assumes that you'll want to play every single scenario.

It's a real shame to have to sit here trying to analyze the potential fun factor of the scenarios vs. the extra time needed to master the rules for them but this is a situation where you have to do just that. Normally in these product first impressions, I like to throw in a sentence or two about value and whether you are getting good bang for your buck, and I'd love to say that it's a fantastic product and everyone should get it, because it really does seem to be a fantastic product. Every part of it looks really good, and it seems obvious that a lot of effort and care and playtesting went into it. However, it's also so dramatically different from everything else that I think it ends up being an amazing creation by a truly devoted hobbyist that really isn't for everyone. Talking a bit about the value, it's available from the Gamer's Armory for $77.50 (disclaimer: I've ordered from them before but have no other connection) at http://www.gamersarmory.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=753. That's a lot of money ( you could get VoTG for the same price, just as a very rough comparison) but you really do appear to get a whole new game for that price. The real question is whether you're interested in learning and playing that new game.

For myself, I'm glad I got it. As I said earlier, I'm an ASL junkie and this is easily the most interesting and unique addition to ASL in a very long time. Having said that, I'm skeptical that I'll play more than a few of these scenarios myself, and as a guy who is constantly playing and loves complex, esoteric stuff, I'm really the target audience here. If you do have any interest in Operation Chariot at all, or Motor Gun Boats in general, I'd strongly recommend you pick this up. For everyone else, it's going to be a tougher decision and I can't really help you. Hopefully, when I actually look over the rules, they'll turn out to be super simple and intuitive and I can come back with a stronger recommendation. Of course, when was the last time anything in ASL was super simple and intuitive? In short, based on some cursory skimming of Le Franc Tireur's St. Nazaire: Operation Chariot, I'd love to give it an unqualified two thumbs up, but just can't do it.

I feel bad about that. The designer, Andrew Hershey, along with the Le Franc guys and the Fredericksburg Fire Eaters playtest team look like they've really created something great here, but it looks so complex and esoteric it's not going to be for everyone. I hope I'm wrong about that, and that it is a success both commercially and on game tables everywhere, but I just don't see it getting a lot of play. Still, maybe this is a sign of just how healthy our hobby is. There's so much ASL stuff being produced right now that even when designers do go above and beyond in contributing to our hobby, we don't have to follow them in pursuit of their specific interest, and can afford to pick and choose instead. So, instead of wringing my hands over how well St. Nazaire: Operation Chariot is going to do, I think I'll just be happy that so much innovative ASL is being created. The best part in all this is that the innovation feeds on itself, with designers everywhere benefiting from each other's efforts. For example, with this latest creation, Eric can easily design that Guns of Navarone scenario he's always talking about. That's all I've got for now, I'm off to reap the fruits of Matt and Rick's labor by reading the latest Banzai.

Thanks for reading, and I'll try to remember to bring this by the next Austin game day meeting so interested people can get an actual look of their own at it. Also, I've included a very barebones listing of the non-Operation Chariot scenarios below. Finally, does anyone else have this?

Zeb

PS: along with the map having two different shades of green, I've also noticed several typos throughout the text. Most of these are understandable given the large French involvement in the production (the area was riff with Germans, loose concealment, etc) and all of them are minor. These are the only physical imperfections I've seen so far.

FT109 Hitler's Lost Iron: A 1943 action covering a British commando raid against a German-held Norwegian iron processing facility. 6.5 turns, with ten half-squads and two MGB attacking eight half-squads and two 105mm guns.

FT110 PT-109: Also 1943, eight American Marine squads trying for an evacuation by sea. Three LC and two PT boats (plus JFK) try to take them off before 17 Japanese squads can take them down. This is one of the longer ones at 8 turns.

FT111 Ghosts of the Danube: 1944, a Russian reconnaissance team supported by partisans tries to capture elements of the Russian Liberation Army. This is eleven squads total, with the Russians also getting an assault boat and an MGB. 5.5 turns

FT112 Danube Log Jam: 1944, with a Russian flotilla trying to clear some German strongpoints along the Danube. Eight attacking squads and six MGB take on seven squads of defending Germans over 6.5 turns.

FT113 Blood on the Shores: 1944, a monster at 9.5 turns, with Germans trying to recapture a FlaK battery from a Russian reconnaissance group. Eight Soviet squads and an 88L against 13 German squads and two MGB.

FT114 Yellow Extract: 1942, a seven turn Dieppe action here, with five British and American squads and a MGB holding out against 11 German squads.

FT115 Nearly Entombed: 1942, 5.5 turns, with a compromised Russian raiding force near Murmansk trying to evacuate while under pressure from the Germans. Five Russian squads and three MGB against 10.5 Germans.

OwlCon AAR: LSSAH31 Hold At Any Price

Zeb Doyle

Germans: Zeb Doyle
Russians: Robert Delwood

Anyone who has been reading through my serial Owlcon AAR will be relieved to hear that this next game took place on Sunday morning and was my last match of the tournament. I had been slated to play Rob Burton again (aka Sergeant Mayhem, which aptly sums up his fun approach to the game), but family obligations intervened and fate robbed me of yet another hotly anticipated match. That was pretty disappointing; Rob is a great opponent and our last two games had been marred by fatigue and headaches. I had been really looking forward to playing him when we were both at peak form. Now I'd have to scramble around and find another opponent. Lady Luck hadn't completely deserted me however. Walter managed to produce Robert Delwood from somewhere and we sat down for a just-for-fun, non-tourney game. I'd played Robert once before in SP78 The Golovchino Breakout and had a great time. Robert also runs a very thought-provoking ASL website at http://www.isomedia.com/homes/delwood/squadleader.html. That website, along with the CTASL one, was very helpful in reassuring me when I moved down here from CO that I'd still be able to play! So, despite Rob's misfortune, it was with great anticipation that I sat down to play Robert.

We settled on LSSAH31 Hold At Any Price, which was perfect for a just-for-fun game. It's a 1943 east front action, with nine SS squads hunkered down in the board 3 village. They're trying to keep a good order MMC in the village and are facing 17 assorted Russian squads and ten T-34s. This sounds pretty straightforward, but there's a high degree of randomness inserted as well. In the pregame, every building hex gets a DR, with an 8 or higher rubbling that hex with the potential for falling rubble. That can make the German setup pretty random, but the Russians have some issues as well. They are divided into three groups, all of which enter from offboard over the first three turns. Each group is randomly selected and enters on a random board edge. Since 14 of the 17 squads enter in one group, and the unsupported T-34s won't do much against the PF-equipped SS, a wide range of outcomes are possible. The Russians could easily get their infantry entering on turn three of a 5.5 turn game on a board edge far away from their armor. Conversely, they could get a perfectly sequenced attack, with the infantry entering turn one and two follow-on waves of tanks right behind them. Obviously, not a good scenario for a highly competitive playing.

It still looked like fun though, and I got the Germans and started making rubble rolls. Well, between some high dice and lots of falling rubble, every building in my setup area was swiftly converted to rubble! That meant that the 14 building hexes I had been counting on to be rally terrain, block LOS, allow me to skulk, etc, were now just a wide-open sea of +2 and +3 TEM in full view of the level one and two hills that surround the village. Lady luck, where did you go? I could only hope that she'd be equally unkind to Robert's Russians. I threw down my squads in a 360 degree perimeter and crossed my fingers...

Things started off nicely for me as Robert had to bring on a group of five T-34s first thing. They spent their turn driving up and getting some area acqs, but they couldn't really do much. Even better, turn two brought on a group of three T-34s and three 6-2-8s. Fate was frowning on both of us. It was too good to last though, and by the end of turn three, I was facing down the entire Soviet force, which had spread out in fine fashion to completely surround me. At that point, things got ugly fast. Any German squad that dropped concealment was immediately encircled and shot up by multiple T-34s. When the inevitable MC was failed, my leaders had to go to the squad to try and rally it, as rout was absolutely impossible. Going anywhere would automatically be getting closer to a known enemy unit. Robert had done a fantastic job overcoming his bad luck and now I was paying the price.

Over the next two turns, Robert continued to keep the pressure on, pounding me with the hilltop T-34s, and drawing the noose tighter and tighter with his infantry. I had some good luck during that time, with my HMG tearing some Russians up and the manning squad generating a hero and going fanatic, but elsewhere my troops were literally dying where they stood. By the time turn five rolled around, I was very thin on the ground and really just hoping for a lucky ambush in CC followed by a withdrawal for the win. Again though, Robert was alert to the possibility and maneuvered very well to try and take that option away. It rapidly became a moot point when my three remaining squads all pinned or broke in the last AFPh, and I failed to produce any last-ditch snake-eyes, giving Robert a well-deserved win.

Well, it wasn't the ideal way to end my weekend, but it was still a reasonably fun game against a very entertaining opponent. Robert has lots of strong opinions on ASL, including everything from the 12-point target facing to proper ASL etiquette, all available on his website and it was cool to talk some of those things over face to face. As for the scenario itself, I wouldn't play LSSAH31 Hold At Any Price in a competitive match...it's a bit too random. It's still a fun scenario and a neat concept though, so if you're looking for a bit of fun and don't mind a high degree of randomness, I wouldn't remove it from playlists entirely. With an opponent willing to wheel and deal in the pregame a bit, you could probably eliminate some of the more crazy possibilities and end up with a fun time. If doing that, my suggestion would be to bring the big Soviet infantry group in on turn two, and perhaps have each side place a few rubble counters pregame rather than randomly rubbling the entire village. Another option would be to figure 40% or so of the buildings are going to rubble on average, and just randomly place that many rubble counters. Whatever you do, make sure you have an opponent like Robert, with a steady stream of conversation that would make any ASL scenario an enjoyable experience.

Thanks for reading, and thanks again to Walter for putting the event together. When can we start to prereg for 2010? :)

Zeb

Owlcon AAR: FrF30 Biderman's Escape

Zeb Doyle

Russians: Zeb Doyle
Germans: Walter Eardley

Trying to finish up my Owlcon AAR here, after escaping with a victory over Rob in The Mius Trap, I managed to pry Walter away from running Starter Kit stuff and we sat down to pick out a scenario. Walter really goes above and beyond during Owlcon, running the tournament, helping people out with rules, making real headway in bringing in fresh faces with the SK offerings, and so I felt lucky to get the chance to roll some dice with him. We ended up picking FrF30 Bidermann's Escape, a Friendly Fire offering set in 1944. It didn't seem to quite have the depth of their best scenarios, but still looked fun and fast.

The fast part is obvious with a single look at the card: it's 5.5 turns, half of board 22, fifteen total squads and four vehicles. Not exactly Last Bid territory here. Walter got the Germans, who are entering on one side and trying to exit three squads/vehicles off the far edge. Their fun toys include a 9-2, an MMG, and two SdKfz 10/5, which are 20L-armed flak halftracks with a 6FP IFE attack. The flakwagens are out of VoTG, and are made much more powerful by the addition of a little sheet-metal on their frontal VCA facing. It only gives them 0 AF, but that makes them far more resistant to small arms and also allows them to FG just like any other armored HT. Suddenly, that opens up all kinds of options, like being directed by the 9-2!

Against this marauding force, I got six 4-4-7s, some concealment counters, and a pair of museum-worthy T-26 tanks entering as reinforcements on turn one. These relics have some nice machine guns, a 45L, and robust 3 frontal armor, but the red MP, radioless status, slow speed, and urban terrain make the SdKfz match-up much more even than you'd think. The tanks are nice enough, but a little out of place in 1944. I'd hate to see them meet a PF, let along a Panther! My set-up was pretty straightforward, with everyone strung more or less evenly across the board, and the plan being for the tanks to backstop the line against whichever German threat looked most serious.

Things started off well for me. Walter sent both flakwagens and six squads down my left side, with the remaining platoon to my right just to keep me honest. The initial exchange of fire went moderately in my favor, with a big break for me when Walter parked one of his halftracks in bypass. I got a razor-thin LOS to the vertex from one of my T-26s and managed to immobilize it. That was great, as those fast and small targets were not just machine guns on wheels but also a major threat to drive right through my defense and exit for VC. I had been really worried that Walter would park them in bypass, put the 9-2/MMG in the same location, and tear me up with 16+0 and 16+1 shots, but now that option was out the window.

So, things were going well on my left. Over on the right, things were going fantastically. I'd left a single squad forward to slow down Walter's diversionary platoon and that lone 4-4-7 managed to break a Dashing squad on a 2-2 and get into a firefight taking 16+2s while only dishing out 8 and 4+1s and still win. He then advanced into CC with the last good order 4-6-7 squad in the sector, more to DM the adjacent stack of Germans than anything else, and promptly won that fracas as well. My Order of Lenin winner spent a few more turns chasing Walter's broken rabble, and then ended the game running over to the left side to harrass the main German force.

Obviously, the effective loss of a 9-1, 3x 4-6-7, and an LMG to a single 4-4-7 was huge and meant that Walter's remaining force was now grinding forward against a numerically equal foe. Walter did a great job and managed to get his remaining flakwagen off, but at that point he needed some good dice to go with his good play, and it just didn't happen. It went down to the last turn, but I managed to block off the German exit area pretty well and a last-ditch SMC overrun failed giving me the win. Good times against a great opponent with a well-executed attack. I might have tried the 9-2/flakwagen stacking trick a bit more, but overall this was a classic case of a small and dicy tourney-sized scenario being small and dicy.

One more installment to go...thanks again for reading!

Zeb

AAR: SP79 The Mius Trap

.... or "My Owlcon adventure continues..."

Zeb Doyle

Russians: Zeb Doyle
Germans: Rob Burton

After my very fun game against Ken, Walter matched me up with Rob Burton and we decided to head to the East Front for some mid-war action in SP79 The Mius Trap. This Schwerpunkt scenario caught our eye for several reasons; it's reasonably sized, features some interesting VC, and takes takes place shortly after the Kursk offensive in 1943 thus offering up some of the neat armor match-ups so common to that period. Rob and I have played several similar combined-arms clashes in the past and always had a great time, so this looked like a perfect scenario for us.

The Mius Trap (and spare me the Disney and Mickey jokes, please. Walter watched us play and he already told all of them) is 6.5 turns long, with the Russians defending the two flat and mostly featureless hills of board 11. They must, by SSR, place three foxholes on each hill and at game end, the Germans have to control all the foxholes and buildings on one hill and at least one foxhole/building on the other hill. This sounds (and is) simple enough, but makes for a lot of fun and guessing about your opponent's intent during play. The Germans get twelve squads and decent leadership (including a 9-2) right off the bat, plus four StuG IIIGs and another four squads on turn two. The Russians start with just six squads and a single leader, get four T-70s and four squads on turn two, and then three T-34 M41s and three 4-5-8s on turn three. This stream of reinforcements for both sides mean that you can attempt to disguise your intentions about which hill you are really going for just a bit or (in the case of the Soviets) react and send more troops to any trouble spots. One complication here is that all the reinforcing Russian infantry must enter as Riders, and since three of the T-70s are radioless by SSR, it's very tough to split up those troops. All-in-all, it's a very interesting situation and a lot more thought-provoking than some of the 'pack your troops into the VC building' scenarios.

Instead, both sides have some serious and fun challenges. The two hill masses are both fairly wide open with only hedges to interfere with LOS. The right hill (from the Russian perspective) has a large grain field, while the left hill does have a small patch of woods. Overall then, there's almost no cover and broken units will likely have to rout completely off the hill to find rally terrain. This forces both sides to think long and hard about how to position their infantry as those brokies may waste several precious turns getting back to the action. This could be huge, especially if it happens on the hill that's not getting the main push and thus has fewer troops dedicated to it. Even though the infantry is vital for actually capturing or holding those foxholes, the wide-open LOS and low TEM environment dictate that the armor will also play a huge role, so let's look at that next.

The kings of the battlefield are the four German StuGs with their small size, black TH, good frontal armor and that hard-hitting 75L. They even get a pair of armor leaders for extra fun. In a shoot-out though the front facings, they'll dominate the Russians, as a hit equals a kill against the T-70s and the net 6TK or 9TK (hull/turret) against the T-34s stacks up well against the Russian net 5TK (for the 76L) or net 2TK (for the 45L). The further the range, the better for the Germans, as those black TH and the ability to go CE tilt the odds even further towards the StuGs. Obviously, the Russians want to avoid the shoot-out and turn it into a knife-fight instead. Getting onto the StuG flanks allows access to that weak 3AF and uses the lack of a turret against them. Close-in fighting also makes the Russian APCR much nastier, and since all the Soviet armor has A6 (due to Guards status and C8.2), it's a very real threat. APCR kicks the 76L TK up to 17 and the 45L up to 15, very respectable numbers even against the StuGs frontal armor. Finally, the Russians have the advantage of speed and numbers. Seven total tanks (and three with 17MP) against the four German assault guns mean the Soviets have a very good chance of getting some of those tasty flank shots.

I can't remember if Rob wanted the Germans or if we diced for sides, but I ended up with the Russians and started putting together a defense. Obviously, the foxholes are key and I set most of them as far away from the Germans as possible. This meant they were on the very edge of the hill and any unit I had in them could cross the crest line and get out of LOS if needed. That also put my rally terrain much closer to the foxholes and would make broken Germans either low crawl or rout far far away. I did try to get clever with one foxhole, putting it in the middle of the woods clump on the left hill. That was about the only area on the entire map where I could skulk, the StuGs couldn't get at it, and I also had some ideas about sucking the Germans in and then tying them down with pointblank fire and CC. Since I only started with six squads and one leader, I didn't fancy going toe-to-toe with Rob's 9-2 and MMG, so my troops were all set up back on the hills with no LOS to the German set-up area. That did abdicate all initiative to the other side, but I figured the concealment gain and force preservation would mitigate that somewhat.

Rob was all over the total freedom of movement, and soon there were large stacks of Germans headed towards my hills. The entire initial force charged towards my left hill, while the reinforcing StuGs and infantry went towards my right. In response, I sent my turn two wave of T-70s and riflemen towards my left to respond to Rob. I soon had seven squads and four tanks in that area facing twelve German squads, while the right saw my three squads facing four 4-6-7s and the StuGs. There had been no real action to this point, as my Russians were hiding as best they could. Really, the most interesting development to this point was Rob mentioning that he was exhausted from staying up until 3AM the previous night with Eric playing drinking games.

Things picked up a bit on turn three, but it rapidly became apparent that Rob was rather the worse for wear after the night's festivities. I've written before that ASL is a cruel mistress who punishes even the slightest mistake, and that held true once again. It's not that Rob make any major mistakes, or even many minor ones. However, when a few of your units are even a single hex out of position and this happens repeatedly turn after turn, it's almost impossible to avoid defeat. The seeming insignificance of Rob's miscues are why I can't point to anything specific (and are, incidentally, why I think it's so hard to get good at this game) but his attack into the woods-patch on the left hill bogged down with heavy casualties. This, along with my T-70s pestering the German infantry, caused Rob to react by swinging two StuGs over from the right-hand hill in support. Here, he made the one mistake I can point at, by parking the two assault guns where a hedge really limited their mutual LOS. They could still cover each other a bit, but there were some big blind spots for my turn three reinforcing T-34s to exploit.

After puzzling over just how to take advantage of the situation, I decided to send in two T-70s first and see what happened. Well, what happened was that Rob, needing a six TH, torched the first tank with a CH, keeping rate. Hmmm...was the fatigue just a ploy? Was Rob playing me for a fool? I decided not to mess around with the second T-70 and drove right into the lead StuG's location, staying in motion and locking it down. There were no good choices for the Germans here, and Rob elected to hold his fire. I then drove my first two T-34s up to the action, leaving them in the blind spot of the wing-man StuG. Deciding the CH had just been luck, I got frisky with my last T-34 and drove it far into the rear, DMing some broken Germans along the way and ending up in LOS of the wing-man SuG but hull-down behind a wall. Rob opted to take that shot, even though it required spinning the AFV a few hexspines, and rolled the required 3TH...but it was a hull hit and the shell slammed harmlessly into the wall. My return AFPh went one better. I rolled the needed 3 to hit him and then a 5 for an immobilization. Ouch.

That left the lead StuG really hung out to dry, and Rob elected to try and drive him away in his turn four. That didn't work so well, and although I burned through all my APCR shooting at it, the StuG was destroyed. The immobilized StuG was hit in the rear by an ATR and another lucky roll for me (net 5TK) knocked it out completely. Trading half of Rob's armor for a single T-70 was obviously huge; the two assault guns were slightly misplayed when placed where they couldn't quite cover each other, but I'd still been very lucky. At this point, you think I'd be in great shape, but that wasn't quite the case. As you may recall, my set-up had placed a single foxhole on the left hill in a clump of woods, and Rob had finally captured it. He didn't have all twelve squads that he'd started with, but enough landsers remained to stuff any possible counter-attack. So, if Rob could take the three foxholes on the right-side hill, he'd still pull out a win. Over on that side, we now both had four squads, along with the last two StuGs, far too even a match-up for my taste.

At this point, I was kicking myself for my perceived 'cleverness' in placing that one foxhole where tanks couldn't get at it. Instead, my remaining six AFVs would have to try and ride to the rescue on the right-hand hill. They wasted a turn maneuvering towards it, during which a 5-4-8 looking for a Iron Cross torched a T-70 via a placed DC. Meanwhile, Rob's remaining StuGs blasted two of my squads out of their foxholes and laid down some smoke rounds to cover the approach of his infantry. By the end of my turn five, my tanks were finally in position to influence the action on the right-hand hill, but I was down to two squads trying to guard one last foxhole. It was going to be close.

Close, that is, until Rob rolled up some Gusts at the start of his turn six and all that nice smoke he'd placed vanished. That was a horrible piece of luck, and although he coaxed one more smoke round out of his StuGs, the German infantry would now be forced to cross open ground to get that last foxhole. The only real choice was whether to maneuver a bit for position and try the rush on the last half turn of the game or to charge in right away. Well, Rob is a man of decisive action and decided to take the foxhole then and there. It was a tough decision and I'm not sure there was a right answer, but in the end a last desperate charge of a 9-1/4-6-7 was stopped just short of the foxhole by a 4-2 CMG shot from a T-34. Both units broke and with all the other German infantry in the area broken as well from earlier rushes, the Soviets got the win.

It was another fun game against a great opponent, and had the gust not intervened, the German infantry would have had a corridor of smoke covering them as they made their turn six rush. At that point, the game likely would have gone down to a CC in the foxhole, and the Russians would have been the ones facing a series of difficult decisions on their last player turn. The scenario itself was quite enjoyable, and plays out in a more interesting fashion than the impression you get just looking at the card. I have to tip my hat to Rob for handling his rough luck and my great dice with a shrug and a smile. Now that I think about it, this is the second scenario we've played where the weather was a huge swing factor. I pulled out a victory by the barest of margins in ASL119 Ancient Feud only because I rolled up a mild breeze on the very first turn. Sorry about that Rob, and maybe next time we should play a scenario with no smoke in it! Finally, this was another game in which I learned a valuable life lesson: never play drinking games with Eric.

Thanks for reading,

Zeb

Owlcon AAR: CH41 Test Of Nerves

Zeb Doyle

Owlcon AAR Part III; Saturday Morning:

British: Zeb Doyle
Germans: Ken Havlinek

I was pretty excited about the Saturday morning scenario since it was to be the prearranged duel on the drumlins with Nick Drinkwater. I’d actually had a beer mug commissioned especially for the occasion, with a picture of a lion on one side (his troops) and a donkey (Nick) on the other side for trash talking purposes. I figured that ‘lions led by donkeys’ jokes would be the only entertainment of the scenario as the troops under Nick’s hapless command would doubtlessly be butchered. It appears Nick felt the same way, and (as I have already written) he tearfully backed out of our match and I instead found myself playing Ken Havlienk in CH41 Test Of Nerves.

This scenario is based on the second day of the fight at Villers-Bocage during which Michael Wittman and accompanying Tigers tore up the British 7th Armored Division. Since the event is so famous, there are multiple ASL scenarios representing the action. At first glance, the CH version seems a little vanilla, with five turns of action on board 24 and a small German force of six 5-4-8s, three Tigers, and a Panzer IVH attacking four British squads, three Cromwells, a Firefly, and a 57L AT gun. The British get some 76mm Battalion OBA in support, and win at game end if they have a stopped AFV with functioning MA and LOS to a key crossroad. One minor oddity is that that the British (despite defending) set up second and move first. What really makes the scenario stand out from the other Viller-Bocage actions is that both sides get to set up their AFVs HIP. That simple SSR goes a long way towards making the scenario a true test of nerves.

The defending British armor is clearly outclassed, with only the Firefly able to deal with the Tigers through the frontal armor. The 57L ATG and the 95mm HEAT round from the Cromwell VI also have a chance, but require a bit of luck with their depletable ammo and TK rolls. Both sides have armor leaders, but again the Germans have the edge, with a 10-2 Wittman and a 9-1 wingman against an anonymous 9-1 and 8-1. The British infantry is also outmanned, with only four 4-5-8s squads and a single leader (who also has to handle radio duties) against six 5-4-8s, a 9-2, 8-1, and an MMG. The 76mm OBA helps out a lot here, but even better for the British cause is the fact that much of their set-up area has LOS to the VC crossroads; the onus is on the Germans to come forward and dig out all that HIP armor for the win.

Ken ended up with the Germans and set up for the attack. I then placed my plucky defending British. Set-up is always tricky, and I spent a lot of time fussing over where to station my lone leader and his radio. There’s no good spot that offers both good LOS and safety from the German firepower, and eventually I decided he’d end up in the rear of the infamous board 24 hillside multi-level building (V3). My Firefly (easily the most important British piece of equipment) was HIP in the X1 woods clump, with the 95mm Cromwell VII well back covering it. Only the Firefly actually had LOS to the crossroads, as I was trying to strike a balance between covering the VC area and forcing the Tigers to come and get me. The remaining two Cromwell VIs, the AT gun, and the infantry were scattered about, mainly ready to die in place to protect the Cromwell VII and Firefly.

The first player turn was pretty boring, as all my infantry were set up out of LOS to get concealment and only moved into their actual defensive positions during the APh. Thankfully, Ken is a very entertaining guy, with lots of (real) stories about strippers, chigger and red ant attacks, and all kinds of other crazy stuff. My main take-away was that if you return from Africa and come down with a cold that lasts more than three days, immediately go to the emergency room. It’s still a toss-up however as to whether tropical parasites are worse for your health than current girlfriends learning about ex-stripper girlfriends.. Learning all this valuable info actually made me forget to whine when my first roll for radio contact was a ten.

The first German player turn featured a lot more action. Although I again failed my radio contact roll, Ken’s dice were even worse. A 2-3-8/PSK died to a 6-2 K/, and left the vital LATW sitting in no-man’s land for the rest of the game. Even worse, a precious Tiger malfed its MA and based on an earlier shot, I knew it had an armor leader in it. Ouch. All this bad luck continued into turn two, when I pulled a red card for the OBA and broke my 95mm howitzer Cromwell trying to place smoke. Thankfully, the Cromwell later managed to repair the MA, our bad luck largely subsided, and we were able to focus in on the tactics and not the dice.

The next few turns saw Ken’s jackbooted troopers grinding me down in very efficient fashion. The two Tigers that still had functioning MAs blasted me up and his 9-2 kill stack also did a lot of damage. Ken also did a great job being patient with his armor and using his infantry to probe for my HIP traps. As such, my 57L was soon discovered and only managed to knock out the Pz IV with a desperate IF shot before going down. By the start of my turn four, my infantry was pretty much out of the running and although my HIP armor all remained undiscovered, Ken still had two movement phases left.

At this point, I made a moderate-sized blunder. I finally had a spotting round in place, but my leader had been forced to fall back into some woods to establish a rally point and couldn’t see anything useful. Here, I should have just accepted the reality that my infantry was gone, called in harassing fire on top of them, and at least cut way down on Ken’s maneuverability for the rest of game. Instead, I went soft, kept my SR uselessly dancing around, and futilely tried to rally my remaining DM rabble. I am a lucky guy, but for once, adapting a strategy of trying to roll threes and fours didn’t pay off for me and with the German turn four MPh rolled around with not much between Ken and my tanks…

Luckily for me, Ken didn’t quite take advantage of my miscue. He’d done a fantastic job over the first three turns of cautiously grinding me down, and now that I had nothing left to stop him, the shift to all-out blitzkrieg didn’t fully happen. He bagged my remaining infantry as prisoners, spread out a bit to guard against a final-turn rush by me to get LOS into the VC area, but didn’t quite push hard enough to actually find any of my armor. That wasn’t terrible, but he then parked both his Tigers with working MA on the crossroads right where my Firefly could see them both. This was really a piece of bad luck, especially after Ken had done so well avoiding that faux pas earlier.

With those two tasty targets in my sights, the Firefly opened up in DFPh on the lead Tiger.. Needing an 8 to hit, I rolled a 9, but revealed my 9-1 AL for the kill. The AFPh was equally tense. Ken’s last MA Tiger blasted back at me with a base 3TH. The dice bounced around and came up with a five. There was a moment of silence as Ken rechecked his notes and declared the shot a miss. I had to let out a big sigh of relief even as I felt for Ken at the same time…it had been the 10-2 Wittman AL that had malfed his MA, not the 9-1, and if things had gone the other way, my Firefly would likely have been burning and the game all but over.

After that big break, I managed to kill off Ken’s second Tiger in my turn five PFPh and reposition my armor such that one Cromwell had LOS to the VC area and all the others were covering the Firefly. That put way too much pressure on the German infantry, and although Ken did everything he could with the hand he was dealt, lots of CMG and point-blank MA fire ended the game with a British win.

It’s certainly an interesting scenario, and one I’d play again as either side. It’s obviously on the small end of tourney-sized and the OBA and armor make it a bit dicy, but I think both sides have just enough tools that losing one weapon system won’t completely doom you. The HIP tanks are also a lot of fun, and it is enjoyable watching the Tigers skulk around in fear of the Firefly. Well-played on Ken’s part; the loss of the PSK and the 10-2 Tiger (who never repaired his MA) made the hill just a bit too steep to climb, but he was still right in it all the way to the end, and a more aggressive infantry force on turn four might have made all the difference.

That’s it for now, thanks again as always for reading my drivel.

Zeb

Houston February Gameday

Zeb Doyle

Here's another report after my successful exfiltration from Houston:

I'd been inserted into the Bayou City ostensibly to reclaim a 'lost' rulebook, but my real mission was to monitor Houston ASL activity and see if they pose any threat in the Texas Team Tourney this year. Gentlemen, the reconnaissance was successful, but I bear grim tidings. Walter's Starter Kit work at Owlcon is really paying off with two new faces at his game day. Randy is an old-time SL player who really seems to know his stuff, and Mark Carter is enthusiastic and learning fast. Even worse, Mark deployed some amazing and delicious cutting edge caffeine technology. The two half-gallon cardboard containers (one loaded with Sumatra blend, the other Pike's Market) were shocking enough, but they also came with little paper cups all marked up with trippy quotes like "A movie is not what it is about. It is about how it is about it." It's like they're all trying to keep Houston weird or something. At any rate, I'm not sure how the Houstonites have mastered the secrets of caffeine so quickly and completely (I suggest intensive interrogations of Roy Casagranda), but we must face the truth: there is a coffee gap in Texas and we are on the wrong side of it. This massive stockpile of caffeine, actually based in Cypress and thus in easy reach of our shores, is something we cannot stand for. I suggest we force the Houstonites to verify there are no offensive supplies of coffee there, blockade Walt's house, and initiate a series of U2 reconnaissance flights over the area.

Aside from the coffee issue, things are going well in the world of Houston ASL. Steve Miller and Walter faced off against John Hyler in G44 Abandon Ship and I'm pretty sure John won. It WAS his birthday, so maybe Steve and Walter were just going easy on him. Mark and Randy had a good game of some SK scenario, the name of which currently escapes me. The final game featured Tom Gillisov and myself in a entertaining match of ESG7 Backstab. This is an early war pillow fight with a lot of Italians attacking some unmotivated pre-capitulation French. Tom tells me that the scenario takes place near the Riviera, and we had a lot of fun picturing a bunch of Left Bank bohemians being rousted out of various cafes and drinking establishments and press-ganged into the army, being thrilled to be assigned to the fleshpots of southern France, and then getting steamrolled by a bunch of Italians.

That mental image was the highlight of the scenario, sad to say. The more I think about it, the more I think it may favor the Italians. They get 24 squads, of which 16 are first line, while the French have to make do with twelve, including nine green squads. Both sides have the 2 ELR, which hurts the French more as most of their units disrupt immediately rather than ELRing like the Italians. The French do get a 155mm ART piece which is pretty nasty, but it's also B11, while the Italians have a FT tank, a FT, an HMG, an 81mm MTR, and dominate the armor battle with seven tanks vs. two. Sure, almost all the Italian equipment is B11 as well, but there's a lot more of it and nothing is quite as vital as that 155mm is to the French. I may have had an inkling of this in my subconscious, because when Tom picked the scenario, I went right for the attacking Italians. I obviously wasn't thinking too clearly though, and not even the copious amounts of coffee helped, because I got confused and pulled myself three CMG-armed tanks, rather than the two CMG and two 37mm tanks I should have received. That was another thing I didn't notice until after the game and it really made the lone 37* armed FT-17 a lot tougher...

However, even with that minor mess-up, my Italians were able to pretty much accomplish everything they wanted to do. The VC involve capturing a hill or exiting 35VP (including 25 infantry VP), but since it's a Deluxe scenario, I only had to go 15 hexes in eight turns to achieve either objective. Thus, my men were able to move at a very leisurely pace...more a stroll in the country than an offensive.My worst unit, surprisingly, was the 81mm MTR, which got into position on turn two, dropped its only smoke round of the game on Tom's ART piece, and then spent the next seven fire phases shooting at that same 155mm gun. The MTR never got rate, often rolled an 11, which is what it takes to miss a double-acq'd, large target, and ended up never doing a single thing. I tried not to whine about that too much, but when Tom finally told me to shut up and stop being such a Nick about it, I knew I'd failed.

All the rest of my units performed well though, with the FT tank KIAing everything it shot, my many machine guns getting ROF and disrupting lots of units, and my infantry generally running around and taking prisoners. Tom had rather poor luck, with a 60mm MTR and an LMG X-ing out very early on; obviously something that will happen when green units use B11 weapons, but not something you'd expect on the first shot either. Many of his troops disrupted on their first chance too, and were rapidly taken prisoner. To Monsieur Gillisov's credit, he never complained once, not even when my dice really went into hyper-drive and battle-hardened a 3-4-6 into a 4-4-7 who then captured his 4-3-7 in CC, opening up a flanking maneuver on his 155mm which eventually resulted in its death. That was pretty much the game, and by turn five with more prisoners than good order French squads we called it. Decent but not great fun, and although I'm bad at judging balance and had good luck vs. Tom's bad, I'd not hesitate before taking the Italians again.

That's all for now; thanks for reading and stay tuned to see if there's any resolution to the Cypress coffee crisis,

Zeb

Owlcon AAR Part II: AP41 The Meat Grinder

... or Friday Night Fight

Zeb Doyle

Germans: Zeb Doyle
Russians: Brian Roundhill

After the fun and games at Nick’s house, it was time to head over to Walter’s domain and get in some actual Owlcon action. My first scenario here was against the cagey and crafty Brian Roundhill. We’ve crossed swords a number of times before, and although I’ve generally had the better of it, it’s usually due more to luck than skill. I can readily recall several games in which Brian was fairly comfortably ahead, corrected me on a few rules, and then lost in the last turn on a fluky roll.

We went to the latest Action Pack to select a scenario and picked out AP41 The Meat Grinder. This is a pretty straight-forward fight with little chance for Brian to teach me new rules, but both sides get some interesting units and the five turn length and small size were ideal for our limited Friday night playing time. It’s an early Barbarossa battle, with the defending Russians getting eight squads, two monster KV-2s, and one each of the rarely seen GAZ-4M-AA trucks and the 76LL AA gun. A few reinforcing BT tanks enter on turn one. Against this powerful force, the Wehrmacht comes with ten rifle squads, nice leadership including a 9-2, three tasty Pz IVEs for infantry support, and three Pz IIIHs that enter on either flank on turn two. The board 49 and 56 terrain is excellent for armored maneuver, with a very nice rural village feel to it. Both sides get VP for killing stuff and controlling multi-hex buildings, with the Germans needing the high score for victory.

All of this makes for lots of fun and interesting match-ups. The German infantry is superior to their Russian counterparts, with better range, ELR, and (especially) leadership, but the open nature of the terrain will make it tricky for the landsers to work their way into those multi-hex buildings. The armor battle is a bit more complicated; the KVs clearly dominate but are somewhat hamstrung by their slow speed and red MP. The next best tanks are the PzIIIs, which should easily prevail over the two 45L-armed BT-7s in a straight-up fight but need a lot of luck to handle the KVs. In the infantry support category, the Pz IVs are amazingly good and clearly outclass the lone BT-7A (with the 76* gun) and the unarmored GAZ AA truck. All-in-all, the vehicles have lots of differences in their strengths and weaknesses and there are no easy decisions for any units. The one real wildcard is the Russian 76LL gun. A HIP gun with a two ROF and 16TK is a huge threat at this time of the war, and will really complicate things for the German until it is found.

If memory serves, we diced for sides and Brian got the Russians. His set up was interesting, with several squads pretty far forward, and lots of stuff covering a strip roughly seven hexes wide that contained all the multi-hex buildings on board 56. There were a few units back on board 49, but the clear intent was to make me fight for every VC building and run me out of time. With only five turns, the threat was real enough but I decided to meet the challenge head-on and take my entire force right up that strip and into the heart of Brian’s defense. The open terrain would cut both ways, making it tough to skulk, and with only two Russian leaders I figured I could bag some prisoners for doubled CVP and still get into enough buildings to win.

The game started off with Brian schooling me on the tricky board 56 lines of sight. An HMG way back on board 49 broke a squad, and I endured a scary moment when my 9-2/2x 4-6-7/MMG/LMG stack lost concealment on a razor-thin LOS…but only to an 8-0. If it had been a Russian squad, the ensuing 2-1 shot could have really ruined my day. The rest of game turn one was much less eventful, with the Soviet armor entering and using those amazing 23MP to come up and help box in my infantry.

Turn two started off well for the Germans, with the 9-2 stack getting some nice ROF and trashing two Russian squads. The Pz IVs, with the 8FP machine guns and 75mm gun also got into the action and put some more hurt on Brian. Meanwhile, my Pz IIIs entered on the north flank and managed to pick off the BT-7A and the GAZ-AA truck. Knocking out those Russian infantry support vehicles was great and also scored me some nice CVP. In Brian’s half of the turn, a massive KV dropped concealment and rumbled over to take on a PzIII and with a lucky DI roll I immobilized the monster in a spot where it would be a nuisance but not a major threat. The resulting loss of the Pz III to a return 152mm shell was well worth it. To make things even better, the crew bailed out saving me 2 CVP and opening up the possibility of grabbing a VP building.

Despite my luck, turn three saw things swing back towards the Russians a bit as I tried and failed to crack Brian’s defense. The KVs and remaining BT-7s were in spots that really shut my infantry down, and I was very leery of trying to swarm the Russian tanks with a HIP AA gun still lurking. This forced my assault to slow to a crawl and forced me to give up any hope of grabbing prisoners. That really hurt my VP tally and I was belatedly forced into sending a few half-squads on flanking missions to try and grab some outlying undefended VP buildings. If I’d done that on turn one, I would have been in good shape; as it was, Brian’s skill was more than cancelling out my dice.

The action picked back up again in a hurry in the Soviet DFPh when the 76LL AA gun revealed itself and missed one of my PzIVs. Dropping HIP like that couldn’t have been an easy decision and I’m sure Brian thought long and hard about it. It was a very interesting situation, as the gun was a powerful asset both directly and indirectly. Hidden, the gun was a major indirect factor, forcing my tanks to maneuver very cautiously, stay spread out, and avoid anything too aggressive. In a way, I was happy to lose a tank just to find out where the gun was. However, the 76LL wasn’t doing anything to directly influence the game and was a rapidly depreciating asset as a function of time.

In that sense, when Brian made the call to open up with it, he was making the decision that the direct influence was now worth more over the remainder of the game than the indirect influence. He was probably right. Although my remaining armor could now operate fearlessly, killing the PzIV would give the Russians the VP lead and the German attack at the time was pretty well stalled. If he didn’t take the shot, he’d have to come up with some other way to score VP, and every option for a Russian counterattack looked pretty gloomy. The other factor to consider, though, is that the indirect influence a weapon has is completely uncorrelated to the dice. Regardless of Brian’s luck, as long as the gun was HIP, I would have to be cautious. When the time comes for a weapon to actually do something, chance (aka risk!) becomes heavily involved and the direct influence should be discounted appropriately…

With that kind of build-up, you probably have a pretty good idea of how the Russian turn three PFPh went. The AA gun hit my PzIV but didn’t get rate and the TK roll was a 10, just enough to immobilize my tank. In my turn four, a kamikaze HS ran through an 8+0, a 6+1, and a 4-1 from the 76LL crew to make it into CC with the menace. Two low rolls later, everyone in the gun’s location were dead, saving the PzIV and resulting in a net +1VP for me. That really put Brian into the position of having to quickly do something dramatic. Unfortunately his remaining mobile KV had Stalled on a previous turn and had to risk a street-fighting attempt from my 9-2 and a 4-6-7 to get anywhere useful. Lady luck smiled on me, the KV was knocked out, and the German VP lead became essentially insurmountable ending the game.

It was a fun scenario against a great opponent, although once again I was left with the feeling that Brian had outplayed me. Despite this fact, there was no whining or pouting, which after my previous game was really a welcome relief. Discussing the scenario afterward, we agreed that although neither of us had played brilliantly, my assets (the 9-2, tanks, etc) had really come through for me. Brian’s tricks and traps, had been well-executed but the dice repeatedly refused to show up, with the gun obviously being the major disappointment. Overall, I liked the scenario quite a bit. As mentioned above, the armor match-ups are quite interesting but the buildings are important enough that the infantry battle is really vital. Nicely done by the designer and well-played by Brian….I really thought I was going to bag some prisoners!

Thanks for reading,

Zeb

AAR: WCW8 The Last VC in Europe

Nick Drinkwater

British Player: [SAN 0, ELR 5] Stephane Graciet
German Player: [SAN 0, ELR 4] Nick Drinkwater

A very short and sweet scenario that we completed in approximately 2.5 hours. The Germans have 5 turns in which they have to control six of the eleven available buildings within the British setup area. Weather is continual, non-changing (by SSR) light rain and that limits both attack and defense smoking options critically, especially as due to it being April, the numerous grain fields that surround many fo the approaches to the hamlet are now infantry-killing ploughed fields. As a result, the attacking Germans tend to get a little bit funnelled through those few pieces of brush and orchard cover that are present and hence make it easier for the British to defend. (Note that several small one and two hex brush, buildings and orchards have been added to the Board 17 scattered hamlet through use of overlays).

The twist in this scenario comes from the attempt to adhere to the historical narrative. In real life, one of the Guards tanks was mechanically out of action and so a Guardsman jumped out and kept the Germans at bay by prodigious application of Browning MG fire. This is imitated in the game by the ability of one of the tanks to be identified as secretly MA malfunctioned and then through n activation dice roll, the British are able to generate a hero and LMG instead - the only way to stop this is to make that Sherman a burning wreck - guess what I did? :-)

The other historical SSR is that the tank crews were all out of their vehicles drinking tea when the Germans attacked - how very British! In the game, the Brits must remount their tanks in Brit Turn 1. I was hoping to drive on fast in Turn 1 and catch them napping with judicious bounding fire before they had a chance to get going and was eagerly looking forward to a bunch of burning Ronsons. As I was merrily setting up my three Stugs for a turn one entry, Stephane punctured my ego-driven balloon by pointing out in the small print the small but critical detail that German armour does not enter until Turn 2...darn it! Another fine plan foiled by inconvenient rules!!

Anyhoo, with said Stugs, my six German 1st liners with 8-1 and 8-0 and LMGs had to overcome Stephane's four British elites with a solitary 8-1 backed by three normal Shermans and a Firefly - randomly, one of the normal Shermans was MA disabled, and this just happened to be the one that I sent my entire Stug platoon against in Turn 2. Result - advancing fire phase, burn that hero! That was big and was then immediately followed by me burning two more Shermans from 8-1 directed three-hex panzerfaust range from the southern woods fringes - that large target modifier is a beast for Shermans versus fausts, making the To Hits a very tasty 7 at three hex range.

This game was one of those short and sweet affairs where nothing went right for Stephane at all - every To Hit or IFT roll he tried was somewhere north of eight and he couldn't get an even break. Even when he did hit my infantry, I would pull a comfy four out of nowhere and I swept all before me. I managed to destroy the last M4 with a snakey LOS Stug shot through the village modified by rain and two brushes and still knocked it over. I managed to break a half-squad and a vehicle crew with fire and then sent the Stugs in to enforce FTR and that was almost that. In my penultimate shot of the game I managed to CR a pinned squad but they generated a hero in return - taking a risk , I jumped into CC with these guys with a lowly HS - these guys proceeded to roll a 2 and wiped out the newly created hero and his pinned mates to give me my fifth of sixth VC locations. Finally, I managed to roll a four to give another two check on a squad that was about to become encircled - Stephane found a 10 on that roll and then admitted defeat.

Good play allied to Stephane dicing himself horribly meant this was a wash. With only two squads left and the 8-1 facing all six of my squads plus all three Stugs meant Stephane had nowhere left to go as he was about to be completely encircled and surrounded - this was definitely my most complete victory over him, but I am hoping things even out for him shortly as he has had a few real life issues to contend with recently. Give this one a spin if you have a short evening to play and want something simple to get into quickly.

Owlcon AAR: SP 76 Flaming of the Guard

Nick Drinkwater

German Player [ELR 4, SAN 3]: Matt Schwoebel
British Player [ELR 4, SAN 4]: Nick Drinkwater

This is a fun scenario. I really enjoyed this one and would recommend it to anyone to play. There are several great little challenges to overcome in this for both players, lots of fun toys for either side and it should come down to a nice close little denouement around the main cross-roads in the village.

My opponent in this was Matt Schwoebel, always fun and always a good test - I've played Matt four times now and I've shaded him in three of these but all of these games have been really close and they've all come down to the last turn, and in each of them, either of us could have won at the death, so I was fully expecting this one to go the distance and be a squeaker. I wasn't to be disappointed.

The appeal of this scenario is that the Germans are for once meeting their match, and then some. Yes, they receive the two flamethrowers and the five (yes, five) Panthers but here they really are going to need them as these Brits are strong-men armed indeed. To keep those five cats at bay, they have been issued with a basic Sherman, two Fireflies and most impressive of all, two 17lb AT guns with the mighty 2ROF - four tubes that have a basic TK of 23 which can whack a Panther with some ease, and also the option to find APDS to raise that kill to a 25. These Panthers had better beware indeed and they will need to be handled carefully as they will swiftly go down to quality British gunnery if given the chance.

The action is set on two half-boards of 42 and 49 set up to create a straggling village that lines the main village street in a north-south direction. There are several large stone buildings on either side of the road but adjacent to it are two east-west lateral roads that form important intersections within the village. The first of these is in the northern part of the village and is surrounded by woods, brush orchards and hedges together with some of the village's more isolated houses. The orchards in particular could form a good if not somewhat obvious place to put a hidden HIP gun but it will dominate the ENE and Northern entry routes of the Germans. The other E-W lateral road forms a significant cross-roads in the core of the village surrounded by prominent stone, often multi-hex houses and this could easily form the fall-back core of any late game British defense. East of the N-S road is a walled, multi-level stone building complex that can dominate German entry routes from the eastern side if the British so-choose, just to the south of the Board 42 hill-orchard-wall complex, another natural entry point for the Germans.

To win, the Germans must have at least one Good Order mobile Panther within four hexes of 49H9 and ensure that there are less than 10 VP worth of unbroken British infantry in building hexes adjacent to the Board 42/49 north-south village road - and note that being in melee (and hence not in good order) is not being penalised for once. To achieve this, as well as the five Panthers and two flamethrowers, the Germans receive a very tasty mixed elite and 1st line infantry company with MG and PSk support together with some hard-hitting leadership (10-2, two 8-1s and an 8-0) but they will need this as their opponents are elite and in stone buildings - always a tough task to dig out. They do also receive some tactical flexibility in their set-up in that they can enter from the entire eastern side of the game area, as well as half of the north and south sides too, so there may be opportunities to indulge in some encirclements with the Panthers, once the location of the two lethal AT Guns is known.

Facing this Germanic juggernaut is a tough group of British hombres - an armour reinforced company of Irish Guards with lethal anti-tank support. As mentioned, the two Fireflies are clearly useful against the Panthers but their HE7 limits their anti-infantry uses; they do receive a basic Sherman to help on that front. They have also been issued a Bren Carrier MMGB and the first task for that will be to strip the MG out of it and drop it into the hands of the awesome 9-2. In addition, they have a couple of Piats for AT defense and a couple of 8-1 leaders to help the slowly retracting fallback defense I am intending to apply.

I debated hard about defending the big eastern stone building hard but I was concerned that I may get isolated from the main part of the village and surrounded by any Germans driving down the road from the north and then picked off at my leisure, so I leave just a couple of squads in there to try and delay the Germans for a couple of turns, but with no expectations they would still be there at scenario end. Instead the bulk of the defenders were placed in the roadside buildings lining the west side of the road in positions to threaten and defend the two crossroad positions. One of the Fireflies was placed in a building in the SE portion of the village to support the two outlying squads in the eastern building complex. The other was held back in reserve with the Sherman to be a reactionary force poised in the west to respond to German armour threats as and where they develop. One AT Gun was placed into the more wooded northern crossroads orchards and the other was tucked into a building where it could totally dominate the open field approaches on the southern half of Board 49.

That second placement became very sweet when I saw Matt line up three Panthers on the southern road entry hex...juicy targets here we come! Unwittingly, Matt duly rolled the three Panthers on first - they didn't know what had hit them (literally as I didn't drop concealment and kept rate) and all three were smoking by the end of German Turn 1 Defensive Fire as I managed to finish off the last one with a turret shot, the other two having gone down in Turn 1 to a kill, immobilization and a shock (then killed). Matt even missed driving through my bore-sighted hex but it didn't matter to these dead-eye shots. Sweet!! This was a massive blow and now Matt had to really take no risks with his surviving Panthers as he had to keep at least one alive in the central area to fulfill the VC.

Matt's eastern attacks came on the SE area (held up hard by my eastern building defenders) and through the wall-hill-orchard area of board 42 (with both the other two Panthers, MMG and his 10-2). He luckily swerved to the left of the other HIP AT Gun and its bore-sighted hex, so these guys kept hidden and bided their time and waited for other targets appear. Finally he brought a couple of concealed stacks from the north to threaten the northern Board 42 crossroads - and what a threat they were as they stripped down to reveal both FTs dealing a case of tough fiery love.

Despite the early losses, Matt kept pushing on hard especially through the hill-orchard complex area. The two Panthers took up safe positions behind walls here to wait and see what else would be revealed by the infantry attack. Unfortunately Matt's south-eastern attacks into the village ground to a halt as my two outlying squads and 8-1 and LMG just refused to budge. Matt pushed both the Flamethrower units forward to the south through the orchards looking for targets but I pulled back any broken units I had to offer no real targets for a turn or two. Ultimately my HIP Gun was walked into and 'found' but Matt's 4-6-8 survived the 4-2 shot from the crew merely broken. Luckily, I had managed to disrupt Matt's 4-6-8 and 10-2 stack with some timely breaks and that relieved the pressure in that area a little for a while.

In the mid game, I moved a Firefly to play a duel of hull-down chicken with one of the Panthers. I apparently won this with an Intensive Fire Turret hit, but I should really have lost this as Matt had hit me with a snakes. We mis-played this one though as we'd originally called it a miss, as we'd forgotten this was actually a critical hit, irrespective of hull-down status - we thought it hit the wall, and so, I offered to scratch my Firefly as well as his Panther. It was a big move and a big mistake on both our parts and I thought this was the least I could do in this situation. This did create a hole for Matt to push a couple of squads into the eastern building complex from his 10-2 orchard-hill area assault as his ESE entry team had been completely stopped at this point. The other key thing was this meant that Matt now had no real margin for error with his other Panther - it had to be kept alive and out of harms way.

Eventually, the continuous German infantry pressure continued to tell and it was the flamethrowers which were making the difference. Matt continued to roll 12 flat or 12+1 sixes and sevens against my outlying defenders and they had to fall back to the main crossroads strongpoint where the 9-2 with his MG was now in charge with a bunch of concealed squads. In the end, it all came down to the last two player turns of the game. In a huge Prep Fire spraying fire shot, I kept rate with the 9-2 and MG at an adjacent 8-0 with a FT and at a squad at one hex range. On the first shot, the 8-0 merely pinned whilst the 468 broke after I rolled a timely 3, but the follow up rate "5' caused a 1-check which saw the breaking of the 8-0 too. Huge, huge. huge as the two units that could really swing the game with single shots were both removed, and failed to subsequently rally in the last German turn.

A huge hot sniper which then came and broke a 4-6-8 at the back of building helped me a lot as well as it meant that Matt would not be able to DM three of my squads in the strongpoint with defensive fire. Finally, I shoved the surviving Firefly into the hex between the 10-2, MMG and 468 and my killstack, but failed to find and SM6 smoke cover - this was backed up by the Sherman which was placed the adjacent road hex to dominate with tank shells and MGs any infantry trying to get into the last building in the last turn. Finally, I moved my now spare AT Gun crew into an adjacent hex and then stacked as much infantry as I could in the neighbouring buildings to make sure I entered the last turn with over 18VP in place.

In my CC phase, Matt was able to survive an ambush by my concealed squad and then killed them in return with another squad to take away some of my precious infantry VPs, but I still had 14VP of infantry units left in the buildings. Matt had to break some of these but his 10-2 /MMG gacked its roll with a ten and all of Matt's other desperate moves to get into the victory buildings ended up in piles of twitching bodies in the streets.

Good game this one and a lot of fun. Despite the early shock of the Panther carnage, Matt kept pressing and pressing and while the two flamethrowers were working, I was never comfortable as it would just take one or two grim rolls to change everything. I was pleased that I played the end-game with the two tanks well to make it really hard for Matt, but ultimately it really came down to the very timely sniper and the brilliant 9-2 MG rate spraying fire shot that was probably the difference. Rolling low helps and Matt was just not helped by some horrible dice luck. Good fun and I look forward to the next time we meet.

Matt sent the following comments through and I agree 100% with them. He really played a solid game after the horror show of the first turn and his tactics were right - just a little unlucky with some of the key rolls at key moments!

"Hey Nick,

I have been pondering our last game, usually waking up from a dead sleep screaming. I think the one biggish mistake I made with the 3 Panthers entering really should have cost me 1 tank. I only had 3 hexes or so until out-of-sight freedom from the 76LL of death. Your low roll streak there really hurt. The surviving 2 Panthers could have then threatened that flank. I call us even for my 50L rate streak last time! Even I say! The critical also cost me, since we traded tanks where if I had remembered the rule I would have had 2 tanks at the end. One would have VBM sleeze freezed your big stack, of course :-). And I needed just one sub-par roll against the FTs... You played a master defense, as usual. I'm proud that I came back enough through infantry play and some good ideas on the initial attack to make a game of it. If you ignore the 3 Panthers, I think my plan was solid. The goal was to pressure your 9-2 held building from front while FTs hit it from the flank. If I had to do it over again...

1) The stack on your far right flank that attacked near the gully had 2 squads and an 8-0. It stalled for quite some time, largely due to the lack of Panther support (may they rest in peace). Instead, I would have one squad add umph to the attack against the frontline multihex building. The other squad and leader would be added to the flank FT attack group.

2) I should have brought all 5 Panthers in together and let the infantry feel forward. Maybe lose one to your left flank 76LL.

Matt"

Owlcon AAR: SP64 Valour on the Bou

Nick Drinkwater

German Player: [ELR 4, SAN 3] Nick Drinkwater
British Player: [ELR 4, SAN 4] John Hyler

A good, solid tourney scenario set in Tunisia in April 1943. Some desperate Irish Guards are holed up on a bare rocky massif and they have to stop a pretty nifty German elite infantry force from having any kind of toe-hold on level 2 or higher hexes on Board 9. This is a very straightforward infantry attack by the Germans with the attraction of having elite forces from both nations going at each other hammer and tongs. The twist in this scenario (which came from the Victoria Cross pack from Schwerpunkt) is the British Hero, representing Guardsman Keneally. In a nice special AAR, he can receive a special -3 DRM if he fires solely a British LMG. Normally with 1FP, you could probably withstand and ignore the effects, even at -1 , but the Germans have to attack over some very open terrain, and that looks a whole lot nastier all of a sudden.

The other kicker in this one is that Board 37 is used with inherent olive groves in effect and this is where the Germans must start their attack from, concealed, before they scale the rocky heights. They also receive a Level 3 overwatch platoon on the southern side of Board 9 which can shoot across a small valley to the Brits entrenched on the south edge of the opposing hilltop. This is good as they may be able to steer routing Brits away from the main assault's overlooking cliff edge towards the NE far side of the big hill. You may even be able to use one of these squads to sneak down to the far east side of the playing area where there are some nice empty hills and claim a cheap win at the death.

The Brits get their usual but a little depleted company of quality sharpshooters, this time coming in the form of the Irish Guards (4-5-8) and they get a very nasty 9-2 to hurt the Germans in this -1 terrain. Ugly. They have a 76*mm Mtr to add weight to the defense as well as a light mortar and a couple of LMGs. In reply, the Germans get a nice gaggle of nine 4-6-8s to play with, a MMG, LMGs and some attitude - they are going to need it to get up that hill!

I focussed most of my attack through the northern part of the olive grove and also try to send a sneak half-squad around the backside (north) of the big British hill, primarily to be annoying to John but also hopefully siphon off a squad from the defense. John has set up hard at the plateau's edge in trenches and sangars and the mortar makes it's presence felt from the level 4 top of the hill, though John has mistakenly mis-placed it onboard in a non-optimum position, (Board 9's castle and building are SSR'ed to crags in this one). Ominously, the one thing that hasn't revealed itself is a mini "?" stack at Level one on the extreme west edge of the victory hill with good commanding views of the lower slopes of the hill and its approaches - wonder what that is?!!

My overwatch and John's overwatch platoons exchanged insults and hand gestures for 2-3 turns ("I sneer in your general direction" etc) but that is about it - John's sangar and trench positions are enough to deflect most of the shots from me and I have crag protection in return - relatively little really happens here.

However, in the main assault, I receive some nice early dice and am able to send John's 9-2 and three squads rolling back across the hill - the only protector of the trench line is the mystery level one stack. To remove this thorn in my side, first I am able to manoeuvre a squad and a half adjacent to him so I am going to get the bugger in CC, come what may. But I also need to use this chance to get up that hill before and take over the recently abandoned British real estate before the 9-2 rallies everyone. So, my brave Germans step off up the hill and John lays down the inevitable hero-directed fire lane. Of the 8 units that broach the corridor of death, 6 pin or break, including my 9-1, but I am able to get 2 squads past him and up the hill ready to advance into the now abandoned British sangar line. Unsurprisingly the hero went down in a flurry of rifle butts and bayonets, but certainly he'd followed the script and done his job.

As only to be expected, the 9-2 swiftly rallied all three of John's broken squads and this formed a very potent counter-attacking force across the top of the plateau, but John was also forced to siphon off a squad to neutralise the threat from my tricky half-squad on the north side of the big cliff. However, the big 9-2 led counter attack and the newly rallied Mortar Squad started to take their toll on my attackers and my force started to attrite and roll backwards again.

In the last movement for me, I needed to counter this - I had a bridgehead, albeit a small one on the main British hill, but I was looking at a lot of last turn moves and attacks to deny me the win and it was looking a bit rocky.

To try and pin down the British overwatch platoon, I sent an overwatch squad down the hill over to the NE to threaten John's back area - these guys broke to a 2 flat long shot. Next, my infiltrating half-squad made a dash for glory to the Brits far rear hill, but they went down in a 4-2 snake eyes shot which must have hurt. Finally, my last two overwatch squads went on desperate runs across their own little valley of death to try and snag some awkward level 2 hexes on the SW corner of the big Brit hill but both pinned one hex short - so infuriating!

So for Brit turn 5, I was left grimly holding on to my small Level 2 and 3 bridgehead on the big hill and that was it. John had to deny me good order status for all my squads there, including a 9-1 and 468 that were out of sight of all the hilltop British units at the bottom of the Level 4 cliff. These guys were protected by a solid ring of outlying German units, one of which would have to be eliminated to provide a gap into which a dashing British unit could gain access to the back line. His best bet for this was to use the 9-2 to carve a hole with a -1 shot through the defenders and then jump into CC with everyone else, but it was not to be as he rolled a 10 on his prep fire roll. He tried some more pot-shots by other units at +1, and I negated the problem of the 76*Mtr as I was inside its minimum range so I was able to hold on for the win.

Nice tight game against a fun opponent and a a quick and quite replayable scenario. John was a little unlucky as he had the cooler dice and my breaking of the British cliff edge line in Turn 2 was critical as it enabled me to get a small foothold on the top of the hill that John was never able to quite remove. Despite the hero's best efforts, that was probably the ultimate factor in winning. I was now 2-1 for Owlcon overall and had played four essentially straight up infantry scenarios in a row. Time for something meatier next.

Owlcon AAR: FrF2 Maczek Fire Brigade

Nick Drinkwater

Polish Player [ELR 3, SAN 3]: Tom Gillis
German Player [ELR 4, SAN 2]: Nick Drinkwater

Poland 1939 for the final Owlcon game and my good friend Mr. Gillis as my worthy opponent with the doomed but doughty Poles. Tom and myself have been developing a finely tuned friendly rivalry where we seem to have taken it in turns to beat the other over the last few months. He slaughtered me hard back in November in some RBF4 Axis Minor fun, so obviously it was my turn to return the favour? Right?

This is a fun scenario from the very first Friendly Fire Pack which pitches two good sized OOBs against each other in a classic "take-the-village" scenario. The action is set on Boards 50 (the new hilly wooded one) and 17 (one of the great fields-heavy ones we received in Yanks). The layout is augmented by a couple of building overlays in order to beef up the German victory requirements to taking 12 out of approximately 21 possible victory buildings over 6 turns. The majority of the buildings are centred around the loose village crossroads on Board 17 but there are also two additional buildings perched high on the rearmost hill of Board 50 which could prove vital, assuming the Germans can sneak someone up there. The Germans arrive from offboard and are attacking to the north along the long axis of the boards, whilst the Poles need to defend a two board frontage from hexrow L backwards. The western half of the German entry area is dominated by the monster level four hill of Board 50, whilst the eastern half of the approach to the village has a nice juicy orchard and grainfield to act as great cover to help assist the Germans getting into place for the main village assault.

On the defense, the Poles have a nice company of 457s to play with, assisted by a HMG, MMG, ATR and stacks of dummies. Stiffening this defense is a juicy 9-1 and an 8-0, but they receive Turn 1 armoured support in the form of two Vickers tanks armed with CMG and the Challenger 2 of its day, a Vickers with a 47mm gun on it. For 1939, that is an awesome tank as almost all the German armour has an AF of one or less - used wisely and this monster could break the back of any German armoured probe. The CMG tanks also have those odd offset turret arrangements which sadly preclude combination into a juicy 12 FP MG attack, (thank heavens for me). As well as this, the Poles also receive Turn 2 armour support from three TKS tankettes, one with a fragile BMG and two with quite tasty 20L Guns - again, pretty good for punching holes in to thin-walled German armour.

Tom set up in a relatively even line across the entire front - in the board 17 eastern woods mass were some nice "?" stacks, the axial road near the board seam was stiffened with three more "?" stacks and there were some more on the crest lines of the southernmost board 50 hill. Finally, on Level one of one of the board 17 village buildings were a couple more "?" stacks with a view over the hedge and grain field into the front hex of the big in-season orchard. The unknown question for me was whether Tom was faking me with dummies in the woods and hills and had gone heavy in the centre or had he spread the defenders width-wise across the board? Time would tell.

In response to this clear act of naked aggression by the Poles, my gentle peace-loving German souls were primed and ready to rumble and return more of greater Germany back to the Fatherland. I had been provided with ten 468s, a 9-1, 8-1, 7-0, 5 motorcycles and some trucks with a MMG, a couple of LMGs and an ATR. As this is Poland and its 1939, we of course had to have some armoured element of the mighty Blitzkrieg, and so for this task I had received two MkIs, three MkIIs and a couple of those brilliant "leedel tanks", the PSW222 armoured car. In itself with its armour of 1 and its assortment of 20L guns which breakdown on an 11, this armoured forced is not something that you would ever normally lose sleep over. However, any force containing armoured cars with 33MP is a brilliant thing and even over open ground, the ACs can do 11 hexes a turn. In addition, with the IFE and MG, most of these tanks were packing 4FP every advancing fire phase which is nothing to sneeze at. And best of all, every one of these has a radio and comes with those three amazing symbols, "SD6".

Looking at Tom's valiant green line and with the nagging doubt that I had a lot of ground to cover and buildings to tag in a short space of time, I thought the best thing to do was to overwhelm him with force from the get-go in true blitzkrieg fashion and focus pretty much the entire schwerpunkt in a direct drive straight through the orchards and grain and directly into the guts of the village. I detached a single MkI and a single squad and 8-1 on a motorbike to go up the Board 50 axial road to offer flank protection near the little walled compound on the lower slopes of Board 50, but their main job was to suppress, delay and foil any kind of lateral attack from Tom's hilltop defenders. Turn 1 moves saw a wall of SD smoke get dropped off in the open ground between grainfield and orchards to cover the fleet of blond-haired Hells Angels (Aryan Chapter, 1939 vintage) from the first few defensive shots from the eastern woods and the Board 50 hill. Tom rolled high on most of his attacks and we continued to march onwards, but even from these opening parleys, it was clear that Tom's eastern woods stacks had some real defenders in there.

By the end of Turn 2, it was even more clear what the lay of the land was - Tom had packed the eastern woods with 3.5 squads, 1.5 more in the middle buildings with the 9-1 and HMG to dominate the approach to the village, and the ATR and MMG on the Board 50 hill to fire from the other flank. My little flank detachment was able to quickly suppress all fire from the hilltop defenders and made them run away off the hilltop leaving their MMG behind, but I also started to chalk up some early hits against the woods squads too, and, by the end of Turn 2, much of my infantry component was at the hedge line in force, smothered in yet more of that beautiful SD6 smoke. In contrast to my amazing smoke-rolling prowess (I made about 70% of my SD attempts in this game), Tom was just having one of those days dice-wise where nothing seemed to go right for him and even though he had multiple To Hit attempts on my thin-skinned armour with the HMG, he had no luck at all on the kills.

In an effort to change this, Tom's first armour reserves arrived and settled into a nice hulldown position behind the wall in the middle of the Board 17 village, threatening three of my tanks and directly supporting the 9-1 and HMG in the level one building. His moves were good and they looked like they were going to pay off as I failed all three of my responding consecutive motion attempts with three sixes in a row (and they needed 5 or less!). So, forced by this setback to stay and fight in Defensive Fire, I took my chances and shot back - two hits with rate from my first MkII, but only scratches on the 47*mm Vickers paintwork to show for it. My other MkII however followed this initial failure up and with his second rate shot, punched holes throughout the turret armour of the big Vickers...much Germanic blond-haired frothy beer drinking rejoicing ensued!

This was huge as the biggest threat to my armour was now looking like vesicular basalt (look it up) and I knew that if I played my armour well (always a bit of uncertainty in that statement when it comes to me and tank handling), I could thrash the rest of the Polish Armour with their Platoon Movement restrictions. At the board seam, having forced Tom's hilltop guys backwards, I took a punt and saddled up my 8-1 and a 468 onto their BMW dream machines and then drove hell for leather along the Board 50 hillside road, passing through (but not overrunning) a broken squad of Tom's on the woods road and then enforcing their surrender. Next turn, these biker guys ended up on the crest of the northernmost Board 50 hill, way into Tom's backfield and ready to clean up the two Board 50 buildings. "Brilliant move", thought I, until the next movement turn when Tom lined up his three TKS tankettes about six hexes away on their entry hexes..."Not so brilliant now". Tom proceeded to arrange his three tanks to take point blank shots at them but miraculously my guys on bikes survived through some untimely high-rolling by Tom. Very lucky - I'd just completely forgotten about his reinforcements and where they were allowed to enter, and by all rights, my guys should have been red jam under those baby tankette treads.

Anyway, surviving this and manning up to their pathfinder responsibilities, my doughty isolated biker heroes leapt off their Suzukis and then jumped into CC with the Polish BMG tankette which they quickly knocked off with a nice little three on the CC roll. To compound this, Tom's dice then really took a turn for the worse as the next tankette with a 20L broke its gun and the second one rolled cars on its mechanical reliability roll. A brutal 1-2-3 combination and the second armour platoon was suddenly completely out of the game.

In the meantime, in the middle I continued with the big drive straight into middle of the village. I managed to swarm the remaining two Vickers tanks, the first of which was shot from behind and immobilised and the crew forced to abandon, whilst the second also failed a mechanical reliability roll - more brutal die-rolling for Gillis. At the same time, I had managed to break 2.5 of Tom's woods squads on the extreme east of the play area. Needing to roll these up quickly, I sent one of the brilliant PSW222 armoured cars racing through the village, under the impotent barrels of the 9-1 and the immobilised but still firing Vickers CMG tank, to come in from behind the broken defenders to try and enforce some good DMs and subsequent FTRs. At the same time, more squads mounted up their bikes and zipped on through to the back of the village to start snagging buildings while Tom's diminishing defenders powerlessly waved their fists at them. I love playing motorbikes and sidecars as the mobility and options to exploit a gap that they give you are awesome. Nice.

From here on, the end was very swift - first, the Level 1 HMG broke down and then X'ed out completely and then Tom's encircled 9-1 rolled a cars on a NMC which was the end of him. At that point it was time to concede as I had all my tanks and ACs in place apart from one with a broken MA, and I had not lost any troops of note. Tom was now down to an isolated and encircled squad and a half in the heart of the village and 2.5 more squads about to surrender. At this point, the writing wasn't so much on the wall, as currently being printed in the late edition of the "Frankfurter Allgemeine" and being distributed with typical Teutonic efficiency all over Lower Westphalia - it was all over.

A fun game against an always fun opponent. I played this one well for me, and it was probably the most efficient combined arms attack I've played to date so that was really cool, and its always very, very nice when your plans come off flawlessly. Good try by Tom but ultimately he was a little too far out of position and he seriously diced himself at the same time - two failed mechanical reliability tests, a broken MA, the boxcars on the leader and the boxcars and subsequent six on the HMG were way too much for anyone to deal with and ultimately left the Poles fairly well stuffed in this one. At the point of conceding, Tom had a single squad pinned by my sniper deep into my entry area - these crafty buggers were trying to sneak onto one of my abandoned Motorbikes to attempt some heroic Steve MacQueen-esque escape frolics and score mundo style points but it wasn't to be. Maybe next time when its Tom's turn to win!

Good scenario this - some really fun toys and good quality troops. The extra morale pip of my guys saved my ass on several occasions and that was big, but the Germans do need it as they have to hustle very hard in this one. They have a lot to achieve in very short order and they need every trick in their book to achieve it, but it is definitely do-able. Much fun all around and who can resist the lure of multi-turreted crappy tanks?

More AARs to follow as time allows, where I answer Mr. Z.Doyle's scandalous, libellous accusations that I was 'lucky' and whined my way through my awesome crushing victory over his poltroon-like communist hordes in "Into the Vienna Woods". Watch this space.