ASL: Purple Heart Draw

Played this scenario on January 27th.  We had played it last year and the US player called it after the second Tactical Mission (out of five possible) when they were stopped cold from crossing the Draw in the middle of the map.

The setup at the start of the game.  The US forces come on at the top of the map and by the end of the fifth tactical mission have to gain control of all the intersections of the road at the bottom of the map.  The dark green color stream in the middle of the map is the Draw, a level below the terrain around it and with a stream or gully so really 2 levels below.  My plan for the first TM was to hurt the US a bit and fall back if they hit on my left flank, which they did.

End of US turn 1, not a whole lot of action, they move up and both sides take a couple shots with no appreciable effects. 

End of German turn 1.  A US squad was broken and a German squad as well, probably should have fallen back after this but I did not.  The troops off to the right start moving in to shore up the left flank however.

End of US turn 2.  The exchange of fire was pretty much a wash, the shrek (foxhole counter in middle) just missed a Sherman and other fire from both sides was ineffective.  The US then advanced to their current locations - winning the one CC with an Ambush.

I had a choice to fall back down the hill and out of site or fire and I choose fire.

The end result was a Pinned US squad and a single broken US squad AND a big hole in my line when return fire breaks my left flank units.  The US can poor through the hole now.

End of US turn 3 and the breakthrough begins.  On the plus side for my Germans is a US squad was beaten in CC by a half squad and a leader but the leader ended up wounded (I forget exactly how, I think it was from PB shooting).  The Shrek guy had another shot at the Sherman and just missed again.  Those big stacks are half dummies so the German line is in worse shape than it looks too.

End of German turn 3.  Shuffled guys along to try and form a line of defense.  Left flank is still wide open.  All the shooting once again comes to naught.

End of US turn 4.  The German forces north of the Draw are now cutoff.  And an attack with a 20+ firepower rolled boxcars for NE and breaking the MMG... 

End of German turn 4.  The blue arrows show the path the US forces would take next turn.  This puts them a good halfway across the map by the end of the first Tactical Mission AND the Germans could only reinforce the area with 4 squads and a couple of MGs while the US could put 9 squads and MGs into the same area.  So the second Tactical Mission would have been a blowout.

So there you have it, how to lose a five session Campaign Game in one session.  Setup badly, roll poorly, make some bad decisions, and voila!  This does put the campaign game at one US blowout and one German blowout for us.  So perfectly balanced so far.  We plan to give it another try in a month or so.