The completion of the Ardennes 44 game

This post sums up a game from November 7th and one from October (forget the exact day).  Lawrence and I finished up the Ardennes 44 game we have been playing since July.  Like my last post this is just highlights and turn end photos - I don't remember the details (I need to get up to date on the replays!)

Start of German turn 9

German left flank.  Stopping up Patton's boys right nicely so far.  Allies have to have 6 defensive factors at each German controlled entry area and so far there are not enough to hold them.  Though the turn before the Allies had that 966 (top left) enter the map.

Bastogne area, Germans took it a while back but have made no headway.  I should have attacked even with few troops.  I waited for reinforcements to come up but that was a mistake.

St Vith and German right flank.  The Germans would start attacking all along the line here till the end of the game.  Most likely should have been doing so all along.

End of German Turn 9

Left flank - took another entry area and creeping forward.  Safe for a couple more turns from Allied reinforcements.

Bastogne - The reinforcements did not arrive since they had fuel shortage problems...

Right Flank (St Vith).  Starting a general attack all along the line, need to force a breakthrough.

End of Allied turn 9.

Left flank.  Allies are putting in their units to slow down the German board edge blitz.  This will be the high water mark for the German left flank.

Right Flank.  Allied maneuver to plug holes in the line.  Always just enough Allies to do so...

Bastogne - Allies counter attack, my memory is bad but I don't think it went well.  

End of German turn 10

Germans keep applying pressure on the left flank but do not have much punch (even with all the extra counters - the Allies have a couple tough units up there).

Right Flank (St Vith).  Darn close to gett a breakthrough near the center of the picture...

Reinforcements are nearly to Bastogne!  We shall give the Allies a good stomping!

End of Allied turn 10 and night turn.

Right flank is holding steady for the most part with neither side strong enough to budge the other.  I could start swinging units through the woods to flank the Allies.

On the right flank the Allies move in enough reinforcements to stem a possible breakthrough.

Bastogne is still looking thin, the next morning should be ripe for an attack!

End of German turn 11

Left flank is still slowly grinding forward but I am moving my Germans into position to blunt the Allied entry area attacks that will be coming.

On the right we have a breakthrough!  For now...

In Bastogne the reinforcements once again got whacked with supply problems.  Even so I attacked with OOS units, it is a 1 left combat shift which is really not that bad - far worse is they are only allowed to do a tactical move which keeps them from getting up to the fight in the first place.  To the right of the picture you see where I was trying to force a river crossing.  Although the Allies were thin there it is hard to cross a river with tanks without a bridge...

End of Allied turn 11

Allies must have fallen back again, I think they are right "above" the picture.

Right flank is holding steady enough, once again it is hard to cross the river, though in this case I should have moved to it and been able to cross next turn - have to stop entering a ZOC and can only cross a river as the FIRST hex entered, not at all with Armor.

Batogne area, the Allies are digging defenses.

End of German turn 12

Left flank is pretty quiet.  Waiting for the Allied hammer to strike.

Aha!  I did move a unit to the river, ended up with an egaged result on the defender there as well.

Bastogne - finally manage to push Allied units away and force a small opening.  Those units up top have a supply line off to the left of the picture.

End of Allied turn 12

Left flank and the Allied counter attack has begun.  Although there are more German units they are mostly flipped to one step remnants and the Allied units are fresh.

On the right flank the Allies manage to plug the line again (darn reinforcements!).  

Near Bastogne the line is being solidified as well.  The Germans need to break the resistance here quickly!  Good weather and massive Allied reinforcements are on the way.

End of German turn 13

Germans Hold at the left flank.  With Allied pressure they need to consolidate.

Right flank attacks continue, but the Allies are putting troops in the line faster than the Germans can clear them.

At Bastogne the attacks go well, blasting Allied resistance further apart - they have nearly cracked.  I think the next batch of reinforcements was hit with OOS though.  (you can see the front of the column at the bottom of the picture)

End of Allied turn 13

The Allies are consolidating their gains, the situation here on the left flank only gets worse for the Germans from here on out.

The right flank is pretty well plugged up now.  

Near Bastogne the Allies manage to put in reinforcements as well.  

End of German turn 14 (and end of game).

More consolidation on the left.

A last attempt to breakthrough on the right, no luck.  (or average luck, needed good luck!)

At Bastogne the Germans try to clear a path to the VC hexes with no luck.  On turn 15 the Allies get a massive number of reinforcements and the skies clear for the Jabos.  So we called it, the Germans needed to be much further along to have a chance of winning.

Final thoughts, this is an excellent game system.  The limit of 15 attack factors in any battle along with the attachment rules (only two formations in a combat plus and extra from each stack) makes it impossible to get better than 1 to 1 most of the time.  Getting better odds involves artillery and armor bonuses.  I failed to make proper use of my Artillery and that cost me.  Fire with one set this turn while moving the next set into position for next turn, rinse and repeat.  Attack, attack, attack.  Losses are fairly light for the most part but the attacker often has a chance to go for a Firefight which is often costly but can clear ground, while the defender often has a Desperate Defense option which is also costly but can hold ground at the cost of step losses.

I am looking forward to playing this game again with lessons learned...  Normandy 44 is also on the list and Holland 44 when it is released.

ASL Scenario J56 A Burnt Out Case AAR

Played ASL scenario A56 with Tycho nearly two weeks ago on September 19th and am only just getting round to writing it up (I have another writeup from the25th to do and another game tomorrow - it is GREAT to have such problems...  Since it has been awhile I'll have to stick with highlights rather than a complete writeup, lots of highlights though!

The game setup.  I am the Germans and need to keep the Russians from capturing the Pillbox under the Russian Sniper counter and also hold them away from 3 of the 4 victory buildings.

The Russians come onboard and my captured AMD 35 armored car fires!  And Misses!  During my first Player turn it fires and misses again!  It fires IF and misses yet again...

The Russians fire a measly LMG and Immob the AMD, my crew fails morale and bails out...

The Russian T70 Overruns on their second turn, my crew survives and tries to pull out a Faust - ending up Pinned...

On the plus side my squad with LMG and leader direction little stuns an open topped SU76

Russian Turn 2 CC puts the crew of the AC out of my misery...

Things start looking up on German turn 2, the AA gun goes on a ROF tear Immobilizing the SU76 and Killing a T70 outright.

On Russian turn 3 the German sniper strikes!

The OT T70 Tank commander is selected as a target (in my next game I was taught that T70 are Tankettes so nor riders allowed).  All of the Russian Vehicles are now either Immobile, Recalled, or Destroyed.

Russian Turn 4.  The MG nest with the leader in the middle of my line should have fallen back, instead he fired and in return fire the squad was DM so the leader had to break to go with them since he was pinned by the same shot.

I then compounded the stupid by having the Concealed squad and leader go after two enemy 628 squads in CC, my guys survived the first turn but were finished off in the second.

End of Game on Allied turn 6 (out of 7).  The gun went on another ROF tear DMing a 628 squad next to the pillbox and the squad and leader just below it in this pic.  My 9-1 leader never managed to rally himself or his troops - being shot at while falling back so always being DM.  One turn I am flying high with all the Russian armor mostly out of it (the SU76 made it through the whole game and eventually broke the gun crew though they had to abandon their vehicle a few times after getting hit again as well) - the next turn my line crumpled up like a wet paper bag and I felt like this fellow.

So now I have a new T-shirt for my game days

Next report is on ASL08 - To the Square.

Ardennes 44 turns 6,7,8

Lawrence and I continued our game of Ardennes 44 on Saturday.  I messed up the pics (Panarama mode did not work so well) so only have start and end photos.  Turns played were turn 6 through 8.  The rules are pretty much second nature now and gameplay flows fairly well but we had a couple items to look up on leaving the map and reinforcements.  We are averaging 3 game turns in 5 hours (including 2 mini night turns), which for us is not bad.

Start of Turn 6.

Panorama shot of end of turn 8.

German Left Flank at end of turn 8.  The Allies managed to get 6 defensive strength points at each entry area and thus were able to attack onto the map.  The 966 armor unit blasts a German recon unit and advances on.

Bastogne area, the 82nd and 101 have to content themselves with holding the German spearhead at Bastogne rather than keeping them OUT of Bastogne.  The Germans are too thin on the ground to advance yet, the reinforcements led by the 746 at the bottom of the picture will change that situation but it will take them at least two more turns to get to the area due to Saint Vith still being in Allied hands (once Saint Vith is captured the yellow outlined hexes are +2mp to move through rather than +4).

Despite repeated attempts to take St Vith the Allies still hold it.  I made a mistake by not getting Arty to the area earlier.  On the plus side the Germans have manage to isolate the town and barring REALLY bad luck will have capture it by the end of the day.  The Allies do not have Arty in range to support it so that means the attacks will be at 4-1 odds and possibly higher.
First attack I will make is on the 223 3 hexes above St Vith.  That will be a 7 to 1 attack, if I can roll a 1 to 3 on that attack I will get an attacker bonus result where I can move the armor unit attacking the 223 down to where the 563 is and then have it participate in the attack on ST Vith.  With the help of that unit the odds go up to 5 to 1.  This means a 50% chance of a retreat result that the Allies can not block (otherwise the allies can do a Determined Defense which will most likely hold).  The odds of the City holding out the turn after that are much lower since the defending unit would be flipped.

The fuel shortage has not bitten my forces yet, all four rolls resulted in no effect or were on units that have not yet arrived on map.  

I think I have already taken too long to break the first Allied line (not getting arty into the correct spots for the combat shifts did it).  I can push them back in almost every attack, even up in Bastogne, but if I go any further I will not be able to hold my supply line.  So I have to get my arty up to Bastogne and break the chokehold here at Saint Vith, both of which will take the next two turns to accomplish.  The next report should be interesting.

ASL06: Red Packets

Played ASL scenario 6 with Jay Carson on Friday.  The first of what I hope to be an every week ASL game on Fridays.  The scenario features a handful of vehicles on each side (3 for the Germans and 6 plus cycles for the Russians) where the Russians have to exit X CVP off the map or kill all three German vehicles.

Start of the Game.  Germans move first.

End of first German turn.  Since Jay is new I did say he could take back the 20L move but he decided to stick with it.  I think I then suggested firing the gun to lay down an ACQ.

First BLOOD! during the Russian Movement Phase.  First cycle went through that hex just fine and I figure a 2-2 resid shot is worth risking...  SNAKES and done!

End of Russian turn 1.  The 20L tank managed to Kill and Brew up one of the BA-6

20L tank fires at the 76LL gun truck, should be easy pickings, HE shoots and HITS!  Then only gets an Immob result - Intensive fire and a HIT - and another Immob.  Truck crew manages to stay in the truck to return fire.  Return fire from the BA-6s brew up the 20L tank.

During the Russian second movement phase I try moving up the BA6s and the 37L armed tank kills 3 of them (one with the first shot, the second with a rate shot, and the third with an Intensive fire shot...).

Big red text says it all...

End of Russian turn 2, anti-climactic after that last image...

German HalfTrack moves in behind a wall, BA6 fires and scores a Turret Hit!.  TK is a 9!  TK roll is a 10!

When the HT fires back it also misses.  Start of Russian turn 3 the BA6 fires again and hits the turret with rate!  Another 9TK and the TK roll is...  (you guessed it) 10!

Rate shot is another rate and turret hit, another 9TK and this time...

A roll of 5 and end of game.

Jay put up with my good luck in style and this coming Friday we have ASL07: To the Square scheduled.  Interesting to note that there were 3 Immobs with TKs of 7 or higher and 2 missed kill shots with a TK of 9.  I also had the 76LL use AP with a depletion of 7 when the TH was a 5 figuring it was close enough to be worth the chance for an extra TH roll - I rolled a 7 of course...