Panzer scenario 11 redux

 Finally got round to the rematch of Panzer scenario 11.  Things are going better for the Russians this time around.  When nobody scores a hit things are even...

Situation at the end of turn 5.  The Germans have to pry the village away from the Russians, at least enough to make sure neither side gets points for it.  The Tiger fired at the 2 T34s but with smoke, movement, and cover did not score a hit.  The T34s shot at the Panzers near the bottom left and with range and smoke -same story.  The infantry creeping up to the town have not been spotted yet since they are low crawling.  One of the guns in the town took a pot shot at a tank at the far left but with smoke the to hit was 1 percent and it missed.  With the Germans pumping smoke like crazy it is going to end up a knife fight all around.

The Dark Sands continues

 Played turns three and four today.  A short post not due to frustration but due to too much going on.  Next game day is currently set for May 1 where we hope to get in turns five, six, and seven since they are shorter turns due to a lower number of chits in play.

The situation at the end of turn 3.  The Commonwealth forces made a hasty retreat to Tobruk helped by fortuitous chit draws - they were able to skedaddle before the Axis got most of their move chits) and the fact there were so few of them on the West map to begin with.  Combat did not go as well as I hoped either with the lone Commonwealth unit attacked on the West map able to survive the Italian attack and needing cleaned up by the Germans.  Probably the worst thing is drawing the best replacements chit early in turn 4 without enough losses to use the replacements though the tank loss being made good is a bonus.

The end of turn 4.  Combat did not go at all as well as I would like with step loses being nearly even and the Axis can not have win with that kind of exchange ratio.  The idea of attacking Tobruk is a non-starter so the Axis will think of bypassing and going for the auto-victory by taking both main victory areas.  Most likely not going to happen but it should force the Commonwealth to remove some units from Tobruk.  Since the best replacement chit was drawn this turn (and for the Axis it is lose or use) I know the infantry losses I took will not be made good.

Panzer Scenario 11

 Finally got round to playing Panzer/MBT.  I have some ASL to unlearn and some Panzer to learn!

The game situation.  The Germans have 20 turns to take the town outlined in blue.  Whoever has control of 10 of the buildings get a boatload of points.  My Russians setup all in the town (they could have been anywhere on most of the map with the tanks and in woods or the buildings for the infantry and guns)

First blood goes to the Russian Mortar.  Able to fire without being spotted past three hexes is a big deal.  An excellent roll kills a German HT.  The passengers survive though.

Russian positions end of turn 1.

German positions end of turn 1.

End of turn 2.  The Germans take out a Russian gun.  They are much easier to kill in Panzer then ASL...

End of turn 3.  No kills this turn.  The Russian Mortar annoys the two Open top German vehicles at the bottom right (in the woods).  It would go on to Suppress one then the other the rest of the game.

End of turn 4 and things are starting to look bad.  The Germans take out another Russian gun and a badly placed SU-76.

End of turn 5.  Exchanging fire and no kills.  The Germans plop a bunch of smoke.  Another ASLism to unlearn.  Smoke needs no to-hit and is as easy/hard to place moving or not.  Though can only place using short halt move.

End of turn 6 and this one hurts.  The Russian 57mm gun (the only one really capable of hurting the Tiger) is taken out.  Inevitable with 3 to 5 tanks firing on it.  It had even gotten a HVAP shot at the Tiger but missed the to-hit roll.

End of turn 7 and another Russian tank (A T35-76) dies.  We played on two more turns but it was really all over at this point.  All the Germans need do to win is take 6 town hexes and with the overwhelming tank strength or three Russians to 9 German it was not going to be pretty.

I did learn not to fire too soon and that the guns should be IN the buildings instead of alley ways.  The Germans will have to close with them to take building hexes.  We are going to play this again in two weeks to see if I can put up a better fight the second time around.  After that one to more scenarios and all of the optional rules we agree on.  

Lock N Load Tactical, Heroes in Defiance: Phony War.

 Played this one with Mark today.  I've not played LnLT in over a year and I forgot how much fun it can be.  A lot of ASL style tactical combat and tense decisions without the rules overhead - though it still has a good bit of rules.

The start of the game.  The Germans get points for controlling the circled building and for there being no French adjacent to it.  The French gets points for eliminating German squads.  The LOS is limited to 3 hexes,  starting turn 2 it can go up by one hex a turn by rolling a dr less than or equal to the turn number.  I would end up increasing it every turn.

First Blood to the French!  Moving in the open is never a good idea but I wanted to spread out the targets as much as possible.

End of turn 1.  The French reinforcements come on in the German rear and I leave a small rearguard to slow them down.

LOS went to four hexes in turn 2 and the French make a blunder.  Two squads and a leader move into range as a stack and are all shaken.  The next two activations by the Germans would see them Taken by Lt. Wurtz and a squad.

End of turn 2.  The French melee a broken "cover" squad (to the left) and go into Melee with another - that one ends up with no losses this turn.  The Germans enter the VP building and take out a shaken French squad.  An event marker sends in the French units just outside the building.

End of turn 3.  

End of turn 4.  The Germans get initiative (I think) and the leader in the building activates the locations around him.  Shaking the French upstairs and adjacent. A German hero then mops up with his Running Killer skill.  The French reinforcements are quickly shaken as well.

With that we also call the game.  The remining French units in the VP building are shown here, surrounded by Germans (who got the first impulse again) and would be shot at from 3 different spaces with a -1, +2, and even differential on the shots.  If any one of them shakes the hex another squad would move in to take them.

I'm sure my luck (when I needed it most) with the dice helped and I do like being able to figure out rules quickly and continue on with game play.  If only there were as many LnL players as there were ASL players (and scenarios!).  Looking forward to playing more.

ASl Scenario FB2. The Devil is Free to Have a Try (From Festung Budapest)

 Got in a game of Festung Budapest finally.  I've had this one for years and Tycho and I were both looking for a meaty campaign but I have the attention span of a...   (so I needed one with five or fewer campaign dates).  FB's first campaign is close to that (6 or 7?) so we went with that.  A big city fight with lots of late war heavy metal.  Just the thing.  First we needed a lesson in the terrain and even after playing I'm not sure about it.  EMRR is inherent but the LOS examples do not seem to match it being inherent...  Well it didn't matter too much in the end anyway.

The map setup.  The Russians have 7 turns to get 4 of 6 things done. Take some buildings, Takes a couple other hexes, Destroy the 75L, cause a certain number of casualties, or take 10 or 14 other buildings.  So quite a bit to watch out for.  The Axis are under severe Ammo Limits too - units will ELR if they make a bad IFT roll and SW have a lowered breakdown number.

Obligatory First Blood! shot.  Axis MTR gets a crit on a SU76.

End of turn 1.  Another SU76 is Immobilized by the MTR and another SU76 is Pinned by a little sniper (it would soon be recalled too).

End of turn 2.  The Russians probably need to go faster.  The Axis have a couple of squads ELR due to ammo shortage and an MMG goes Poof - along with the MTR which rolls boxcars and is removed due to Ammo Shortage.  The Russian smoke doesn't help much but it keeps me from firing with the 75L (but he is not aware of that).

End of turn 3.  The Russians make good progress to the North (left side) but do poorly in the south.  Getting across the EMRR is not going to happen.

In the Russian turn 4 prep I darn near failed a PMC.  The SU76 got a ROF tear including 2 critical hits on a stone building.  Other shots do not go as well and I manage to retreat most of my guys.  Then in the Axis turn 4 the 75L fires and kills the SU76 and then hits the stack nearby, a 3MC I think (I now remember the 8-1 leader rolled boxcars for the MC) and the Russian player conceded the game.  With 3 movement phases left he still had none of the VC locations and the two he was heading for were fortified and well defended).

The scenario is an interesting one, there are so many options it is not possible to setup a perfect defense.  The Ammo Shortage rules had the Axis forces withering away just from shooting (these are unique for this campaign).  In a few weeks we will be starting up Campaign 1 which has slightly different entering locations (A35 is an entry hex while still being in the Axis setup area) and the first campaign date VC are much simpler.  

The Dark Sands full campaign start

 Lawerence and I started our up The Dark Sands full campaign today.  Even with the test game we played a couple weeks back there were still mistakes.  I don't think any that are critical (since the opening turns are very scripted but still a bit annoying).

The map at start.  The UK will get pretty much all of the chits which makes the unit count misleading.  The Italians are going to take a beating.  This is actually a good thing simulation wise, in a couple of other games it is nearly impossible to replicate what happened to the Italians in this time frame.

The end of turn 1.  Most of the Italians have been eliminated already.  The rest fall back to Tobruk which was a bad move on my part - I should have read the TEC more completely.  The forts did nothing for them.  The would have been far more useful blocking the roads.

The end of turn 2.  All of the Italians are gone and the UK has forces in the Axis setup area.  Due to scripting the Italians had no chance but I might have saved one or two.  Also due to scripting the UK has no chance of keeping the turn 3 Axis reinforcements from arriving - though with slightly different luck and worse play on my part the UK could have gotten a LOT of troops into the Axis setup area.

Thoughts so far.

1 - A good simulation that is easy to play.

2 - Highly scripted due to the chits and reinforcements and withdrawals are on a set schedule with no consideration of what is happening in this particular game but the scripted nature of the chits also normally helps ensure things go semi-historically (at least so far).

3 - No tracking supply points!  Hurray!  The action chits handle that aspect of things pretty well (at least so far - if the Germans don't get past Tobruk and still have supply limited by lower chit counts it would seem a bit strange but I don't think that will happen).

Two complete game turns completed in four hours.  Not bad considering rules reading involved and this are pretty full turns in regards to number of chits to be played.  Next game is set for next week.  The Afrika Korps and Rommel come in and swing things back to Axis initiative.

ASL scenario Battlegroup Nor Mons (Beyond the Beachhead pack from Bounding Fire Productions 16) (conclusion)

 Tycho and I finished up our Beyond the Beachhead game today.  We played out a half turn of it by email (was planning on more but life and rules lookups got in the way).

Last report left off with the German turn 2 done.  We finished the UK turn 2 and then I rolled for wind and got snakes followed by a 5 (or whatever causes the wind to increase).  This had the effect of getting rid of all the smoke.  I was shaking with that one, at least I had a turn to scatter my troops so they did not all get nailed by arty.  Tycho then managed to draw two red chits.  The Germans were off to the races to boot.  One Sherman (top right ) backed up one hex and was hit and turned into a burning wreck by the Stug on the road (lucky shot with the CE being just enough to make a hit).  Another Sherman bogged backing up from the PZIV (middle) and his fire was ineffective.  At this point the game was called.

Probably a good scenario but the luck at the worst times struck the UK player combined with some bad placement.  If the UK arty had come down when the smoke cleared the Germans would not have had a clear shot to the VP buildings but also by that time the UK troops were mostly broken or out of position.  I would play this one again sometime but with so many scenarios...