ASL WO008: Silent Night Deadly Night.

Decided on trying a night scenario for the first time after 20+ years of ASL. Started this one on December 1st and only finished it up (lots of rules lookups) on February 2nd.

The Germans have to clear the nearby hill of US MMCs and then the winner is decided by who has the most MMCs in the buildings on the other board.  US units count double to the right of the road while Germans count double to the left.

The Germans made steady progress.  The HIP guy I had down at the bottom of the hill had to reveal himself when a German tried to rout there - otherwise the Germans were going to sweep past and he could have popped out and ran up the hill for a win - at this point I'll take any kind of win I could get...
Not to be however.  Very often the Starshells ended up in a terrible spot, keeping my units from seeing the enemy movement and the German sniper only struck once but that was all it took to put my MMG out of commission by taking out the leader in the hex.  On the last turn I had my two squads (just near the battle markers) charge the buildings - they had to get the Germans out in order to have any chance of winning and it was my last movement phase so just blasting them would not do - had to route them or capture them.  One squad made it through everything and managed to break the squad in the adjacent building - the other one did not but managed to make it into CC, and died for the effort.
A very fun scenario and a good intro to night rules.  We are going to another night scenario to try and make the rules stick a little better.  I still have trouble remembering parts of it - like straying and exactly when the night DRM applies or not.

ASL Scenario Berlin Red Vengeance 10: Mohnke Business

Played this scenario on November 18th and 25th with Tycho.  Oh the pain, the pain...

I first played a scenario from Red Vengeance back in the nineties when my FTF opponent (no VASL then!) had a copy.  When I saw Ritterkrieg had some in stock at a reasonable (great actually) price I had to get it - even though it had no counters and the rules and scenarios where photocopies, I play on VASL for the most part anyway.

 The scenario is the largest one in the pack other than the Campaign game.  The Russians are attacking across the Spree River to gain a foothold on the other side.  Perhaps trying to put the flag on the Reichstag or gaining terrain on the other side of the map.  I choose the second option.

Russian Forces on the left Germans spread around a bit not knowing what target the Russians would go after.  A couple Russian units on the right to harass any reinforcements sent from the German Right.

Prep Fire goes well enough, breaking some Germans but no Radio contact (need that smoke!) and the first shot from the OT-34 is an 11, no FT with that guy.

End of Russian Turn 1.  German defenses are shot up, one squad made it to the end of the bridge (under tank) but another is pinned and another 1 or 2 DM making the trip.

End of German turn 1.  They fall back - Russian Firepower is too strong to stay in the front line.

Russian movement phase.  OT-34 starts up and gets whacked by a Shreck...

Russians try to get a 447 across the bridge.  An IS2M made a breach in the barricade (special kind of roadblock) and the German kill stack makes its first roll of the game.

Wrong Army, not a bridge but...

End of Russian turn 2.  I advanced a bunch of squads across the bridge - maybe not a good idea.  That German ACQ is on a Berserk Russian squad.  We would mis-remember the rule for zerkers and send him after the nearest enemy in MF instead of hexes.  The Kill Stack had an Opp Fire marker on it - not sure why it did not fire at the Zerker, perhaps it did and I forgot to log it since nothing happened.  That would not be a common occurrence...

End of German turn 2.  (Here is where the Opp Fire maker went on, same comment as before).  There was no shot at the guys on the bridge, perhaps they would not have lived otherwise.

And the Kill Stack fires a second time...

And a third time (yup, looks similar but it was two different 447 squads trying to cross the bridge).

Besides the MG kill stack Tycho's luck was nothing to write home about.  First show with the Pantherturm is boxcars.  A Half Squad shooting a Faust managed to DM itself.

Here is where that oops with the Berserk squad comes in.  My T-34 moved to take on the other Pantherturm since the Zerker was in its hex.  The Kill Stack (with only the HMG and squad firing) managed to kill the Zerker that was unharmed till then.  I would not have moved the T34 in range if I knew the Turm would be free to fire next phase...  On the other hand an 88L AT gun fired and missed and no longer had LOS due to the wall.

Slightly before the Russian Advancing Fire Phase.  German player had to go due to family business.  Even with the three squads exterminated by the Kill Stack things are looking up, Russians are across the Bridge in some force and losses have been reasonably light considering.

On our next game day I forgot to turn on logging.  Here is a pretty good overview.

I had three stacks (granted, should NOT stack but,,,) attacked and the rolls are as listed.  At this point (turn 5) I threw in the towel.  Not exactly a rage quit, more like an exasperated quite.  Tycho deserves the win since he played well and I made some mistakes - but I don't think I'm exagerating when I say that I was diced too.

For all the shots on the critical Bridge hex that I had to cross all the attack rolls averaged out at 5 (12 rolls total).  Taking just the FIRST roll each time it was fired upon the average DR was 3.5.  Here is where taking just the Average DR does not help - the average would have been higher including other rolls besides these (kinda crappy really, two boxcars on Pantherturm shots for instance, out of 3 rolls total).  As I whined about before though, this was a spot I had to get past and I gambled on average luck...

Anyway, this is a great batch of scenarios and I'll be digging it up again (maybe even this exact scenario) to play again.  The ROAR has this one as 60/40 German favor so we played with the Russian balance of adding an extra turn - I don't think that balance is actually useful since time was not the enemy for the Russians, the extra turn can even be a hindrance since losses only count for the Russians and not the Germans in the VP calculations, Russians get VP for units Infantry across the Spree and holding specific objectives.

And the final whine...  Here are the DRs from the Kill Stack by turn or ROF tear.

1,2

1,2

1,2

2,2

1,4 -- 1,2 -- 6,2

1,1 -- 6,5

1,4 -- 6,2

So every time it had a target at the bridge (2mp to enter due to Roadblock) it got at least a 5 result and almost always a 2 or 3...

Whine Mode off.  

Fall-In 2017

Some Pics from Fall-In 2017.  My son and I went there on Friday since he had to work early on Saturday.  He got in a game of Fireball Forward while I browsed, took picture, and picked up a couple of items at the dealer hall.

First up, the line was really short for registration, perhaps since it was only Friday or perhaps the Internet was working properly.  I had a will call badge and as expected it went quickly - since my son was not sure till the last minute he could go he had to go through the registration line BUT there was nobody else in front of him.  So that was a very nice surprise.

The entrance to the Host, thought it looked nice with the tree changing colors.  Temperature was low seventies.

Another shot of the host with the sun coming up, also shows some of the construction.

This is heading back to the dealer hall.

The old way to get to the dealer hall - instead we had to walk around the left and way out to the back...

Hey!  Some games.  This is from the HAWKS room - good job once again from the HAWKS.

Another shot of the HAWKS room.

I always love seeing this board, excellent stuff.

Another game in the HAWKS room.

Time to meander over to the Distelfink (?).

I think this one is at each convention as well - also excellent!

Don't remember what this one was, nice work though!

LOOK at those lovely new tables!  Sturdy and all the same height.

Can't remember where this was.

Another can't remember, nice work however.

The area across from the entrance.

Lovely setup.

Main floor, another table.

This was off to the right from the main entrance - I don't remember going back here before, lovely desert battle.

More of that Desert table. (actually had to look up desert to make sure it was not dessert)

A fantasy sky galleons game.  Fantasy is not my thing but this is GREAT work so I had to take lots of pics.

I think these are all scratch built (let me know if I am wrong) but either way it looks like great fun.

More Sky Galleons.

And more... 

One last one.

I am a Lardy and they had a couple tables setup at the foot of the Wally's basement and tournament area.  

More Lard - Chain of Command table here.

Flames of War, not my game but the model work here is excellent.

More Flames of War Team Yankee - may get me back into 15mm from 6mm.  Space is at a premium at home however.

Yet more Team Yankee models.

Back to the LARD!  

Picture of a trench from the Lard table - planning on using this for an online top down game someday.

In case you haven't guessed this is the TFL sign...

The IABSM (I Ain't Been Shot Mum) table for the TFL area.

The long walk to the Dealer Hall.

More of the long walk - exercise!  It burns!  (The walk back UP the slope was the killer)

The walk was well worth it, the Dealer Hall area is not complete yet but when it is it should be VERY nice.  Natural light, I think that is bad for gamers...

3mm Picoarmor.  The detail is stunning on these.  I'm sticking to 6mm for now but this range is really growing in terms of what is available and I could see them as platoon stands for FFoT, Modern Spearhead, or Command Decision.

All that I purchased at Fall In.  Had the urge to buy much more bet kept it to just these for now.  Historicon will most likely be a different story.