ASL scenario FF 12, Hitler's Samurai by Heat of Battle

 The Russians have to get 64CVP either by exiting or enemy casualties in this one.  With 10 tanks to start with they have to cause casualties and not to very badly at losing tanks so they can get them off the board.  The Russians also get FB possible starting on turn 4 and a 120mm OBA battery.

Game start - Russian forced come in from Off Board but the Germans do not get Bore Sighting.

End of game after 2.5 turns.  The Russians were doing well till the turn 3 Defensive Fire phase when the German 75L finally immobilized a Russian tank and then the 37L with the Stielgranate rounds took out three Russian tanks in a row (a less then 10% chance of that happening) .  The Russian arty also did not make come into play, first two draws for Arty were red chits.  

We are going to give this another play through with a change to allow the Russian Arty to automatically get a black chit for the first draw.  The smoke from that should change up the result a bit and the Russian player will scale back the speed of the assault - he misread the VC thinking that he lost CVP for Russian losses, but they only have to worry about getting off the board and causing German CVP.

ASL scenario DB 192 - Express for Leningrad

 A scenario I totally goofed up on as the Germans.  Tycho handed me a solid defeat (even ignoring the whine at the end, I was on the path to losing).  The Germans have to take two factories and having one AFV north of the River with functional main armament to win.

Scenario start.  The ground is soft and woods are light (which I did not properly read up on).  Finally the two circled buildings are factories and I kept forgetting I could drive my tanks right on in to them...

Two and a half turns later out of a 5.5 turn game I concede.  The four Russian tanks were due on the map in the Russian half of the turn and I was down to a single functional AFV.  The gun had just revealed itself this defensive fire and instantly got two crits against vehicles it should have had only a small chance of killing.  But all my own fault for messing up too many rules and not making proper use of the factory for the tanks to stage in.

ASL scenario DB 157: Morning Massacre part 2

 Finished up Morning Massacre today.  No picture.  Just a note that that it is a much closer situation then I thought and might play it again.

ASL Scenario DB 157: Morning Massacre

 Too lazy (and busy) to log much.  I thought this scenario would be a walkover for the Germans but it was much closer then I thought it would be.  Will have to play it again someday.

ASL Journal scenario 157: Rage Against the Machine. Finish

Finished this one up today.  The Germans were hard pressed after their ambush only failed to kill a single Russian tank, leaving the three AFVs to take on 7 Russian AFVs.

Start of turn 4.  The German AFVs came on last turn but were not able to get into good positions yet.

Start of turn 5.  The Russians did preliminary moves and the Germans moved to better positions.  At the bottom of the board one German AFV is firing at one Russian AFV.  In the village the Russians manage to get into the street but not into the village yet.

Start of turn 6.  The German AFV at the bottom of the map is destroyed when taking on three Russians, before it went it destroyed the Russian AFV on the road near the village.  (The two T34s closest to the German missed, the SU152 across the river then rolled a CH...
In the village the Russians have managed to get into the VC building by using an AFV as cover (in this case as a burning wreck from a Faust shot next door, if not that the Germans in the building would have been stuck in CC/Melee).

End of Russian turn 6 and the game.  The Russian unit in Melee with a German squad went beserk from fire outside the hex, the German unit wen DM from the same shot.  In the VC building the Russians were making headway. Finally the Germans were outnumbered enough that the Russians were able to run squads around the defense to the other VC hexes for the win.  Once again with a burning AFV to provide cover in the VC hex - the German HS there "luckily" rolled snakes when CCing the AFV doing the bypass.

ASL Journal scenario 157: Rage Against the Machine.

 Played the first 3 full turns of a 7.5 turn game.  A nice meaty ASL scenario from Journal 10.  Rage Against the Machine.  After a long stretch of smaller scenarios I was finally ready to tackle something with some more meat to it.  I took the Russians and Tycho the Germans.  At the end of 7.5 turns the Russians have to control 2 of the 3 victory areas to win (a bridge, a building, and a couple of buildings straddling a road).  

Start of the game.  The Russians get 8(!) meaty tanks.  The Germans will get 3 AFVs and a 75L gun.  Plus leaders are allowed to use the alternate faust rules and can setup HIP if stacked with one of two HIP MMCs.

After some crappy attack rolls the Russians run STRAIGHT into the German kill zone, with the range being near max the only blessing for them.  Well that and the VASL dice roller had it ought for the Germans too.  The Shrek missed on a 10 and was removed.  The 75L killed a T34/85 and shocked at IS2.  The leader with a Faust rolled boxcars.  The leader was already wounded and survived this wound check so no harm done except the wasted ambush.  The shocked IS2 would survive the shock, the 75L crew would break from a hit by the 152mm gun and the crew killed for FTR next turn.

The end of turn 3 after the German reinforcements come on.  The armor situation is looking bad for the Germans but the low ammo depletion numbers for the Russians may be a problem.  Next game session is on the 18th.

Arc of Fire miniatures game

 Played a playtest round of Arc of Fire with the South Africans versus the Angolans in the eighties.

My South African forces.  90mm armed wheeled vehicles with light armor, 20mm armed autocannon ones, and a spotter truck.

The game table (lots and lots of trees!).

My South Africans (in blue) spot the Angolans and take out two T55 tanks straight away (lucky rolls).

Another T55 taken out and more spotted further back.

Lots of destroyed vehicles (mostly Angolans).  A few South African 90mm armed vehicles lost as well but lousy shooting (and crews) for the Angolans makes it a lopsided fight.

I forget what was happening here...

Angolan infantry being mopped up by South African infantry.  Almost all of the Angolan vehicles are destroyed.

End of game.  South African arty was chewing up the Angolan infantry till it tried to switch targets and then it just kept going way off target.