Swedish Friendly Fire AAR Sep 2018 (the scenarios)

JoeArthur

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If you are interested – here are the scenarios that I played and where I went wrong (I seldom went right), together with Mattias’ comments on the scenario:

Friday evening 5 o’clock to 11 o’clock FrF 99 Boy Soldiers vs. Lars-Robert Gregorsson:

Lars bid G1 and I bid G0. He gets the Germans. I got to set up as the Russians with one Russian 4-4-7 becoming a 4-5-8.

I will not describe my set up – it was nothing special. If I knew how the tournament worked at that point I would have gone over to look at Melvin’s table to see how he was doing it. Unfortunately at this stage I did not know how things worked.

Magnus told me that he had won this game as the Germans by going down the east board edge and taking the two victory condition buildings. This is what Lars proceeded to do. I revealed a 76L artillery piece on my turn one to duel with his 75* gun. I miss in prep fire – he rolls a double one in defensive fire. A critical hit which Melvin points out (he was walking past and heard the noise) destroys my gun and crew. The round is deemed to have hit the ammo box. My opponent now has one victory point and it is turn one. He then proceeded to generate three heroes and kept passing NMC’s with 6 morale troops. It is at this point that I ask to switch dice. Lars very kindly at the start of the game agreed to play using the backgammon rules for dice (essentially dice cups and dice towers, only four precision dice are used throughout the game, you can swap when you like). So we switch. Lars then placed a demo charge on my squad with an MMG in hex K9. He rolls a double one using my dice. That building hex turns to rubble and no spreading rubble falls onto his troops. To make things even better for Joe it now reveals my Russian squad that had just rallied and officer on the second floor of J8 to his machine gun kill stack and his artillery piece back in his set-up area. They are promptly fired on and break and are eliminated for failure to rout next turn.

At this point I had one squad in M1, a mortar with a half squad on the railway embankment and the AT Gun in the O3 building with two squads and the 8-1. I decide to go Pete Phillips on him and not resign. By turn 5 I had a squad in M1, the half squad with the mortar on the railway embankment, an ISU 152 and the gun and crew left in the building. The squads being chewed up in close combat with minimal loss to my opponent. He advances into CC with my AT gun crew and Joe rolls a double one. Yay! Trouble is my opponent, being the attacker, had rolled first and rolled a three. I get an officer who is then promptly removed from the board with the crew. I was now left with one and a half squads and the ISU 152 which was wishing it had more machine guns. Joe resigns on German turn 5.

Would it be fair to say that I was diced off the board? It was at this point I wondered – was it worth the effort in getting here?

Mattias’ comments:

A common mistake that people make in this scenario is on turn one the Germans are too aggressive. Those Russian -2 shots kill. Advance both sides of the map board and keep the Russian guessing as to whether you are going for men over the railway embankment or going to take the two buildings.

The Russian set up options are limited.

Having played the Russians I can confirm that it is impossible to cover every avenue of approach. The Germans should always be able to find some way to move forward safely.

Saturday morning 9 o’clock to 4 o’clock FrF 98 Amerikanskaya Suka vs. Stefan Fielder

I wanted to play FrF 100 Deutsch Lesson because I took one look at FrF 98 and told my opponent “we’re never going to finish that in time”. He would not budge and wanted FrF 98 – I thought that Stefan might have played the scenario before - he had not. We roll and he gets FrF 98. I end up with the Russians after the bidding is finished having bid R0 and he bidding G1. It meant again that one Russian 4-4-7 became a 4-5-8.

The scenario forces the Russians to attack the forward multi- hex stone building on board 71 with your five T34’s and 6-2-8’s. This is what I did. I sent a couple of squads up the other flank just to be annoying. The assault on the board 71 building did not go well because he managed to get his flamethrower into it which proceeded to kill two of my squads. I was never going to take that building.

The tank battle was me surrounding and killing one panther, immobilising another, but one was still prowling around looking for what was left of my tanks.

On the FrFA board one of the squads went berserk and died and the other made it to one of the multi hex wooden buildings. At that point it was time up. Mattias was called in to adjudicate.

It was deemed 70-30 to my opponent. The dice were rolled and it was an eight. Joe looses another game. I did not play that scenario well and would like to have another go at it.

To win this scenario it appears to me that you have to win the tank battle. One mistake that I made was not to keep my M10 GMC’s on the road so that they can whizz around the board causing my opponent grief. I did manage to get one behind his line which had a rear shot at a JgPz IV and it promptly rolled a double six.

Mattias’ comments:

What the Russians do is dependant on the German set-up. When I played this in Stockholm as the Russians my opponent left the road on FrFA undefended and I was able to take the multi hex wooden buildings for a win.

The Germans have to have one guy on the road on the German left in order to leave some residual on the road, defend the front multi hex stone building on board 71 with some guy in the other multi hex stone building on board 71.

The Russians attack the front stone building on board 71 (no choice) and maybe get to the back wooden buildings on Board FrFA if possible.

Saturday evening 4 o’clock till 11 o’clock FrF 95 Blood Red Snow vs. Christian Lindberg

Christian insisted on going for a run before we played so I said that in order to move things along I would defend and set up whilst he went for his jog. That means I played the Germans with no ABS adjustment. There are limited options for the German at set up so it was quite easy. Christian admitted that he did not play often (Joe had lost two in a row at this point). Christian did not realise the awesome firepower of the Flak 18 88L and proceeded to put three of his tanks on top of a hill just in front of that gun. Amazingly one tank survived and went for cover. The 88L got it a few turns later by intensive firing when it tried to get to a couple of my squads that were DM’d. My opponent resigned for the 88L had not only taken out the tanks but had been banging away at his infantry leaving him with very little left. Looking back my dice were hot.

Magnus played this as the Russians and it is worth noting his game. Start up roll for the tanks – double six. Random selection roll is a double – both tanks immobilised. The German 81* mortar takes out another two of his tanks. Magnus resigns and goes up to his room to calculate the odds of what happened to him – about one in 40,000. You have to love ASL.

Mattias comments:

He did not have much to say on this scenario. I was thinking of putting the guns in the trenches until he asked “why would you do that?”. Emplaced guns of course getting the +2 cover anyway and it allows you to spread out your forces more.

Sunday morning 9 o’clock till 4 o’clock FrF 97 Wrecking The Rentals vs. Magnus Rimvall.

Yes – it is called sods law. I was playing my host of a few days earlier. Magnus had lost two and I had lost two. We were the only players at that time to have that score so it meant that we had to play a game. Magnus choose FrF 97 and we bid. I bid German 3 – the highest that you could go. More on why I did that later. It meant that Magnus had three of his 4-6-7’s turn into 4-6-8’s.

I had looked at Melvin’s set up and he had the Marder cover one flank HIP in a forest and the mortar in the middle of the field on the other flank HIP in grain. The rest of the troops were concentrated on the central forest where they could have cover if DM’d and cover when falling back to the village to defend the Victory Condition as the game progressed.

Magnus and I had played this scenario back at his house with me as the Russians. It was where I had stated that the Sherman’s were a 75* gun. Playing the scenario as the Russians it felt impossible to win – which was why I had bid to the maximum on the ABS to get the Germans - G3. The gun was of course a *75, the * being an asterisk telling you to look on the back of the counter for a note on the main armament.

Magnus and I could not finish the game in time and he was leaving for the USA and ASLOK on the Monday so we called Melvin over to adjudicate. He looked at the board and said “how many Sherman’s are left?”. Asking him why he wanted to know revealed what I had done and Joe looked sheepish.

I apologised to Magnus. What else can you do? At least he knew that it was ignorance rather than me cheating because at his house I had played the game the same way with me playing the Russians (and had tried to get a human wave going with men plus tanks – always wanted to do that). He had won that game as the Germans. Melvin was going on about multiple hits because of the white dot on the ROF number (I actually knew that bit). It was at this point that Magnus and I agreed that it was a piss poor design for a counter. It had caused us to waste a lot of precious ASL time – we had played the thing twice…….

The only good point to come out of this is that I had the sense to realise that played this way the scenario was a dog and bid G3.

Melvin said the game was 70-30 to me and rolled the dice. Joe wins, but it was not really a win and Magnus has agreed to play that scenario again with me at some point just to see what should have happened.

Mattias’ comments:

Magnus and I were the only people left playing so I was not able to ask him – he had packed up and gone.

Given that Melvin’s first concern was how many Sherman’s were left it appears to be another of those scenarios where there is a tank battle and a separate infantry battle. In order win you have to win the tank battle.
 
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Fiedler

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Enjoyed our game Joe. Never played it before or even seen it and I mistakenly thought we would manage to end in time.

Regards

Stefan
 

JoeArthur

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Enjoyed our game Joe. Never played it before or even seen it and I mistakenly thought we would manage to end in time.

Regards

Stefan
Stefan - good to hear from you again - hope things are going well. Apologies for getting that bit of the AAR wrong. I emailed it to Magnus and Mattias to check, I did not have your email.
 

hongkongwargamer

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Gents nice AAR .. I am looking to setup for FrF98 Americanskaya Suka. The Russians need to control Building 71Y7 which STARTS behind Russian lines (south of 71S), correct?

Many thx
 

JoeArthur

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Hi Jackson,

Glad that you enjoyed the AAR.

You got it. That building is in the Russian set up area. It presents a choice for the players - the German player can take it with his reinforcements and deny a Russian win. In my game Stefan just sent a couple of half squads towards it to be annoying but leave the approach road open to it and three panthers plus the infantry might be tempted to try and take it.........

Hope that helps,

Very best regards,

Joe
 

hongkongwargamer

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Hi Jackson,

Glad that you enjoyed the AAR.

You got it. That building is in the Russian set up area. It presents a choice for the players - the German player can take it with his reinforcements and deny a Russian win. In my game Stefan just sent a couple of half squads towards it to be annoying but leave the approach road open to it and three panthers plus the infantry might be tempted to try and take it.........

Hope that helps,

Very best regards,

Joe

Yes mate it does. Thanks a bunch and Happy Holidays!

Rgds Jackson
 
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