AAR - The Middle Of Nowhere - TX-10

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I took some time off from my volunteer work at the nursing home (I'm a volunteer male stripper) to get in a game of ASL. Played The Middle Of Nowhere (aka Willoughby, OH) with Walt Harrar. He wanted the Russians.

Conquering Russia is a steppe by steppe process. This action finds the 1st SS jumping in front of a Russian horde on two desert boards, using steppe terrain rules. The Russians get exit points and CVP points. They have some troops on horsies,


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but most of their infantry are going to have to enter as Riders and remain that way for a while to have a chance of exiting - it's a 4 turn game.

Both sides have Winter Camouflage. Mine was better.
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Turn 1, and I put my 12 Steppe program into action. My 5 tanks come on, set up in spots that have decent fields of fire, and go CE. My HTs with the good leaders and MGs unload adjacent to woods so I can advance into the woods. Other HTs remain in Motion as part of my evil plan to take out his infantry.


Russian turn 1, and 6 cavalry squads and 3 T-34s with riders come in on my right, a couple squads with ATRs and a LMG decide to hoof it on, and 7 T-34s and 3 T-70s, most with riders, come in on my left. He stops a couple T-34s to try to take shots at HTs.

A PzKw IV kills a T-34 on the right, keeps rate, kills another T-34, keeps rate, then breaks his gun. A Tiger burns a T-34 on my left. My infantry shots are all bad.

"SS - they shoot horses, don't they???" Yes, yes we do, and Tiger MG fire takes out a cavalry squad.

My turn 1, a Tiger eliminates the last T-34 on my right, keeps rate, then breaks the gun. So I have only three tanks with functioning guns at this point.

My 10-2 with a HMG (the Red-Headed Steppe Child), firing on cavalry, takes out a squad with a 7-4 shot.

I'm going to say it again, because I like the sound of it. A 7-4 shot.

With rate, he takes out another with a 7-3 shot.


My PzKw IV on the left takes out a T-34.

I had decided not to try to repair the PzKw IV gun, figuring he would be more useful as a MG platform than if I rolled a 6 and sent him home. He moves up to get a better field of fire.

An unloaded HT charges towards Walt's dismounted LMG squad. Probably not necessary, since they would not be able to exit, but the blood lust was upon me, and I could not pass up a chance to do an overrun in open ground. But the LMG rolls snakes (which is not a CH), then a 5 (which is not Immobilization) to stun me.

However, my SAN is 2, I roll a "1" sniper, which breaks another horsie squad. All part of the plan...

Another HT, this one with a squad and a half of infantry, decides to overrun the same squad. Because this time, it's personal. He TPBFs at me. The HT crew rolls a 12. My HS breaks, but the 658 squad is okay. I believe that the overrun gets resolved at half FP. I get a result, but his squad passes.

My PzKw IV on the left takes a couple hits from a T-34. He blows off a track to immobilize me, but the crew remains resolute and stays with their awesome fighting machine.

An unloaded HT moves adjacent to a T-70 with Riders, stops, blasts them off, then goes back into Motion. Beauty.


FYI, an SSR allows Riders on the T-70s.

A loaded HT on my right overruns a horsie squad. Even with the broken AAMG, I think it was a 15-3. It ends badly for Secretariat and Flicka.

CC, and my HT is in trouble. Since I moved into his hex, he doesn't need a PAATC. I'm open topped, with no functioning MG, since the crew 12'ed out. Walt rolls an 11 and misses. My 658 rolls a 3 and kills him.

R2, I try to fix the Tiger's gun, and I do!!! O, happy day!!!

Walt decides to take revenge by killing off the Stun Recalled HT with an ATR. He does so in spectacular fashion, with snake eyes on the TK roll. This creates a burning wreck, and scatters little bits of metal for three hexes around. The remaining members of the LAH are truly saddened. Because Black Counter's Lives Matter.

More Russian tanks charging forward, more burning wrecks. The last cavalry squad tries to move and is shot down by my HT. More Riders are shot off their tanks.
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Due to the lack of cover and the short game length, any Russian infantry that broke was pretty much out of the game. If riders, they have to take a bail out check, which could reduce them further. Two squads were eliminated due to being forced to rout offboard. Another couple were eliminated because they were adjacent and couldn't go any direction because there were halftracks all around.

My turn 3, I try to fix the PzKw IV's gun, since the infantry threat has been eliminated. I roll a "6."

Tigers nail a couple of the few remaining tanks. My immobilized PzKw IV springs into action. Slowly I turn, steppe by steppe, inch by inch... fires at a small Motion T-70, hit, rate, kill, turns, fires at a small Motion T-70, hit, rate, kill... Walt calls the game. He is down to one T-34 that could possibly exit, if Barkmann doesn't get him on his next shot. And I would have 4 tanks shooting at him in his movement phase. I would probably lose the stunned HT to an ATR shot the upcoming DFF, but that would put Walt at only 11 points. He needed 40 for the win.

My keeping ROF and my PzKw IVs getting kills against the front of T-34s were my keys to Awesome SS Victory. This is fairly even on ROAR.

Boards used are determined randomly, but this is going to be pretty open terrain, with a bunch of brush hexes and just a few woods. Walt brought up the possibility of the SS setting up fire lanes with the MGs. I hadn't even thought of that, but it would be brutal. One way or another, chances are no infantry are getting offboard.

Walt was trying to stay in Motion and keep the riders on for the exit points. Taking Bounding Fire shots at my flanks would be good, but he never got tanks close enough to do so.

I forgot to bring my camera. It would have been a cool end game photo.

 

xenovin

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I don’t want to steppe on the designer but this sounds a little tough on the Russians. BTW, your AARs are taking a steppe in the right direction.
 

jrv

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The HT crew rolls a 12. My HS breaks, but the 658 squad is okay. I believe that the overrun gets resolved at half FP.
Don't tell Klas you said, "HT." He will tell you that is a "Heavy Tank."

When the ht crew rolled a 12, it STUNNED itself. A vehicle with a STUNNED crew is Immobile (but not Immobilized; an Immobilized vehicle is Immobile but an Immobile vehicle could be Immobilized but not necessarily; it might be Abandoned, Bogged, Shocked or Stunned instead; ASL-ese is a tricky language). An OVR is made at half FP if the vehicle becomes Immobile (or is destroyed) before resolution [D7.11], so you played it right.

JR
 

Yuri0352

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Where are the moderators when you need them....:D :D:D:D:D
Don't hold your breath... The moderators didn't seem too interested when he was posting color photos of the Holocaust and its perpetrators accompanied by a tasteless 'humorous ' caption in another thread last month.
 

Major Issues

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Presumably, the different fonts and sizes are there to be used, but I get crap for use of bold face type. Now there are Font Police.

Anyone who doesn't like my typeface, or my posts, is perfectly free to exercise their right not to read them.

Because, in the end, it's all supposed to be about having fun and pushing cardboard around.
 

boylermaker

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I am right on the line--I find the content is fun to read, but the bold text makes it hard to read. I'm usually about 50/50 whether I make it to the end or not.

I'm certainly not offended by all-bold, or want someone to "fix" it, but I think it's fair to say that it makes the AAR less readible.
 

boylermaker

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Well, the greatest readability is medium (=normal) weight script,
so this would be much better.
 

rreinesch

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I don’t want to steppe on the designer but this sounds a little tough on the Russians. BTW, your AARs are taking a steppe in the right direction.
This scenario really rides on a knife edge. Get rate of fire from tanks, ht, or MGs and agree this can get real ugly for the Russians. What I always liked about the setup of this scenario is it gives one the feel for how troops that were surrounded were dealt with trying to escape an encirclement. You read about Barbarossa how large groups of Russian armies were surrounded and eliminated. Given that there would not have been enough surrounding troops to make a fairly solid encirclement, and knowing that Russian troops would certainly have tried to escape, one can imagine that this is similar to how many of these meeting engagements might have occurred.
 
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