AP106 Helluva Patrol Leader

gulliver62

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Played this as the Americans in one of our monthly f2f game days. The American goal is to take two row houses and a small building. For that you get a good array of leaders, and SW and 12 squads. The terrain is very dense with a bit of boccage thrown in for good measure.
I was able to cut off part of the German force with an MMG fire lane for one extra turn and force most of my concentrated units straight the houses using the buildings and woods as cover. I played the Americans very aggressively. The 6-6-6 Americans (and even my 7-4-7 units) were breaking with relative ease but I used my leaders to follow and the 8 for Rally along with the leaders was getting them back into the fight quickly. I did roll 3 boxcars on rally attempts which hurt my forces but that was offset by rolling 3 on 3 different IFT. I was concentrating my units and MMG to max the firepower against the units in the buildings and trying to use smoke to get close. I successfully got smoke on the assaults to get in position but failed 4 times in a row (including 2 pins) trying to charge the row houses.
It came down to massed firepower and pushing into the row houses. This is my first time trying to fight in them. The tight quarters having 2 sets of houses meant neither of us could get much of a fire group going. My opponent made it as difficult as possible by routing upstairs when broken. This made me come into each hex to deal with the units upstairs. I declared no quarter early so as to not burden my guys with prisoners in close combat.
It came down to the last German turn. I had taken one 3 hex building and the single hex building. In the second, I had taken the middle hex, and he had units upstairs in each of the other 2 but I had units on the ground floor of both hexes and some units outside to prevent a single German squad left outside from making a run into the building.
Last turn, the last German squad makes a run. First 6-6-6 firing inherent to no effect and then a second 6-6-6 firing a down 2 breaks them just outside the building. On to D-fire
1/2 squad upstairs in the first building location. Bazooka #1 miss, Bazooka #2 hit and breaks them.
In the second location, I have 3x 7-4-7 squads and an MMG firing upstairs at one leader and a broken squad. K/4 breaks everything and the units all are eliminated in rout.
Overall, I benefitted from some low die rolls when I needed them and I don't think the Americans can win unless they are very aggressive. Even with 6 turns, you need at least 2 full turns to clear out the row houses in the end. Too many hexes and lack of LOS between.
Fun scenario.
 

MajorDomo

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Good beer and pretzels scenario!

Agree with your analysis, Amis must be aggressive and a bit fortunate with the 6 morale guys. The MMG's role in the middle is to cut off Germans and provide some fire into the German left buildings.

Also, keep your fingers off the No Quarter button, because the ability to Mop Up is valuable here.

Rich
 

gulliver62

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I actually went No Quarter. Since each hex of the row house must be mopped up individually it would mean 6x mopping up efforts (max) and I thought it was of more value to not burden my guys with the prisoners (I figured we were going to have a lot of CC) and to use their movement factors. Also wanted every unit available to go through the buildings and didn't want to either send my guarding units out of harms way or risk an attack that might free the prisoners. This was somewhat dictated by my opponent who was making me fight for every hex and routing upstairs when DM'd. Again, one of the things I like about ASL is the multiple ways to approach the same task.
 

hayesncsu

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I had the same feeling when I played it. I recall losing as the Americans with a single broken German MMC holding on.
 

Eagle4ty

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Always thought it was a great training/teaching scenario as well. Fairly straight forward VC, Infantry only, bocage is of very marginal effect (but would be a decent intro into it), introduces Rowhouses but not overtly so except they must be taken into effect for the VC so their effect stays with the player, fairly fast paced and does not introduce a wealth of SSRs.

Oh yeah, & it's a fun scenario!
 
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