Gunner Scott
Forum Guru
Howdy-
Last night my buddy came by and we sat down to this very cool LC offering with the Brits trying to take the board 12 village from the SS. The game had to be called due to getting late and me starting to not feeling well. (my niece was sick earlier and like all kids, they are vectors of infections) We ended up playing up to turn 7 of this 10 turn scenario with the game still up in the air. The scenario is 10 turns long with a small force of Brit MG teams setting on board against a small force of SS with Armor support (Pz IV's). The SS get alot of fortifications in this scenario consisting of 48 Mines, a few foxholes and some wire to round out the fortifications available to the SS. As the Game progresses the SS get reinforced by 4 squads, 6 HS, leaders and SW but the catch here is, the SS have to roll each time for their reinforcements, they do not all come in at once. The Brits for their part, start the game with a few HS with NG's on map and on turn one get 13 odd squads and 8 tanks with further reinforcements of a handful of Carrier entering later in the game. Carriers are a very kool aspect of any scenario that has them, they are a real pain to your opponent and can either cut rout paths, strike deep into the enemy's backfield and unload without any MP penalties IE you do not pay the usual 1/4th MP's for unloading units with Carriers. Carriers can throw Sd, they can form multi location FG's, they can bypass sleeze freeze and probably more tricks that I can not recall.
The Map board layout consists of thee old school maps, 16, 43, and 12. So no SK maps or plexi glass to deal with. The Brits have ten turns to try and take the needed buildings on board 12. Of course the Brits will have to overcome the numerous fortifications the SS has placed to slow down any Brit progress. In retrospect, this scenario may have been a bit to large for an evenings play and perhaps I should have set up a small generic SP or DTF or FrF scenario for a quicker game but Able Forward has character and did not look generic or dull to play. Anyway, who can resist an SS vs Brit bru ha ha lol. In this scenario, the Brits are entering from the top of map 16, so as the SS player, you have to decide if you are going to set up front, along with how you will place those mines and wire. My set up for Able Forward was light up front and strong on board 43. My thinking was the reinforcements would take up positions on board 12 to guard the victory buildings while my on board forces would set up on board 43 and try to slow down the Brit advance. Unlike your typical 6 turn generic action, this one does require some thought on the defense. I personally like the wire on the roads (you get 6 wire counters total), that way you deny the Brits an easy and quick access to moving along the roads. The Mines are placed mostly along my right flank, I did think about exchanging mines for AT mines which would net me a total of 16 AT mines (3 divided by 48=16) but I decided to go with AP mine defense to slow the infantry. In retrospect, I think I should have gone with the 16AT mines and littered them all along the board 43 roads to slow down the Brit armor and carriers. The three Pz IV's that come with the initial SS OB are a real quandry as far as trying to figure out a good place to put them. So I opted to place them in the back and use them to help defend the village proper rather then having them set up front and getting crushed by 8 Brit tanks.
As I mentioned earlier are game did go up to turn 7, by this point in our game, I had dispatched two shermans, would have been more but I rolled three duds on my to kill rolls. My up front force was pretty much wiped out but I still had a very strong reinforcement group on board 12 holding on to the buildings, the Brit CVP cap is 50 or better, so the Brits could afford to take some losses in trying to wrestle control of those board 12 buildings from me, this actually where the Carriers would be the most useful for this part of the end game, sleeze freeze, smoke and so on. The only real bad luck came for the Brits when they drew two red cards for their OBA, MacMulligan was asleep for sure lol. It is too bad we could not finish this one up, I think it might have gone down to the wire, plus it was a really fun scenario to play and if you enjoy playing the Brits, you will for sure enjoy this one. Next up will be LC 7 Tip of the Spear for our saturday game, that one looks like a real hoot too. Both of these scenarios come from Georges excellent scenario pack the battle for Abbaye des Ardennes.
Last night my buddy came by and we sat down to this very cool LC offering with the Brits trying to take the board 12 village from the SS. The game had to be called due to getting late and me starting to not feeling well. (my niece was sick earlier and like all kids, they are vectors of infections) We ended up playing up to turn 7 of this 10 turn scenario with the game still up in the air. The scenario is 10 turns long with a small force of Brit MG teams setting on board against a small force of SS with Armor support (Pz IV's). The SS get alot of fortifications in this scenario consisting of 48 Mines, a few foxholes and some wire to round out the fortifications available to the SS. As the Game progresses the SS get reinforced by 4 squads, 6 HS, leaders and SW but the catch here is, the SS have to roll each time for their reinforcements, they do not all come in at once. The Brits for their part, start the game with a few HS with NG's on map and on turn one get 13 odd squads and 8 tanks with further reinforcements of a handful of Carrier entering later in the game. Carriers are a very kool aspect of any scenario that has them, they are a real pain to your opponent and can either cut rout paths, strike deep into the enemy's backfield and unload without any MP penalties IE you do not pay the usual 1/4th MP's for unloading units with Carriers. Carriers can throw Sd, they can form multi location FG's, they can bypass sleeze freeze and probably more tricks that I can not recall.
The Map board layout consists of thee old school maps, 16, 43, and 12. So no SK maps or plexi glass to deal with. The Brits have ten turns to try and take the needed buildings on board 12. Of course the Brits will have to overcome the numerous fortifications the SS has placed to slow down any Brit progress. In retrospect, this scenario may have been a bit to large for an evenings play and perhaps I should have set up a small generic SP or DTF or FrF scenario for a quicker game but Able Forward has character and did not look generic or dull to play. Anyway, who can resist an SS vs Brit bru ha ha lol. In this scenario, the Brits are entering from the top of map 16, so as the SS player, you have to decide if you are going to set up front, along with how you will place those mines and wire. My set up for Able Forward was light up front and strong on board 43. My thinking was the reinforcements would take up positions on board 12 to guard the victory buildings while my on board forces would set up on board 43 and try to slow down the Brit advance. Unlike your typical 6 turn generic action, this one does require some thought on the defense. I personally like the wire on the roads (you get 6 wire counters total), that way you deny the Brits an easy and quick access to moving along the roads. The Mines are placed mostly along my right flank, I did think about exchanging mines for AT mines which would net me a total of 16 AT mines (3 divided by 48=16) but I decided to go with AP mine defense to slow the infantry. In retrospect, I think I should have gone with the 16AT mines and littered them all along the board 43 roads to slow down the Brit armor and carriers. The three Pz IV's that come with the initial SS OB are a real quandry as far as trying to figure out a good place to put them. So I opted to place them in the back and use them to help defend the village proper rather then having them set up front and getting crushed by 8 Brit tanks.
As I mentioned earlier are game did go up to turn 7, by this point in our game, I had dispatched two shermans, would have been more but I rolled three duds on my to kill rolls. My up front force was pretty much wiped out but I still had a very strong reinforcement group on board 12 holding on to the buildings, the Brit CVP cap is 50 or better, so the Brits could afford to take some losses in trying to wrestle control of those board 12 buildings from me, this actually where the Carriers would be the most useful for this part of the end game, sleeze freeze, smoke and so on. The only real bad luck came for the Brits when they drew two red cards for their OBA, MacMulligan was asleep for sure lol. It is too bad we could not finish this one up, I think it might have gone down to the wire, plus it was a really fun scenario to play and if you enjoy playing the Brits, you will for sure enjoy this one. Next up will be LC 7 Tip of the Spear for our saturday game, that one looks like a real hoot too. Both of these scenarios come from Georges excellent scenario pack the battle for Abbaye des Ardennes.
