Paul S NJ
Senior Member
Had another great time at Albany 2018! Many thanks to Joe for his always outstanding raffle and to Steve for organizing a wonderful event. Thanks to my most excellent opponents with whom I had a great time this year. Had some nice dim-sum and good meals/chats with fellow gamers during the weekend. The NJ crew did well with three placing in the top ten. Congrats to brother Tracy for the big win and keeping the Albany trophy out of nefarious Canadian hands!
Round 1 WO28 Dean’s Defiance vs Derek Pulhamas of Rochester, NY (posted separately) 0-1
Round 2 - YASL7 - Making a Break a For It vs. Peter Struijf of Halifax
I bid B1 (increasing Peter’s SAN) and Peter bid G1 so I got a DC. Always a pleasure to play Peter, although I declined to play his own DTF design this round against him, I have enjoyed the scenarios from the pack which I played. I especially like his HIP SW/SMC rule which I think adds a lot of fog of war to a defense.
JR wrote up a good analysis of this scenario, and I think Peter will write up a full aar, so I’ll just hit a few highlights. I sent 3/4 of my force up the right flank through the open with the rest trying to penetrate the center and take up blocking positions in the center woods. Peter messed up my plans with multiple breaks, ambushing my stealthy paras and exiting melee and generally being a pain in the neck
I had a good part of my force break and in GT1 a fanatic 447 defender just refused to break despite multiple encircling shots. That squad ended up killing two 648’s in CC, DM’ing a good 6-7 squads by running around in my backfield, and generally causing mischief.
Luckily the 648’s eventually rallied and Mr. 10-2 led the way with a key WP grenade CH attack on BT3 (pictured) against a fanatic 447/MMG that had laid a firelane across my advance. Some serious CC helped break through the defense, but not before it had bought enough time for Peter to successfully reposition his forest-flank troops to the rear of the city.
Brit Turn 3
In the end Peter laid a lmg firelane across the exit and I had just a few extra MMC exit VP to spare before running across it. I sent my leaders first to try and break the lmg, but despite multiple low 1(-2) rolls by Peter, neither the leaders nor the mg broke. Then about ten squads/hs made the dash and Peter’s dice went cold. Exactly the needed amount of MMC VP made it through! Great, exciting game! 1-1
Round 3 HiF6 Jackpot Jones vs Ketil Hogenhaug of Norway
I think Ketil will be doing an aar, so I’ll just give some highlights. I bid ‘no bid’ and Ketil bid G0. A dozen well-equipped 467/548’s with three tanks and three ht’s take on 9 667/666 with two HIP and one concealed 76L Jackson tank destroyers. I set up two HIP TDs with nearby Baz support and rubbled the two buildings on the US left. I put one mortar in foxholes in the US rear on the road and one on the US right. Otherwise I defended on a line from the open ground on the right, through the Fort, across through the woods. Ketil came in fast with his half-tracks aggressively scouting for HIP TD’s in orchard hexes. I was fortunate to take out two with bazookas at one hex range. Ketil used the panther and one Pz4 to break up my infantry in the woods before I could take a baz shot at the Pz4. I repositioned the 9-1 led HIP TD (the proverbial ‘Jackpot Jones’) to support the brokies from German harassment. Ketil positioned the other Pz4 looking down the road and advanced a big MG stack into the building looking down it too. I tried to use WP on the road tank but failed to bring any. In GT2 Ketil moved his road Pz4 and other tanks into position across the street from the fort. This let my troops cross the road in both directions, a pivotal mistake. I had a HIP TD drive up for a rear drive-by shot vs. the panther and got the APCR bounding fire shot to kill it, yeah! One german 247 vaporized on a 12 MC to WP. In the end I had a strong force in the fort with supporting TD’s to the flanks. When Ketil tried to dash across the road and sent the remaining halftrack and a Pz4 across the road to get to the US right flank, Jackpot Jones took them all out; with CH’s vs the infantry and 5 TH shots/kills on the ht + tank. It even had still kept ROF! Jackpot’s accurate volleys of 76mm fire took the steam out of the Ketil’s assault and he threw in the towel. Hope to see Ketil in Norway this summer. 2-1
Round 4 DTF4 Death to Fascism Vs Mike Hershey of Tennessee
Russian Turn 2
It’s always great to play my friend Mike! As mentioned, I like the DTF pack/rules. In this 18 447/527 with two T34 and four valentines attacked 10 Rumanian elite 447’s backed by a 76L art gun. The Rumanians get four more 447’s turn 3 and a pair of Stug’s turn 4. The Valentines forgot to bring mg’s and have HE7 and sD6. Not the most useful tanks vs. infantry. Mike bid R0 and I bid 1.5 sw points to take the Axis as I thought I had a good setup. I bought a MMG and two ATR’s for the onboard force and two lmg’s for the reinforcements. I put the gun and two MMG with three squads and the 8-1 in trenches in the woods at 16H9-10. Those are are the only forward positions out of LOS of a nasty .50 cal in the O4(1) building. The Russian dilemma in this one is how to cross the initial open ground on either the Russian right (human wave?) or through the walled area. Once the Russians are in the woods/orchards they have the firepower and rally points to have a battle. In the open though the three leaders struggle to rally fast enough and an atr entrenched in P2 makes rout either slow or risky. The T34 firepower and Valentines’ smoke and cover when stationary can also help, but the valentines are vulnerable to the gun's AP and the T34’s to DI shots. 1-hex PF’s also help keep the AFV’s honest.
Right Flank- I set up with just two 247 and a couple dummy stacks on the far right, expecting some riders to deal with. Mike sent both T34’s that way, vaporized a repositioning 247 with the .50 cal. The two T34’s dismounted their riders near victory buildings on my far right on turn 3. When I advanced the surviving 247 next to a 527 riding on a stationary valentine Mike successfully used sD to dismount in cover and then advanced on my pinned (due to PF 6) 247 but failed to kill it in CC. However in my turn the 247 rolled snakes in 1:4 CC to kill the 527 and create a leader! Love this game. I also entered two half squads from my reinforcements on this flank to keep the 527’s home in their VC buildings and not let them threaten the center buildings.
In the center Mike used the extra SW points to buy a 50 mtr which plinked away at my troops to no effect in 7 or so fire phases due to my trenches, despite a couple dozen hits. The .50 cal vaporized the 247 already mentioned, but just pinned the nasty 447/ATR in P2 twice before having a good fire phase where it broke three 447’s defending the center. However my gun and two MMG were effective in inhibiting movement with fire lanes and breaking multiple russian squads who spent several turns low-crawling to leaders. Mike launched a human wave in the center turn 1 which made good progress due to my gun’s clean miss on a 8(-2) TH on three squads and leader followed by an IF hit/dud. With my center weak due to .50 cal fire I had to reposition from my left flank into the village proper, losing a squad to a 2(-2) snakes. Mike’s Valentines circled the P2 stud who crept out of his trench adjacent to three valentines, survived a bunch of fire and then became berserk. Heroes of Rumania! By the time my stug’s entered Mike threw in the towel as he was down to 1 non-wounded leader and had made little progress in getting a strong force on the center hill.
I think the Russian needs to concentrate his tanks and infantry to break through the center fast. Once a close range fight developed for the village the russian has the troops and time to win it. 3-1
Round 5 FRF98 Amerikanskaya Suka vs Brian Wiersma of Albany
Brian is an outstanding ASL player and we always have fun, tight games. This great scenario has 5 T34/85 with five 628’s reinforced by four US M10 TD and 7 truck riding 447/458. The Germans defend with 5 lonely 447’s plus two 11 AF 75L Pzjg IV’s. They are reinforced by three panthers with 6 truck-borne 838/548/467, plus a FT. The russians must keep a building in their rear while taking one more. I bid G1 to give Brian an extra lmg and he bid R0. I had discussed set up on this one with Vic Rosso and he talked me through how an aggressive russian turn 1 attack through the german right flank woods could be devastating. I set up all five 447’s with the mmg, psk, both JgPz’s back in support to minimize that threat, or at least inflict some casualties. I put only a concealed 7-0 on the FRF village side. My hope was that Brian would attack there, as the rear bldg VC and the requirement to take one additional building, when combined with a push to the FRF village ends up splitting the Russian force into three parts, and opens up some opportunities for a german attack.
German Set up
Brian lined up his T34’s to take MG/HE bounding shots on my concealed infantry, CR/breaking one and pinning another. That was enough to allow his infantry to move up, taking a couple breaks. I self-broke two 447s and routed them and the newly created half squad back into the village. Brian moved 3 AFV and 3 or 4 squads into Hull down spots on the FRF board. He left two M10’s concealed in his right rear to discourage a german attack there.
German turn 1 I decided to enter on the far end of the FRF board and attack the two M10's there on my way to the Y7 VC building. Brian had concealed them but my panthers caused them try to activate their smoke pots and go into motion. My infantry flame thrower killed one, with a lucky panther hit killing the second. This freed up my third to use it's last two MP to stop in LOS of a T34, who failed his motion attempt. Then in advancing fire I rolled a 6 to kill it too. Three down six to go! I ran one Jgpz into a central area to attract attention and tried to bring the second up for support. However the second failed a bypass clearance check and stopped adjacent to a DC. Then in Advfire it broke it's MA. Not good!
In Brian's turn 2 all three of my non-DM MMC in the village failed to rally. Uh-oh! However I did fix my Jgpz MA.
Russian Turn 2
Brian proceeded to have a conga line of M10s/T34s try to kill my JgPz's but the theme of the day was always 'No APCR' (0 for 4), followed by 'No hit on AP'. Brian's did kill one of the Jgpz after about 8 shots. His dice kept failing to help him in the AFV wars. His infantry did well, although the DC-toting squad was pinned on RT2 and then broke german turn 2 to let my JgPz escape it's clutches. Then that JgPz managed to kill a T34 from the front on the net 6 TK.
In turns 2 and 3 Brian broke two of his AFV MA's and then followed up with a 6,6 on the repair rolls...goodbye! This left three AFV vs my four, Brian danced his AFV around trying for side BFF hits but kept missing by a pip or two. I ran a JgPz up 12 hexes from a T34 and then killed it from the front after two tank hits had bounced off my AFV's armor. By RT4 my panthers were adjacent on both sides of the VC building, ready to fire point blank at the hapless occupants. Brian had swept both the villages but couldn't keep me out of the mandatory VC building. A great scenario! I plan to use this to run a Texas-style 'Ferocity fest' game day in NJ in February! 4-1
Round 6 FRF95 Blood Red Snow vs Bob Bendis of Chicago
I always love playing Bob. He is a masterful attacker, making use of every AFV MP and every opportunity to force a defender into making bad choices. It's especially nice to have Stanleto there for his impressive tricks, fun attitude and amazing self-control.
This is an instant classic scenario featuring 9 548/447 with lots of fire support from two HMG's, a 20 FP quad-20MM AA gun, an 88L and a 81 MTR. The defending germans set up at least two trenches/pillbox on each of three hills. One hill is far forward and easily overrun. The defender must split up the two AA guns on the remaining two hills with the 447 force with the 548's and MTR defending the village between them. The russians can attack from either flank or can emerge concealed (due to winter camo/ground snow) from a central gully. Some AT mines support the defense while a reinforcing 75L AT is towed on turn 2. The russians have 5 T34's and 11 mixed 628/458/447 squads. It's serious game of rock/paper/scissors as the T34's can dominate all except the 88L. Meanwhile the russian infantry is facing tremendous firepower so must use their snow camo to stay concealed as long as possible.
I Bid G1 and Bob bid R1 to both raise our SAN's. But as usual this had little game effect. I set up both AA guns facing the central gully as I thought that would be the greatest threat. RT1 I killed a T34 and broke two squads there, killing them for FTR in GT1. Bob entered most of his troops on my right flank, which I thought was the least likely avenue of attack. Bob made a good run of it, although I forgot the T34/41's were still radioless in Dec 42. In the end Bob's hope came down to two concealed 447's going into CC. One was killed outright and the other was tied up in melee and then killed in the following german turn. My guns kept up a strong fire although both HMG's and two guns all broke in the same fire phase, however the two guns quickly repaired and this ended up swaying the end game to me. A fun scenario, although we both feel the germans perhaps have too much firepower in this. Maybe the balance should be to ignore radioless AFVs and lose a HMG? 5-1 and third place officially.
Round 1 WO28 Dean’s Defiance vs Derek Pulhamas of Rochester, NY (posted separately) 0-1
Round 2 - YASL7 - Making a Break a For It vs. Peter Struijf of Halifax
I bid B1 (increasing Peter’s SAN) and Peter bid G1 so I got a DC. Always a pleasure to play Peter, although I declined to play his own DTF design this round against him, I have enjoyed the scenarios from the pack which I played. I especially like his HIP SW/SMC rule which I think adds a lot of fog of war to a defense.
JR wrote up a good analysis of this scenario, and I think Peter will write up a full aar, so I’ll just hit a few highlights. I sent 3/4 of my force up the right flank through the open with the rest trying to penetrate the center and take up blocking positions in the center woods. Peter messed up my plans with multiple breaks, ambushing my stealthy paras and exiting melee and generally being a pain in the neck
I had a good part of my force break and in GT1 a fanatic 447 defender just refused to break despite multiple encircling shots. That squad ended up killing two 648’s in CC, DM’ing a good 6-7 squads by running around in my backfield, and generally causing mischief. Luckily the 648’s eventually rallied and Mr. 10-2 led the way with a key WP grenade CH attack on BT3 (pictured) against a fanatic 447/MMG that had laid a firelane across my advance. Some serious CC helped break through the defense, but not before it had bought enough time for Peter to successfully reposition his forest-flank troops to the rear of the city.
Brit Turn 3
In the end Peter laid a lmg firelane across the exit and I had just a few extra MMC exit VP to spare before running across it. I sent my leaders first to try and break the lmg, but despite multiple low 1(-2) rolls by Peter, neither the leaders nor the mg broke. Then about ten squads/hs made the dash and Peter’s dice went cold. Exactly the needed amount of MMC VP made it through! Great, exciting game! 1-1
Round 3 HiF6 Jackpot Jones vs Ketil Hogenhaug of Norway
I think Ketil will be doing an aar, so I’ll just give some highlights. I bid ‘no bid’ and Ketil bid G0. A dozen well-equipped 467/548’s with three tanks and three ht’s take on 9 667/666 with two HIP and one concealed 76L Jackson tank destroyers. I set up two HIP TDs with nearby Baz support and rubbled the two buildings on the US left. I put one mortar in foxholes in the US rear on the road and one on the US right. Otherwise I defended on a line from the open ground on the right, through the Fort, across through the woods. Ketil came in fast with his half-tracks aggressively scouting for HIP TD’s in orchard hexes. I was fortunate to take out two with bazookas at one hex range. Ketil used the panther and one Pz4 to break up my infantry in the woods before I could take a baz shot at the Pz4. I repositioned the 9-1 led HIP TD (the proverbial ‘Jackpot Jones’) to support the brokies from German harassment. Ketil positioned the other Pz4 looking down the road and advanced a big MG stack into the building looking down it too. I tried to use WP on the road tank but failed to bring any. In GT2 Ketil moved his road Pz4 and other tanks into position across the street from the fort. This let my troops cross the road in both directions, a pivotal mistake. I had a HIP TD drive up for a rear drive-by shot vs. the panther and got the APCR bounding fire shot to kill it, yeah! One german 247 vaporized on a 12 MC to WP. In the end I had a strong force in the fort with supporting TD’s to the flanks. When Ketil tried to dash across the road and sent the remaining halftrack and a Pz4 across the road to get to the US right flank, Jackpot Jones took them all out; with CH’s vs the infantry and 5 TH shots/kills on the ht + tank. It even had still kept ROF! Jackpot’s accurate volleys of 76mm fire took the steam out of the Ketil’s assault and he threw in the towel. Hope to see Ketil in Norway this summer. 2-1
Round 4 DTF4 Death to Fascism Vs Mike Hershey of Tennessee
Russian Turn 2
It’s always great to play my friend Mike! As mentioned, I like the DTF pack/rules. In this 18 447/527 with two T34 and four valentines attacked 10 Rumanian elite 447’s backed by a 76L art gun. The Rumanians get four more 447’s turn 3 and a pair of Stug’s turn 4. The Valentines forgot to bring mg’s and have HE7 and sD6. Not the most useful tanks vs. infantry. Mike bid R0 and I bid 1.5 sw points to take the Axis as I thought I had a good setup. I bought a MMG and two ATR’s for the onboard force and two lmg’s for the reinforcements. I put the gun and two MMG with three squads and the 8-1 in trenches in the woods at 16H9-10. Those are are the only forward positions out of LOS of a nasty .50 cal in the O4(1) building. The Russian dilemma in this one is how to cross the initial open ground on either the Russian right (human wave?) or through the walled area. Once the Russians are in the woods/orchards they have the firepower and rally points to have a battle. In the open though the three leaders struggle to rally fast enough and an atr entrenched in P2 makes rout either slow or risky. The T34 firepower and Valentines’ smoke and cover when stationary can also help, but the valentines are vulnerable to the gun's AP and the T34’s to DI shots. 1-hex PF’s also help keep the AFV’s honest.
Right Flank- I set up with just two 247 and a couple dummy stacks on the far right, expecting some riders to deal with. Mike sent both T34’s that way, vaporized a repositioning 247 with the .50 cal. The two T34’s dismounted their riders near victory buildings on my far right on turn 3. When I advanced the surviving 247 next to a 527 riding on a stationary valentine Mike successfully used sD to dismount in cover and then advanced on my pinned (due to PF 6) 247 but failed to kill it in CC. However in my turn the 247 rolled snakes in 1:4 CC to kill the 527 and create a leader! Love this game. I also entered two half squads from my reinforcements on this flank to keep the 527’s home in their VC buildings and not let them threaten the center buildings.
In the center Mike used the extra SW points to buy a 50 mtr which plinked away at my troops to no effect in 7 or so fire phases due to my trenches, despite a couple dozen hits. The .50 cal vaporized the 247 already mentioned, but just pinned the nasty 447/ATR in P2 twice before having a good fire phase where it broke three 447’s defending the center. However my gun and two MMG were effective in inhibiting movement with fire lanes and breaking multiple russian squads who spent several turns low-crawling to leaders. Mike launched a human wave in the center turn 1 which made good progress due to my gun’s clean miss on a 8(-2) TH on three squads and leader followed by an IF hit/dud. With my center weak due to .50 cal fire I had to reposition from my left flank into the village proper, losing a squad to a 2(-2) snakes. Mike’s Valentines circled the P2 stud who crept out of his trench adjacent to three valentines, survived a bunch of fire and then became berserk. Heroes of Rumania! By the time my stug’s entered Mike threw in the towel as he was down to 1 non-wounded leader and had made little progress in getting a strong force on the center hill.
I think the Russian needs to concentrate his tanks and infantry to break through the center fast. Once a close range fight developed for the village the russian has the troops and time to win it. 3-1
Round 5 FRF98 Amerikanskaya Suka vs Brian Wiersma of Albany
Brian is an outstanding ASL player and we always have fun, tight games. This great scenario has 5 T34/85 with five 628’s reinforced by four US M10 TD and 7 truck riding 447/458. The Germans defend with 5 lonely 447’s plus two 11 AF 75L Pzjg IV’s. They are reinforced by three panthers with 6 truck-borne 838/548/467, plus a FT. The russians must keep a building in their rear while taking one more. I bid G1 to give Brian an extra lmg and he bid R0. I had discussed set up on this one with Vic Rosso and he talked me through how an aggressive russian turn 1 attack through the german right flank woods could be devastating. I set up all five 447’s with the mmg, psk, both JgPz’s back in support to minimize that threat, or at least inflict some casualties. I put only a concealed 7-0 on the FRF village side. My hope was that Brian would attack there, as the rear bldg VC and the requirement to take one additional building, when combined with a push to the FRF village ends up splitting the Russian force into three parts, and opens up some opportunities for a german attack.
German Set up
Brian lined up his T34’s to take MG/HE bounding shots on my concealed infantry, CR/breaking one and pinning another. That was enough to allow his infantry to move up, taking a couple breaks. I self-broke two 447s and routed them and the newly created half squad back into the village. Brian moved 3 AFV and 3 or 4 squads into Hull down spots on the FRF board. He left two M10’s concealed in his right rear to discourage a german attack there.
German turn 1 I decided to enter on the far end of the FRF board and attack the two M10's there on my way to the Y7 VC building. Brian had concealed them but my panthers caused them try to activate their smoke pots and go into motion. My infantry flame thrower killed one, with a lucky panther hit killing the second. This freed up my third to use it's last two MP to stop in LOS of a T34, who failed his motion attempt. Then in advancing fire I rolled a 6 to kill it too. Three down six to go! I ran one Jgpz into a central area to attract attention and tried to bring the second up for support. However the second failed a bypass clearance check and stopped adjacent to a DC. Then in Advfire it broke it's MA. Not good!
In Brian's turn 2 all three of my non-DM MMC in the village failed to rally. Uh-oh! However I did fix my Jgpz MA.
Russian Turn 2
Brian proceeded to have a conga line of M10s/T34s try to kill my JgPz's but the theme of the day was always 'No APCR' (0 for 4), followed by 'No hit on AP'. Brian's did kill one of the Jgpz after about 8 shots. His dice kept failing to help him in the AFV wars. His infantry did well, although the DC-toting squad was pinned on RT2 and then broke german turn 2 to let my JgPz escape it's clutches. Then that JgPz managed to kill a T34 from the front on the net 6 TK.
In turns 2 and 3 Brian broke two of his AFV MA's and then followed up with a 6,6 on the repair rolls...goodbye! This left three AFV vs my four, Brian danced his AFV around trying for side BFF hits but kept missing by a pip or two. I ran a JgPz up 12 hexes from a T34 and then killed it from the front after two tank hits had bounced off my AFV's armor. By RT4 my panthers were adjacent on both sides of the VC building, ready to fire point blank at the hapless occupants. Brian had swept both the villages but couldn't keep me out of the mandatory VC building. A great scenario! I plan to use this to run a Texas-style 'Ferocity fest' game day in NJ in February! 4-1
Round 6 FRF95 Blood Red Snow vs Bob Bendis of Chicago
I always love playing Bob. He is a masterful attacker, making use of every AFV MP and every opportunity to force a defender into making bad choices. It's especially nice to have Stanleto there for his impressive tricks, fun attitude and amazing self-control.
This is an instant classic scenario featuring 9 548/447 with lots of fire support from two HMG's, a 20 FP quad-20MM AA gun, an 88L and a 81 MTR. The defending germans set up at least two trenches/pillbox on each of three hills. One hill is far forward and easily overrun. The defender must split up the two AA guns on the remaining two hills with the 447 force with the 548's and MTR defending the village between them. The russians can attack from either flank or can emerge concealed (due to winter camo/ground snow) from a central gully. Some AT mines support the defense while a reinforcing 75L AT is towed on turn 2. The russians have 5 T34's and 11 mixed 628/458/447 squads. It's serious game of rock/paper/scissors as the T34's can dominate all except the 88L. Meanwhile the russian infantry is facing tremendous firepower so must use their snow camo to stay concealed as long as possible.
I Bid G1 and Bob bid R1 to both raise our SAN's. But as usual this had little game effect. I set up both AA guns facing the central gully as I thought that would be the greatest threat. RT1 I killed a T34 and broke two squads there, killing them for FTR in GT1. Bob entered most of his troops on my right flank, which I thought was the least likely avenue of attack. Bob made a good run of it, although I forgot the T34/41's were still radioless in Dec 42. In the end Bob's hope came down to two concealed 447's going into CC. One was killed outright and the other was tied up in melee and then killed in the following german turn. My guns kept up a strong fire although both HMG's and two guns all broke in the same fire phase, however the two guns quickly repaired and this ended up swaying the end game to me. A fun scenario, although we both feel the germans perhaps have too much firepower in this. Maybe the balance should be to ignore radioless AFVs and lose a HMG? 5-1 and third place officially.
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