#52: Fighting Withdrawal: Live

daveramsey

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Hey all. For those that missed it, we played Fighting Withdrawal on Tuesday. It was a really close game that had it all. Rules mistakes, missed close-combat phases and updates on my deteriorating health that day (more on that in episode 53!)


And part 2:

 
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Tuomo

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Rules problems:

  • I think that broken Finnish unit would have routed to T4 and then surrendered there
  • I'm doubtful that the Finnish leader could have automatically grabbed the prisoners once their captor HS was KIA'd
  • I suspect there were multiple prisoner escape attempts that were missed once their guards broke.
  • Lots of Wall Advantage situations seem to have been missed
  • The Russian conscript HS that rolled snakes on that rally should have been forced to rout the turn before, being adjacent to an enemy unit
  • Speaking of which, I think the broken Russians that Martin surrounded near the bottom of the board actually could have routed back to the rowhouse they came from. Dave was right, there's no LOS between the rowhouse locations so they could have gone there and stayed there without surrendering.
  • The Finnish squad who rolled snakes in CC near that spot could have rolled for leader creation and possibly gotten off the board with the leader's help.
  • Maybe I've been playing this wrong for years, but I thought you could have multiple Flame counters in a Location. You keep rolling Blaze-to-Flame for each eligible Location regardless of how many Flames are in that Location until one of them Blazes up.
  • I also thought Blaze-to-Flame spread and flame-to-blaze both happened at the start of the AFPh before any shots are taken, as opposed to the way it was done here.
I will give Martin credit - that turn 6 move of the leader's stack into the building (as opposed to just running across the road in I10) surprised me, and was a smart move. Couldn't ultimately avoid getting shot at in turn 7, but he avoided the problem in turn 6 and gave the other Finnish units a chance to hurt those Russian defenders in the meantime.

Despite the rules griping, great stuff as always!
 

Stewart

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Rules problems:

  • I'm doubtful that the Finnish leader could have automatically grabbed the prisoners once their captor HS was

  • Should the Guard unit be eliminated, any unit capable of accepting their transfer (disregarding phase) may immediately assume the Guard position.
The Finnish squad who rolled snakes in CC near that spot could have rolled for leader creation and possibly gotten off the board with the leader's help.
Finns are N/A for field promotion.

Maybe I've been playing this wrong for years, but I thought you could have multiple Flame counters in a Location. You keep rolling Blaze-to-Flame for each eligible Location regardless of how many Flames are in that Location until one of them Blazes up.
You get to roll but use the BEST chance of the adjacent BLAZES, but yeah...you can have many flames.

  • I also thought Blaze-to-Flame spread and flame-to-blaze both happened at the start of the AFPh before any shots are taken, as opposed to the way it was done here.
  • 5.3 END OF AFPh:

    5.31B Resolve Blaze Spread
Drifting Smoke from the Blazes is 3 hexes, based on the Terrain blaze DRM.

Regardless of the miscues, its great to see a normal Game with great rules questions they resolve during the game in a friendly manner.
 

daveramsey

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Rules problems:

  • I think that broken Finnish unit would have routed to T4 and then surrendered there
  • I'm doubtful that the Finnish leader could have automatically grabbed the prisoners once their captor HS was KIA'd
  • I suspect there were multiple prisoner escape attempts that were missed once their guards broke.
  • Lots of Wall Advantage situations seem to have been missed
  • The Russian conscript HS that rolled snakes on that rally should have been forced to rout the turn before, being adjacent to an enemy unit
  • Speaking of which, I think the broken Russians that Martin surrounded near the bottom of the board actually could have routed back to the rowhouse they came from. Dave was right, there's no LOS between the rowhouse locations so they could have gone there and stayed there without surrendering.
  • The Finnish squad who rolled snakes in CC near that spot could have rolled for leader creation and possibly gotten off the board with the leader's help.
  • Maybe I've been playing this wrong for years, but I thought you could have multiple Flame counters in a Location. You keep rolling Blaze-to-Flame for each eligible Location regardless of how many Flames are in that Location until one of them Blazes up.
  • I also thought Blaze-to-Flame spread and flame-to-blaze both happened at the start of the AFPh before any shots are taken, as opposed to the way it was done here.
I will give Martin credit - that turn 6 move of the leader's stack into the building (as opposed to just running across the road in I10) surprised me, and was a smart move. Couldn't ultimately avoid getting shot at in turn 7, but he avoided the problem in turn 6 and gave the other Finnish units a chance to hurt those Russian defenders in the meantime.

Despite the rules griping, great stuff as always!
Cheers Tom - would be good to have a note of the times so I can check these. No idea where most of these happened, otherwise, I'm sure you're right on most of them. I think we incorrectly thought if there was a GO unit there it would prevent the prisoners attacking the broken guard. I think we caught some WA shots (just didn't mark them).

You can definitely have multiple flames - this came from a previous game we played where we even checked it and may have misread the rule (no multiple blazes perhaps?) - but of course the incorrectly played/misread rules are the ones that stick around (rent-free) for the longest!

  • I also thought Blaze-to-Flame spread and flame-to-blaze both happened at the start of the AFPh before any shots are taken, as opposed to the way it was done here.
I think it's all at the end, after double-checking, with the exception of placing smoke which is at the start.

Cheers!

Dave
 

STAVKA

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Cheers Tom - would be good to have a note of the times so I can check these. No idea where most of these happened, otherwise, I'm sure you're right on most of them. I think we incorrectly thought if there was a GO unit there it would prevent the prisoners attacking the broken guard. I think we caught some WA shots (just didn't mark them).

You can definitely have multiple flames - this came from a previous game we played where we even checked it and may have misread the rule (no multiple blazes perhaps?) - but of course the incorrectly played/misread rules are the ones that stick around (rent-free) for the longest!



I think it's all at the end, after double-checking, with the exception of placing smoke which is at the start.

Cheers!

Dave
First time I checked out your youtube clip in length, mostly due to the many times I have played Fighting Withdrawal, that was my first ASL game after Basic SL with my brother that was the rule guru since I could not read English.

Have played the scenarios 63 times vs 27 different opponent of which 14 solo playings to learn the game with an dictonary to learn Americano at the same time, back in the day at the age of 17-18.

Released for about 10 years ago an updated version, played 11 times vs 6 different opponents.

FIGHTING BORDER WITHDRAWAL

-Extend the game length to 8 Turns.

-Russians do not suffer Ammo Shortages.

- No Quarter is in effect (benefit the Russians and speed up play).

- Replace the ahistorical Finnish
3-8 LMGs & the 5-12 MMG with
LMGs 2-6 B11 & MMG 4-10 B11 (5PP).

- Changed the picture to a historical early fall (September) picture, the scenario was in Stockholm Tournament 2015.

[URLunfurl="true"]https://forum.aslsweden.com/index.php?/topic/3223-stockholm-asl-tournament-2015-15-17-may/page/2/#comments[/URL]
 

skarper

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I watched this all the way thru and enjoyed it. There were a fair few rules errors but such are inevitable.

Personally, I dislike how SAN works. It could have robbed the Finns of an earned victory by an unlucky break. However, it's part of the game and good players will allow for it.

Back when I played ASL I never played any Finnish scenarios, so skipped this one.
 

STAVKA

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I watched this all the way thru and enjoyed it. There were a fair few rules errors but such are inevitable.

Personally, I dislike how SAN works. It could have robbed the Finns of an earned victory by an unlucky break. However, it's part of the game and good players will allow for it.

Back when I played ASL I never played any Finnish scenarios, so skipped this one.
The scenario was my learning tool to ASL from SL, and the Russian Sniper were brutal for the Finns in the beginning when I believed that the Sniper could be activated on a Finnish DR of 7 or less.
 
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