AAR - Maczek Fire Brigade - J113

Major Issues

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Joined
Apr 27, 2018
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Location
Secane, PA
First name
Vince
Country
llUnited States

I just changed jobs, but I told my boss that I needed two days off to attend WO. “I need to take off to hang out with a bunch of guys wearing shirts with tanks on them, talk about Nazis and large-caliber weapons, and plan for an invasion of France.”

My tip for job hunting – show up at the job interview dressed as your favorite Game of Thrones character. True, some may question my choice of Cersei Lannister. But I did stand out from the other applicants. Especially since none of them wanted to stand near me.

My first game was Maczek – The Gathering Fire Brigade, with Steve Kyle. I’ve known Steve for 30 years. Steve is a musician and retired teacher, so I can only assume that he has done as many drugs as Ronnie Wood. This may have influenced his decision to play me.

Steve wanted the Poles. They are hanging out in a village when German tanks show up, accompanied by truck-borne and motorcycle infantry, the latter from the Munich chapter of Hell’s Angels. The Poles get a lot of armor as reinforcements, though much of it is TKSs, built from all available Erector sets in Warsaw. VC are building control. Germans need 12 buildings, which is pretty much all on board.

I tend to be very aggressive with early war tanks. So the PzKw IIs and ACs parked next to his infantry in the woods on my right, while the PzKw Is stopped adjacent to the two HSs blocking the forest road. I had cleverly drawn their fire with motorcycle scouts, and both survived, despite a flurry of fire and -2 drm residual fire when they unloaded.

My truck infantry drove on and unloaded behind the wall. I received no fire from this side of the board, other than an ineffective ATR shot. Steve had a stack at Level 1 in the center, which I assumed was either the MMG or the HMG. It was positioned to put fire on the road, but it turned out that this was a dummy stack. Steve later said that he was afraid of having the MGs too forward and losing them early.

AdvF, one PzKw I breaks its gun on the first shot. The other does better, and breaks one HS. On the right, the tanks shoot away the concealment of his infantry and reveal a dummy.

So G1 ends with one HS prisoner and the other in Melee.

P1, another bad ATR shot. The rest of his infantry on the right drop back, in a manner that some might describe as ‘fleeing in terror’. A tank breaks the ATR squad, and the HS in Melee is stabbed in the neck.

More aggressive tank movement and an infantry push clear out the woods and the broken ATR squad, but I lose a squad and 8-1 in CC. A sniper wounds my 9-1. The Polish HMG opens up, but after two ineffective shots and no rate, the 8-0 and squad crumble to a 10+2 shot, never to return.

But all is not well in Blitzkreigtown. I have been busy breaking weapons on my armor, and the Polish MMG proves to be awesome against tanks. By mid-game, both ACs are recalled due to rolling a ‘12’ on NMCs against the CE commanders. I’m picturing them standing up tall, like Teutonic prairie dogs, before being gunned down and falling out in proper Hollywood slow motion. Two PzKw IIs are stunned, one with a broken CMG, while another has a broken MA AND CMG. The Vickers tanks come in and are content with shooting at infantry.

So the weird mid-game gets weirder. I fix a couple guns and MGs, only to break two of them again. A stunned PzKwII is stunned again by the MMG, and is recalled. I am wiping out his infantry, but I only control 4 buildings, and my infantry is taking losses. The TKSs come in on the forest board. Steve finds out that crossing a stream using Platoon Movement is painfully slow.

The Vickers MG tanks have been parked in a field of Wheaties, causing trouble for my infantry. These have two MG turrets, and we had a hard time determining what the tank and turret facings should be to allow both MGs field of fire to overlap. It appeared that in the most effective position, the tank would be best used if it could scuttle sideways, like a fiddler crab. A passerby told us that there is errata on the Chapter H entry, as that diagram has the tanks turned 120 degrees out of position.

Steve broke one of the tank MGs, I think just so he wouldn't have to worry about the overlap facing.

Anyway, Steve decides to move them to a better spot. Red MPs mean a start check, and he rolls a ‘12’, followed by doubles, to immobilize both tanks. The 47mm Vickers gets killed by a LMG shot. It's stuff like this that drives players away from ASL and to Hungry Hungry Hippos.

Steve is down to a couple squads, but is still defending key buildings, and some of the needed victory buildings, though empty, are far to the rear. A bold infantry charge on my left under withering TKS fire allows me to clear one building in CC and get one squad into the rear. One Vickers MG tank is nailed from behind by a PzKw II. This was the only tank lost to another tank the entire game. The 9-1/MMG position finally goes down, and I am able to wrap up enough buildings for the win, even though the village is still polluted with Polish tanks.

Close game. I outshot Steve most of the game, except for all the tank gun and CMG breakages. Time is not on the side of the Germans, and if the HMG had been effective, or the Polish tanks were able to take out some German tanks, the outcome would have been different.

I last played Steve about 3 years ago. I said that we should try to get together. He said that he would have to check his schedule to see if he could fit me in 3 years from now, but it might be more like 7 or 8 years. I can hardly wait!
 
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