AAR - The Men From Zadig - OB10

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Those of you who have been following my AARs may remember that I had been job hunting. The good news is that I now have a job. The bad news is that I now have a job. If only I had been born rich instead of handsome.

Though I have been getting a lot of games in, I haven't had time to write AARs. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been 6 weeks since my last AAR..."

Since I shared job hunting advice as to what was not working for me, I thought I would share a tip as to what does help. Replace the cover letter in your application with a list of “The 12 Coolest Things About Chuck Norris.”


Zadig is a Dispatches from the Bunker scenario, rereleased as OB10. I didn't compare versions. It's a DASL scenario. Revolting French civilians, armed only with pistols and a fine selection of cheeses, attempt to defend the town hall.


10020

Germans enter, loaded up on trucks like busloads of Japanese tourists. “On my left, you will see the studio and garden where Monet painted many of his most famous works. Oh, and straight ahead are quite a number of French postal workers, who, having ended their strike, are now shooting at us!”

I half-remembered that you could voluntarily deploy to accommodate transport PP, but I couldn't find the rule. It may be an SSR in some scenarios. I wanted one truck to enter with just a HS, but couldn't do it.

1st truck with MMGs unloads behind buildings, having had to deal with nothing more menacing than a girl on a bicycle with a basket of flowers. (Counter coming in the next MMP French module.)

2nd truck ‘the rabbit’ with one squad charges forward to almost certain death with the intention of drawing all the fire from his front line troops. The squad was not told that this was a suicide mission. We thought it best that way.

10021

The lone partisan LMG put 147 bullets in the truck’s radiator. But the squad survived.

So my rabbit drew almost no fire, but I really had no choice but to stick to the original plan and hope.

3rd truck runs up the left road. Two 527s fire at long range. It’s a NMC on the passengers, and one squad pins, while the other breaks and ELRs. The way we read it, the truck could keep zooming forward, and the pinned squad could unload, but not advance. The broken squad unloaded in the rout phase.

4th truck makes its harrowing journey through the dangerous, yet picturesque streets, as mentioned in Fodor’s Travel Guide to the Great Cities of Europe. The 527s SFF, but with the wall as protection, there is no effect.

5th truck just has to deal with the 2 residual. Which it can’t, as Walt rolls a ‘3’ and destroys it. But at least these sturdy trucks have cs7, so there is a good chance of passenger survival. First squad – DR 10. Second squad – DR 11. Heavy sigh.

The plan was to end turn 1 with a concealed power stack in a stone building across the street, another concealed power stack threatening the left corner of the building, and a couple squads in the stone building on the left, ready to assault it on turn 2. The plan is in shambles. Only the power stacks made it to where they were supposed to be. Two squads are dead, and one is a broken conscript. I only have 7 GO squads, to his 6-1/2. A recommendation is made to headquarters that we pull back and just level the building with artillery. The request is denied. We are told, in no uncertain terms, that our days of sloth and indolence as occupation troops are over, and that we are to press on. We decide to press on.

P1, Walt’s Kill Stack (LMG, 2 527s, 8-1) shoots at my concealed stack, rolls an 11 and breaks his LMG due to Ammo Shortage.

G2, my mighty, mighty Pz R38(f)s come in, park next to his Hero and squad, and say, “I dares ya!!!” They begin peppering the building with tiny little shells. One squad runs around to threaten the rear of the town hall.

G2 DFF, Walt’s 527 Power Stack shoots at my LMG squads. And rolls a 12. Which knocks a 527 down to a conscript due to Ammo Shortage. “Claude, pass me more bullets!!! “Bullets??? We have no more bullets!!! Our plan is to lull them to sleep by reading them commentaries by Jean-Paul Sartre!!!”

P2, Walt Preps at 18 even at an adjacent LMG squad in the woods. And rolls a 12. Again. Which AGAIN causes reduction in class to his desperate civilians due to Ammo Shortage. Which squad is affected??? Doubles! Both!

Return fire, at 32 +3(!), results in much breaking and ELRing in the hex. Go figger. He ends up with a broken 8-1, a malfed LMG, and 3 broken 226 HSs. Everybody runs upstairs as far away as possible.

The Heroic French have no Molotov Cocktails to attack the tanks, due to a shortage of empty bottles. Actually, they do have a substantial amount of champagne, but Pierre Robert said that it was too early in the day to begin drinking it. There were a number of bottles of burgundy, 1937 vintage, but LeBeau said that he would rather DIE than serve red wine with the Perch with Lemon Cream Sauce he had prepared for lunch. Gaston suggested just dumping out some bottles to provide empties for making Molotov Cocktails. The others turned on him, as there was no way that a true Frenchman would ever suggest dumping wine. Now positive that Gaston was a Nazi sympathizer, he was led away and shot.

Anyway, the result was that the partisans had pretty much nothing that could deal with the tanks. Sure, there was always the possibility that a baguette could be shoved into a gun barrel, but the last time that was attempted, Jean-Luc was shot when he tried to toast the bread and spread Camembert on it before assaulting the tank.

You can run, but you cannot hide from the might of the German army. G3, the Panther enters, and being a fan of Kicking People When They Are Down, the plan is to charge down the road, park next to the hex with the broken 8-1 and all of his Conscript HS minions, and shoot them with MGs to make them well and truly DMed. The drawback to this plan, of course, is that the Heroic Panther Commander is not going to be mentioned in dispatches or win any medals for shooting at whimpering partisans. He would rather be shooting large holes in Cromwells. But war is hell.

Start of G3, Walt attempts to rally his broken 8-1. And rolls a 12. Which Wounds him. dr = 6. Fatally. Of course. The Broken Conscript HS Minions now have to take LLMCs, needing ‘3s’. Yeah, good luck with that. By the end of Rally Phase, all that is left in the hex is a broken LMG, a wisp of smoke and half a pitcher of poisoned Kool-Aid.

G3 movement, Armored Assault with two squads adjacent to Hero Andre and his two squads ends badly for me, as both squads break and ELR. Other squads move to advance onto partisans. The Panther now has to find a new mission. He parks next to the back corner of the town hall. The hero and his squads now have three tanks shooting into their hex, two of them adjacent.

Advancing fire pins a partisan squad and HS in the hex I plan on CCing.

G3 CC, no Ambushes occur. I have a squad and a half against a 337. Nothing happens. In the other CC, I go HtH against the Pinned squad with two squads. I kill off the 7-0 and 337, leaving me in HtH Melee with a partisan 127 HS. I’m liking my odds.

P3, Hero Andre and his men head for the wine cellar. This scenario uses modified RB cellar rules, so the cellars are not Fortified Locations. Moving there keeps the partisans from being shot by my infantry (for now), but not by my tanks.
10022

The captured French tanks work as well for me as they did for the French in 1940. Although I got several hits, I could never get a result.

A Panther round caused significantly more damage, though, and both partisan squads break, then are reduced by Panther MG fire. The broken remnants head to the far corner of the cellar, where all the cobwebs and stacks of old National Geographics are.

Walt loses both Melees, with no German losses. There are no longer any GO partisan MMCs.

G4, and all I have to do to win is trap the broken cellar dwellers like rats. Hero Andre gets some shots, but there isn’t much he can do singlehandedly. The broken partisans can’t rout, because some damned fool put bars on the windows, and they can’t surrender, because they are partisans. We may never know what happened next in the cellar.

10023

Fin.

FYI, my squad that broke and ELRed on turn 1 spent the rest of the game holed up far from the action with the 6+1, drinking Calvados and playing backgammon. They never did rally.

Interesting short scenario, though like most small scenarios, brittle. I got the win, but with an asterisk, as Walt pretty much singlehandedly destroyed a good chunk of his own force by rolling 11s and 12s.
 

jrv

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I half-remembered that you could voluntarily deploy to accommodate transport PP, but I couldn't find the rule. It may be an SSR in some scenarios.
There's no general rule like that except when performing a seaborne assault [G14.311]. The trucks you rode in on didn't happen to be DUKWs, did they?

JR
 

jrv

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Per SSR 3 the 5-2-7s have an underscored ML. When they ELR for ammo shortage they are replaced by two 2-2-7 halfsquads instead of a 4-2-6. When a 2-2-7 HS is affected by ammo shortage it is not capable of further quality loss and is broken after the resolution of the attack.

JR
 

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Per SSR 3 the 5-2-7s have an underscored ML. When they ELR for ammo shortage they are replaced by two 2-2-7 halfsquads instead of a 4-2-6. When a 2-2-7 HS is affected by ammo shortage it is not capable of further quality loss and is broken after the resolution of the attack.

JR
My bad - we played that wrong. We did replace the 337s with two HSs, and it also occurred with the 527s. But even if Walt had broken 227s instead of 226s, they would have vanished after their LLMCs after his 8-1 took the easy way out and shot himself in the head. So the outcome would have been the same.

Which is a good thing, as I would hate to think that I won on a sleaze.

Clarification - non-intentional sleaze.

ASL Tip #126 - Try to encourage all of your opponent's broken leaders to shoot themselves in the head. An often overlooked subtle strategy.

With the game lasting 3-1/2 turns, and with only 6-1/2 partisan squads, the fact that breaking and ELRing, broken and ELRing, and broken HS ELRing, (all hommes in a stone building) all came up during the scenario gives you some idea of how things went for Walt. The fact that he hasn't switched to Hungry Hungry Hippos still amazes me.
 

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The road network on board a looks like it is printed upside down on the scenario card, i.e. what should be the north end road network is at the south. Either that or the id letter "a" is printed at the wrong end. I submitted for a q&a. Based on the original, I'm guessing the road network is depicted wrong.

Just looking at it, it's hard to believe it's a balanced scenario. ROAR shows it as reasonable albeit with a small number of playings. The Partisans must retreat to the upper levels of their fortress, fight for the stairwells, and the Germans must run out of time I guess.

JR
 
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william.stoppel

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Great AAR! Not the best DASL scenario DftB has put out but it is DASL so it is awesome. You should try Headhunting for Bloody Huns! All time favorite DASL scenario (even though it has zero black and white SS).
 

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The road network on board a looks like it is printed upside down on the scenario card, i.e. what should be the north end road network is at the south. Either that or the id letter "a" is printed at the wrong end. I submitted for a q&a. Based on the original, I'm guessing the road network is depicted wrong.

Just looking at it, it's hard to believe it's a balanced scenario. ROAR shows it as reasonable albeit with a small number of playings. The Partisans must retreat to the upper levels of their fortress, fight for the stairwells, and the Germans must run out of time I guess.

JR
I think the partisans can win. There's not a lot of time, only 1 squad needs to survive, and the Germans have uninspired leaders. I was able to turn the corner on the left with my bold truck assault on turn 1, and that combined with some very bad partisan shots doomed them.

I would have put everybody up front initially, and used Wall Advantage. If you can force the Germans to unload the trucks in safety in front of you, you have bought some time, and the attack will be from one side of the building and not from three like I had.

Also, Walt had his 527s on the left corner, which meant they were shooting at my trucks at long range. 337s would have been better there.

Use of cellars and upper levels will keep the tanks from using VBF.

 

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<<Just looking at it, it's hard to believe it's a balanced scenario. ROAR shows it as reasonable albeit with a small number of playings. The Partisans must retreat to the upper levels of their fortress, fight for the stairwells, and the Germans must run out of time I guess.>>

This is EXACTLY the strategy that one must employ as the Partisans to win this scenario. It comes down to a bloody race for time on the stairs for the Germans. We found it usually comes down pretty tight.
 

Carln0130

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Great AAR! Not the best DASL scenario DftB has put out but it is DASL so it is awesome. You should try Headhunting for Bloody Huns! All time favorite DASL scenario (even though it has zero black and white SS).
Will, Tom really nailed it on this one. One of his best designs. I have played it to death. Doesn't get old. Has been a few years since I did get a game of it in. So many shiny new bobels out there, but it is a great DASL/Para drop scenario.
 

william.stoppel

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Will, Tom really nailed it on this one. One of his best designs. I have played it to death. Doesn't get old. Has been a few years since I did get a game of it in. So many shiny new bobels out there, but it is a great DASL/Para drop scenario.
And yet another good reason to preorder the new MMP DASL pack. Headhunting is including therein after much pleading and begging on my part to Perry and Chas! Only 79 more preorders to go
 
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