bo_siemsen
Senior Member
Michael Hastrup-Leth and I embarked on our 3rd biannual Albany and it may just have been the best one yet. Michael reached the final of the tournament and lost in a nailbiter of a game against Paul Sidhu and I had my own fair share of challenges playing a bevy of great players.
Round 1 - Pocket Panzers - Steve Pleva
"Pontoon bridges. Bloody Hell!"
So, I had requested the privilege of playing against Steve Pleva in the first round. We had agreed to play "Pocket Panzers" in advance. Steve won the bid for the germans but had to give up a couple of bid points to get his wish. That allowed me to upgrade a 9-1 to a 10-2. Steve's opted for a right hook attack and it went pretty well early on, he advanced in aggressively with the majority of forces while a couple of squads were spread out looking for "surprises" in the wheat fields where he promptly discovered and took out my AT Gun. He also took out both my Bazooka-boys, one took the boxcar way out of the scenario and the other one had too much fire discipline for his own good.
Rushing in aggressively Steve gambled with one of his Panthers as he used it to shut down a firelane from a woods-hex. That cost him a Panther. His 9-2 and a couple of squads scooted around my OBA and headed for the treelines fearlessly charging through a 2 residual. Odds of that failing dramatically was miniscule ... well, it still happens ... all moving units failed their morale checks and a few seconds later the 100mm OBA fell on their heads. Stack eliminated. That took the wind out of Steve's sails for a bit but he pushed on and with the Panthers roaming freely and the OBA failing to work after turn 3 (it didn't malfunction or a draw red, I just couldn't roll an 8) he was once again in the drivers seat a couple of turns later pressing in on the victory buildings while dominating the bridge area with a couple of Panthers.
At this point I decide to gamble and counterpunch. I draw fire from one of the Panthers with a Cromwell and then charge in with my Challenger to turn the tides of war, crashing into a wooden building for cover deftly avoiding falling into the cellar and I knock out the first Panther with a perfect bounding fire shot to the center of his turret while retaining ROF and hit the other one (which was already immobilized from driving too fast). I didn't destroy that one despite another beautiful turret hit but the crew did decide to bail out. Outside the vehicle they were promptly blown away by nearby infantry. That allowed me to take command of the bridge area.
At the end game I felt in a great position. Still controlling all the buildings and the bridge, plenty of infantry and tanks covering the key areas. His last remaining Panther took control of the bridge driving through a hailstorm of armor piercing shots surviving multiple hits, but was repelled attacking the buildings so he went for the hail mary pass at the end ... and taught me a rule about pontoon bridges that I didn't know ... I thought I had the entry hex to the bridge blocked by a halfsquad ... but this is the moment I learn that pontoon bridges can be entered by infantry from any adjacent hex, not just the road hex ... so Steve ran up placing a DC against the bridge for the possible instant win. My heart sunk as what I felt was an assured win all of the sudden became an 84 per cent chance to win.
That's what it would come down to, a DC placed against the bridge. It felt like Steve spent 20 minutes warming up the dice in his dice cup torturing me (all in good fun) before finally rolling the dice. At this point it was past 2.30 am. He rolled a 6, needing a 4. What a great game it was. Lots of up and downs. A great win in a great game against a great player. What more could an ASL player ask for.
1-0
* Lesson learned - Pontoon bridges can be entered from any adjacent hex.
Round 2 - Mook Point - Phil Draper
"Watch those Flamethrowers !"
After having played well into the night in the first round against Steve Pleva I was happy to pair up against Phil Draper for one of the shorter scenarios in round 2. Mook point would be our scenario of choice. Neither of us had played the scenario in advance, but since we both were able to count to 2 Flamethrowers for the Germans and none for the americans both of us bid for the Germans. Phil won the dice roll.
My battle plan was pretty straight forward. A controlled fallback defence that would converge the majority of my forces on the hill on the right side, covering the rear with my OBA while sending enough infantry into the village to make him really invest significant forces in capturing buildings.
The plan came off quite well, I had to improvise for a pair of halfsquads to move out to my left flank as it was waylaid by the german approach. They did manage to divert a healthy portion of his forces though. For a while. As we approached the end game he had finally gotten his flamethrowers into position and they torched a couple of squads while the halftracks and machineguns were getting into position to blast away at me ... and blast away the did to devastating effect. I had deployed to keep up MMC numbers but once again I could not get the damn OBA to work as we approached the end game but I don't think Phil realized how close it was. Fortunately I had a good last rally phase and I was able survive his prep fire and repel his remaining flamethrower as he went for a desperation move to take out some of my infantry units.
2-0
Round 3 - What doesn't kill you - Paul Sidhu
"Rules ... what rules ... where we're going we don't need no stinkin' rules"
Round 3 paired me with Paul Sidhu. Our last game, 4 years ago, was marred by him misreading the number of building required in the victory conditions in "Messenger Boys". The ending of this years' game was even worse. And totally my fault. A lack of attention to details and preparation as I hadn't played the scenario in advance and only rarely, if ever, used the dare death squads' berserker ability. For starters I only recorded one squad as a dare death. I was allowed two. But it would get worse.
Anyhoo, I had opted for the Chinese and proceeded to make the most obvious attack, I cleaned up the dummies on the right side of the gully and bore down on the entirety of the Japanese forces. The attack, I suspect, that he was expecting and quite possibly hoping for.
Facing crossing open ground with no more smoke cover, a burning building, a gully and staring down a smooth-firing Japanese Infantry gun I pushed on and managed to get across the gully into the first building. The infantry gun hit whatever it shot at, regardless who was manning it. A crew took out a hull down tank, a halfsquad took out my best leader and MMG who where in a wooden building and a full squad immobilized a moving tank.
Pushing on from there was a challenge and this was the time I screwed up. I had skimmed over the rarely used (by me) dare death rules and misread the whole thing. Somehow I convinced myself that it was an option to go berserk with everyone in the dare death squads' hex. I set up that movement phase to take out the key piece to the Japanese defence ... the Infantry Gun ... I parked my remaining tank in one squads' hex and I drew fire from another before running up with my remaining leader in order to command the dare death squad to go berserk. They charged in, lost the actual dare death halfsquad to a final fire shot in the destination hex. Meaning the squad who wasn't supposed to be berserk got there . Defensive fire and advancing fire had no effect, so I set up my advances based on the situation where the squad manning the gun was in close combat (effectively meaning, two squads right in front of the gun barrel of the infantry gun).
As we got to the close combat phase the blunder became apparent. Paul offered that we could just take the invalid berserker squad off and play on. The scenario might still have been winnable for me. Was it a slam dunk - not at all. Was it possible - yes. It just felt wrong. To me too much water had passed under the bridge and the whole situation was too tainted by my error and it was beyond repair. Movement would have been different, defensive fire would have been different, advancing fire would have been different and certainly advances would have been different. Taking off the squad would have made for a "weird" situation to play on.
If this had been a friendly game it would have been fixable. Re-do the whole movement phase, allow different advances or something similar. But this was a competitive game. Seeking a solution that neither "punished" or "helped" either side just wasn't reasonable. I screwed up royally. I paid the price. Paul got the win and deservedly moved on to win the tournament.
2-1
* Lesson learned - Prepare better for scenarios and tournaments. That's twice rarely used (by me) rules got me in trouble.
And so ended 2 challenging days of ASL.
I staggered wounded back to my room and caught up with some much needed sleep.
(To be continued)
http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/albany-2016-aar-part-2.129155/
Round 1 - Pocket Panzers - Steve Pleva
"Pontoon bridges. Bloody Hell!"
So, I had requested the privilege of playing against Steve Pleva in the first round. We had agreed to play "Pocket Panzers" in advance. Steve won the bid for the germans but had to give up a couple of bid points to get his wish. That allowed me to upgrade a 9-1 to a 10-2. Steve's opted for a right hook attack and it went pretty well early on, he advanced in aggressively with the majority of forces while a couple of squads were spread out looking for "surprises" in the wheat fields where he promptly discovered and took out my AT Gun. He also took out both my Bazooka-boys, one took the boxcar way out of the scenario and the other one had too much fire discipline for his own good.
Rushing in aggressively Steve gambled with one of his Panthers as he used it to shut down a firelane from a woods-hex. That cost him a Panther. His 9-2 and a couple of squads scooted around my OBA and headed for the treelines fearlessly charging through a 2 residual. Odds of that failing dramatically was miniscule ... well, it still happens ... all moving units failed their morale checks and a few seconds later the 100mm OBA fell on their heads. Stack eliminated. That took the wind out of Steve's sails for a bit but he pushed on and with the Panthers roaming freely and the OBA failing to work after turn 3 (it didn't malfunction or a draw red, I just couldn't roll an 8) he was once again in the drivers seat a couple of turns later pressing in on the victory buildings while dominating the bridge area with a couple of Panthers.
At this point I decide to gamble and counterpunch. I draw fire from one of the Panthers with a Cromwell and then charge in with my Challenger to turn the tides of war, crashing into a wooden building for cover deftly avoiding falling into the cellar and I knock out the first Panther with a perfect bounding fire shot to the center of his turret while retaining ROF and hit the other one (which was already immobilized from driving too fast). I didn't destroy that one despite another beautiful turret hit but the crew did decide to bail out. Outside the vehicle they were promptly blown away by nearby infantry. That allowed me to take command of the bridge area.
At the end game I felt in a great position. Still controlling all the buildings and the bridge, plenty of infantry and tanks covering the key areas. His last remaining Panther took control of the bridge driving through a hailstorm of armor piercing shots surviving multiple hits, but was repelled attacking the buildings so he went for the hail mary pass at the end ... and taught me a rule about pontoon bridges that I didn't know ... I thought I had the entry hex to the bridge blocked by a halfsquad ... but this is the moment I learn that pontoon bridges can be entered by infantry from any adjacent hex, not just the road hex ... so Steve ran up placing a DC against the bridge for the possible instant win. My heart sunk as what I felt was an assured win all of the sudden became an 84 per cent chance to win.
That's what it would come down to, a DC placed against the bridge. It felt like Steve spent 20 minutes warming up the dice in his dice cup torturing me (all in good fun) before finally rolling the dice. At this point it was past 2.30 am. He rolled a 6, needing a 4. What a great game it was. Lots of up and downs. A great win in a great game against a great player. What more could an ASL player ask for.
1-0
* Lesson learned - Pontoon bridges can be entered from any adjacent hex.
Round 2 - Mook Point - Phil Draper
"Watch those Flamethrowers !"
After having played well into the night in the first round against Steve Pleva I was happy to pair up against Phil Draper for one of the shorter scenarios in round 2. Mook point would be our scenario of choice. Neither of us had played the scenario in advance, but since we both were able to count to 2 Flamethrowers for the Germans and none for the americans both of us bid for the Germans. Phil won the dice roll.
My battle plan was pretty straight forward. A controlled fallback defence that would converge the majority of my forces on the hill on the right side, covering the rear with my OBA while sending enough infantry into the village to make him really invest significant forces in capturing buildings.
The plan came off quite well, I had to improvise for a pair of halfsquads to move out to my left flank as it was waylaid by the german approach. They did manage to divert a healthy portion of his forces though. For a while. As we approached the end game he had finally gotten his flamethrowers into position and they torched a couple of squads while the halftracks and machineguns were getting into position to blast away at me ... and blast away the did to devastating effect. I had deployed to keep up MMC numbers but once again I could not get the damn OBA to work as we approached the end game but I don't think Phil realized how close it was. Fortunately I had a good last rally phase and I was able survive his prep fire and repel his remaining flamethrower as he went for a desperation move to take out some of my infantry units.
2-0
Round 3 - What doesn't kill you - Paul Sidhu
"Rules ... what rules ... where we're going we don't need no stinkin' rules"
Round 3 paired me with Paul Sidhu. Our last game, 4 years ago, was marred by him misreading the number of building required in the victory conditions in "Messenger Boys". The ending of this years' game was even worse. And totally my fault. A lack of attention to details and preparation as I hadn't played the scenario in advance and only rarely, if ever, used the dare death squads' berserker ability. For starters I only recorded one squad as a dare death. I was allowed two. But it would get worse.
Anyhoo, I had opted for the Chinese and proceeded to make the most obvious attack, I cleaned up the dummies on the right side of the gully and bore down on the entirety of the Japanese forces. The attack, I suspect, that he was expecting and quite possibly hoping for.
Facing crossing open ground with no more smoke cover, a burning building, a gully and staring down a smooth-firing Japanese Infantry gun I pushed on and managed to get across the gully into the first building. The infantry gun hit whatever it shot at, regardless who was manning it. A crew took out a hull down tank, a halfsquad took out my best leader and MMG who where in a wooden building and a full squad immobilized a moving tank.
Pushing on from there was a challenge and this was the time I screwed up. I had skimmed over the rarely used (by me) dare death rules and misread the whole thing. Somehow I convinced myself that it was an option to go berserk with everyone in the dare death squads' hex. I set up that movement phase to take out the key piece to the Japanese defence ... the Infantry Gun ... I parked my remaining tank in one squads' hex and I drew fire from another before running up with my remaining leader in order to command the dare death squad to go berserk. They charged in, lost the actual dare death halfsquad to a final fire shot in the destination hex. Meaning the squad who wasn't supposed to be berserk got there . Defensive fire and advancing fire had no effect, so I set up my advances based on the situation where the squad manning the gun was in close combat (effectively meaning, two squads right in front of the gun barrel of the infantry gun).
As we got to the close combat phase the blunder became apparent. Paul offered that we could just take the invalid berserker squad off and play on. The scenario might still have been winnable for me. Was it a slam dunk - not at all. Was it possible - yes. It just felt wrong. To me too much water had passed under the bridge and the whole situation was too tainted by my error and it was beyond repair. Movement would have been different, defensive fire would have been different, advancing fire would have been different and certainly advances would have been different. Taking off the squad would have made for a "weird" situation to play on.
If this had been a friendly game it would have been fixable. Re-do the whole movement phase, allow different advances or something similar. But this was a competitive game. Seeking a solution that neither "punished" or "helped" either side just wasn't reasonable. I screwed up royally. I paid the price. Paul got the win and deservedly moved on to win the tournament.
2-1
* Lesson learned - Prepare better for scenarios and tournaments. That's twice rarely used (by me) rules got me in trouble.
And so ended 2 challenging days of ASL.
I staggered wounded back to my room and caught up with some much needed sleep.
(To be continued)
http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/albany-2016-aar-part-2.129155/
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