Albany 2016 Part 1 - Poland in Flames!

Paul S NJ

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I had a great time seeing many friends. Gary Trezza did a fantastic job with the scenario list and tournament organization as always. We will miss Gary not running things moving forward! Joe Leoce ran an amazing raffle and made an awesome diorama that I’m proud to have won. Steve did a nice job with the ‘Pleva Balance System’ and folks seem to enjoy the mini’s. I enjoyed my games with my most excellent opponents and, as usual, learned new ASL rules.

Round 1 - BFP-121 Old Friends vs Charlie Wilmer of Connecticut
This is a big scenario (it took us about 9 hours) set in Poland in 1939. Charlie and I were matched up back in OCT and I knew I would be in for a fun, challenging game. I bid G4 and he bid G3, so I got the attacking Germans giving up a 468, improving a 7-0 to 7-1 and increasing his SAN to 5. Personally I would have chosen the ATR over the SAN, as I prefer concrete force changes over potentialities. As it turned out, in our game the sniper was not very active.

The scenario has a large force of Poles (10 squad equivalents (SE), two MG armed TKS and two MG-armed trucks, plus 3 very good guns (net 8 or 9 TK#'s) defending a village reinforced turn 3 from two edges of the board by 6 SE, 1 gun, 6 good AFV and 7 trucks/unarmed/unarmored halftracks. The germans have 24 SE, 15 AFV and 6 unarmed/unarmored halftracks. They also get two 81 mortars and a 37L gun, although those aren’t easy to get into the action. Both sides have lots of mobility with the game likely being decided in the VC buildings in the center of the village.

Charlie set up a triangular defense of the village proper and wisely abandoned one mg truck to get the crew HMG (showing he prepared well by reading the vehicle notes).

My turn 1 infantry came on from the west mainly north and south of the village, with a few half squads scouting the concealment terrain in the center looking for hip units (who might hang out until the end game otherwise).

Turn 2 The rest of my germans came on, mainly through VC buildings north of town. I found both HIP half squads with my half squad screening troops. I made a comment about taking some risks (“can’t make an omelet…”) while armored assaulting my 9-2 with three 467, two lmg, and one HMG. Charlie proceed to fire a 12 flat MG shot and rolled snakes twice in a row to leave a sole lmg lying in the road. Two of his guns emerged to each kill an AFV. A breeze had started so a burning wreck turned a central grain field into a large conflagration. In his turn I malfunctioned a PzIV MA but did break his 40L gun crew on a 16+3. I left a four unarmored halftracks off board with half squads to provide a mobile strike force /reserve to keep Charlie honest in his defense.

Turn 3 I dismounted my AT gun on my right with a couple atr’s in support to discourage a flanking entry of the polish reinforcements. I had my two PzIII line up on my left to discourage entry there. I ran one armored car to his rear to interdict his reinforcing gun on the only likely avenue of entry. It died there but held up his infantry well and Charlie delayed entering his gun. Charlie decided to enter his infantry on foot and didn't bother using the unarmored vehicles.

One strange phenomenon we had was four times a die stopped balanced on a corner after we rolled it. Never saw that even once before!

Turn four and 5 I pushed into the center of the village. a mild breeze had started turn 1 which caused a lot of drifting smoke from our burning vehicles. one of my armored cars found the last gun. By german rally phase 5 I had four malfunctioned MA’s and starting to repair them, recalling one vehicle but fixing one MA. By this time using the smoke cover from dead AFV several melees in VC buildings broke out.

Charlie did a nice job using his tanks, guns, ATR’s and MG’s to kill my AFV but I aggressively used them to pave a path forward for my infantry (including driving Pz I’s right into buildings contains strong points of Polish infantry.

The game went right into german turn 7 with a fierce fight in the village. By this time I only had three of my 12 AFV left but Charlie had lost all his AFV and about half his infantry (with about 8 SE left). I still had about 18 SE left and the difference in infantry proved decisive in multiple VC building close combats. A good game! I enjoyed a relaxed dinner with Dr. Rob and Andrea from Italy that evening. Also had some quality Maker’s Mark/cuban cigar time with Doug Shepherd.


Round 2 - BFP-139 Cockroaches against Panzers vs. Rob Loper of Vermont
Rob and I played in his first ever tournament game in which he soundly thrashed me by getting multiple ROF with his elephants against my swarming T-34’s.

This is another big village fight in Poland 1939. The poles have 14 squads, four guns, three light mortars and five tks tankettes (three with 20L’s). One cool SSR is that the Polish 10-2 armor leader gets automatic CH on original DR <=4 with ROF 3. The germans are constricted at entry but have 20 SE and 13 AFV.

I bid G4 and Rob bid P0 so I got the Germans and Rob picked the increased VC and deleting one 467.

A big question in this for the defender is how much to defend the forward hill near the german entry area. It’s easy to hold up the germans for a turn or two but it’s likely to cost whatever units are put forward. Rob defended in the village proper.

Turn 1 I created a trail break in GG17 to let most of my armor swing to the far right. I malf'ed a Pz4 on a acq shot, only to recall it turn 2.

Turn 2 I lost one squad to a 2(-2) but got my infantry and armor over the hill. That’s when I found one 75 gun who destroyed three Pz2. My long range 2(+2) shot made his HMG dude go berserk but he was so far away still that he ended his charge shielded by smoke I had laid earlier.

A 37L emerged to engage my unarmored 20L flak halftrack which I had used to threaten a couple tankettes on Rob’s right. Rob got impatient to kill the offender after the 37L had about ten hits on it, but couldn’t roll less than an 8 to kill it. He sortied his tankettes forward and the flak gun ended up killing both of them.

Turn 3 my big mortars got into the fight by laying multiple smoke around the polish positions. I had a Pz2 overrun the berserker only to find a 75 gun HIP there. The gun destroyed the tank using overrun prevention. But the half-firepower attack still broke the gun crew. Orlik (the Polish 10-2 AL) managed to malfunction his gun and then was immobilized. After disabling his gun in rally the crew had to bail out, right into the teeth of german fire.

Turn 4 and 5 Rob malfunctioned his remaining 75 and both the 37L’s were not in position to stop the flanking move on my far right. Since the 37L’s didn’t have HE they proved little deterrent to infantry. I used my tanks to smoke, freeze, bounding fire and generally harass his infantry while mine moved forward. In the end I lost 10 of 13 AFV but only a few SE and Rob had to throw in the towel. Another good game and Bounding Fire scenario.

Two rules learnings- This is basic but I had forgotten a vehicle starting up does not suffer from point blank fire (-2 when adjacent). Also a berserker who kills a prisoner in advancing fire loses his berserk status.
 

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Gunner Scott

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Played Old Friends and thought it was just way too much of a grind with a huge German blue wave attacking and the poles just hunkering down did not really make for a fun and enjoyable game. Of course this was made 10 times worse when you have a super slow player attacking as the Germans which makes the scenario very painful to play. But I would take the Germans hands down in both Cockroaches and Old Friends. In both scenarios, they can just throw their assets at the poles with impunity.
 

Paul S NJ

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Scott,
I agree with you that Old Friends is tougher on the poles against a strong attacker. I think with some balance and the aggressive use of the reinforcing poles it's winnable and lots of fun. I think the polish armor can really blitz the german right (if the attacker isn't careful). I also would put the guns close together where they and their infantry can really support each other. The germans are likely coming through the board 17 village with their main force to take the four VC buildings there. Some clever positioning of the guns and three HMG's can really make it painful for them for several turns. Then the poles have chance in a scrum in the village.

For Cockroaches the poles can do some really nasty tricks in that front hill. I can see one mg tks, one leader with squad/mmg, squad/atr, and one 37L costing the germans a whole turn or even two. I think the attack is tougher in cockroaches and this will likely end up well-balanced in ROAR.

I agree with you though that Poles need some balance in Old Friends. The German ability to smoke discharge, bounding fire and end in bypass freeze is very tough to deal with. Another atr plus a 37L (or 47* tank) would be nice. Alternatively a CVP cap for the german (maybe 50-75 points?) would force them to be less aggressive with their AFV.

Still all in all they are both great scenarios.
Paul
 

Doug Kirk

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Thanks for the AAR. I played Old Friends against Wes Vaughn as the Poles straight up. I thought I had a good defense set up with Guns and MG positioned strong in the village center. My dice were horrible. My 40L in BFP QM6 was particularly disappointing. I think it shot almost every turn and killed only one tank. I rolled 10, 11, 12 dud almost every shot. Never broke it, but couldn't hit or kill much. I broke both the other two guns. I got rolled hard by Wes. Poles do need some help, but I don't think it's too bad with a proper village defense.

I am heading to Wes's again this weekend. Cockroaches Against Panzers is on the playlist. Looks like fun to me.
 

cwillmer

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Paul,

Excellent recap of our game. I thoroughly enjoyed it and as always learn something when playing you.

One thing to add about the dice balancing on a corner. We proposed a new rule to the TD, if both die are balanced on a corner the player who rolled them automatically wins the scenario.

Lots of fun!
 
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