mharviala
Member
Brief recollections of my Bitter Ender 2018 results
Showed up Thursday afternoon to drop off my stuff, and to see if anyone was available for a short scenario. I didn’t want to exhaust myself with a marathon, and Chuck Payne snagged me for a short brutal scenario of J166 Maximum Aggression. My British had a village garrison of second liners beset on all sides by Japanese, while the better troops made a frantic dash to relieve them. The majority of Chuck’s Japanese occupied themselves with tormenting my reinforcements, while others were keen to clear the village of the 2nd line slackers. I totally messed my armored car movement, and Chuck killed it early and that allowed him to have an effective fallback defense. His units in the village started to capture buildings while preparing for my elite flanking force. In the village it came to melees, while the Japanese squad in the outlier building went berserk at an inopportune time and he ran off leaving the victory location undefended. Blood was spilled by both sides in the village, and the British survived enough melees to hold enough buildings for the win. An auspicious start! 1-0
First round of the grognard was a game of ‘FT214 Grain of Sand’ against Mike Johnston. Mike had the Brits out to take a village from the Germans or exit some VPs which include mandatory infantry. Germans get a 37L halftrack and a pair of PzIVJ’s as their core anti-tank assets. One vehicle sets up HIP and loses concealment as a gun which helps greatly. I setup majority of my infantry in the village, with some flankers to protect against a bum rush of halftracks making for the exit. Mike makes a cautious approach to the village, and my PzIV ambush manages to knock three out three Shermans, giving me a leg up on the village defense as taking the village forces the British to stay under a 32CVP cap. Knocking out Shermans will force him to make an exit, which will be difficult without those Shermans. I get overly aggressive, and end up losing two halftracks and my Puma in trying to knock out a Sherman, and my ambush PzIV malfed its MA forcing him to become infantry interdictor. His infantry runs out of time to take the village, and my remaining PzIV knocks out his M5ht with a squad, pushing the CVP tally to 33CVP and Mike conceded as he didn’t have time to load halftracks and run the gauntlet for an exit. 2-0 (1-0).
Second round was against former TD Doug Sheppard in ‘SP272 Statue of Liberty Attacks’ with my feeble ELR Americans making an assault across a jungle village then across some open ground, a hill, and then exit from a span of hexes on the far side of the map. While I was able to guess where the Japanese hipsters were to a fair degree, I was less able to root them out when it came time to shoot. And the Americans broke … my how they broke. By midgame, I was making a run for the exit by some stragglers and a decent pile of MMCs and vehicles, it was getting pretty hopeless. After my last MMCs succumbed on the hill, I conceded the scenario. 2-1 (1-1).
With dreams of Grognardness dashed, I signed up for the ‘Getting the Boot’ mini, focused on scenarios set in Italy.
My first game was against Lindsay Murillo, in ‘FT213 Up the Liri Valley’. I was the Germans, with the scenario forcing an interesting combination of defense and offense for both players. I set up the MMG and the fortified building next to the bridge, the LMG at the far end of the road hoping to interdict his units crossing it. My reinforcements were to hold the French reserve company in place while some units made a flanking dash for the 2VP buildings in the back. My strategy was pretty sound, and in the end the Germans held 3-5 VP locations per turn allowing me to get over the limit, while casualties were surprisingly light for both sides. 3-1 (1-0 mini)
The second game in the mini was against Jeremy Maciejewski in ‘FT210 The Longest Week’. The scenario has a simultaneous setup, and a pre-recorded Smoke OBA mission that frankly was useless for each of us. This scenario is challenging with alternating unit placements and a bidding system to determine who takes the Germans. It’s tough to figure out if it’s ‘balanced’ as the Germans can easily overbid what they can realistically achieve. It was a learning experience for both of us. I bid twelve as the Germans, and Jeremy got the Americans. I was able to leverage my larger number of MMC to start a number of Americans as essentially encircled as I got to fire first, and the MMG/LMG firebase in the center was able to then fire on the Americans until they started breaking. The game didn’t last long, and we agreed that this is a scenario that a) has high replayability b) can be made impossible by the German bid and c) benefits from being played before. 4-1 (2-0 mini).
Sunday brought a me to the final round of the Italian mini against Ken Daughety. We chose ‘FT76 Collecchio’ which neither had played before, with dice giving Ken the German defenders against my Brazilian attackers. It was a pretty straightforward city fight – Americans attacked in a wide swath across the width of the map. They broke, they routed, they rallied. Where my Americans failed though against the Japanese, they hung tough in this one. Dice gave the Brazilians many passes of morale checks, and the hot dice were hot in all the right spots, and the gacks were where they didn’t matter that much. Two heroes generated from two elite squads who also battle hardened made for an elite punch in the middle, and while it looked about over with two turns to go, Ken’s defense coalesced around the final four buildings which I had to capture one of. My assault on the first turn was repulsed, partly aided by the 88LL which rained death for four shots in one turn and me rolling a couple of hot morale checks that allowed his sniper to break one squad and pin another. In the last turn I managed to overwhelm one of the buildings and we went to the last CC die roll. Brazilian firepower, with a hero and a 10-2 leader in CC gave me the win, for a closer game than it seemed just a short while ago. 5-1 (3-0 mini).
This was a great tournament, special thanks to Ray W and Locke M for running the event, and Doug S as the acting secretary. Very smoothly organized event. Till next year!
Mika
Showed up Thursday afternoon to drop off my stuff, and to see if anyone was available for a short scenario. I didn’t want to exhaust myself with a marathon, and Chuck Payne snagged me for a short brutal scenario of J166 Maximum Aggression. My British had a village garrison of second liners beset on all sides by Japanese, while the better troops made a frantic dash to relieve them. The majority of Chuck’s Japanese occupied themselves with tormenting my reinforcements, while others were keen to clear the village of the 2nd line slackers. I totally messed my armored car movement, and Chuck killed it early and that allowed him to have an effective fallback defense. His units in the village started to capture buildings while preparing for my elite flanking force. In the village it came to melees, while the Japanese squad in the outlier building went berserk at an inopportune time and he ran off leaving the victory location undefended. Blood was spilled by both sides in the village, and the British survived enough melees to hold enough buildings for the win. An auspicious start! 1-0
First round of the grognard was a game of ‘FT214 Grain of Sand’ against Mike Johnston. Mike had the Brits out to take a village from the Germans or exit some VPs which include mandatory infantry. Germans get a 37L halftrack and a pair of PzIVJ’s as their core anti-tank assets. One vehicle sets up HIP and loses concealment as a gun which helps greatly. I setup majority of my infantry in the village, with some flankers to protect against a bum rush of halftracks making for the exit. Mike makes a cautious approach to the village, and my PzIV ambush manages to knock three out three Shermans, giving me a leg up on the village defense as taking the village forces the British to stay under a 32CVP cap. Knocking out Shermans will force him to make an exit, which will be difficult without those Shermans. I get overly aggressive, and end up losing two halftracks and my Puma in trying to knock out a Sherman, and my ambush PzIV malfed its MA forcing him to become infantry interdictor. His infantry runs out of time to take the village, and my remaining PzIV knocks out his M5ht with a squad, pushing the CVP tally to 33CVP and Mike conceded as he didn’t have time to load halftracks and run the gauntlet for an exit. 2-0 (1-0).
Second round was against former TD Doug Sheppard in ‘SP272 Statue of Liberty Attacks’ with my feeble ELR Americans making an assault across a jungle village then across some open ground, a hill, and then exit from a span of hexes on the far side of the map. While I was able to guess where the Japanese hipsters were to a fair degree, I was less able to root them out when it came time to shoot. And the Americans broke … my how they broke. By midgame, I was making a run for the exit by some stragglers and a decent pile of MMCs and vehicles, it was getting pretty hopeless. After my last MMCs succumbed on the hill, I conceded the scenario. 2-1 (1-1).
With dreams of Grognardness dashed, I signed up for the ‘Getting the Boot’ mini, focused on scenarios set in Italy.
My first game was against Lindsay Murillo, in ‘FT213 Up the Liri Valley’. I was the Germans, with the scenario forcing an interesting combination of defense and offense for both players. I set up the MMG and the fortified building next to the bridge, the LMG at the far end of the road hoping to interdict his units crossing it. My reinforcements were to hold the French reserve company in place while some units made a flanking dash for the 2VP buildings in the back. My strategy was pretty sound, and in the end the Germans held 3-5 VP locations per turn allowing me to get over the limit, while casualties were surprisingly light for both sides. 3-1 (1-0 mini)
The second game in the mini was against Jeremy Maciejewski in ‘FT210 The Longest Week’. The scenario has a simultaneous setup, and a pre-recorded Smoke OBA mission that frankly was useless for each of us. This scenario is challenging with alternating unit placements and a bidding system to determine who takes the Germans. It’s tough to figure out if it’s ‘balanced’ as the Germans can easily overbid what they can realistically achieve. It was a learning experience for both of us. I bid twelve as the Germans, and Jeremy got the Americans. I was able to leverage my larger number of MMC to start a number of Americans as essentially encircled as I got to fire first, and the MMG/LMG firebase in the center was able to then fire on the Americans until they started breaking. The game didn’t last long, and we agreed that this is a scenario that a) has high replayability b) can be made impossible by the German bid and c) benefits from being played before. 4-1 (2-0 mini).
Sunday brought a me to the final round of the Italian mini against Ken Daughety. We chose ‘FT76 Collecchio’ which neither had played before, with dice giving Ken the German defenders against my Brazilian attackers. It was a pretty straightforward city fight – Americans attacked in a wide swath across the width of the map. They broke, they routed, they rallied. Where my Americans failed though against the Japanese, they hung tough in this one. Dice gave the Brazilians many passes of morale checks, and the hot dice were hot in all the right spots, and the gacks were where they didn’t matter that much. Two heroes generated from two elite squads who also battle hardened made for an elite punch in the middle, and while it looked about over with two turns to go, Ken’s defense coalesced around the final four buildings which I had to capture one of. My assault on the first turn was repulsed, partly aided by the 88LL which rained death for four shots in one turn and me rolling a couple of hot morale checks that allowed his sniper to break one squad and pin another. In the last turn I managed to overwhelm one of the buildings and we went to the last CC die roll. Brazilian firepower, with a hero and a 10-2 leader in CC gave me the win, for a closer game than it seemed just a short while ago. 5-1 (3-0 mini).
This was a great tournament, special thanks to Ray W and Locke M for running the event, and Doug S as the acting secretary. Very smoothly organized event. Till next year!
Mika
