Brief Gettysburg AAR - True Grit, Ragnorak, Art of Dying, Amer. Suka and Coal in their Stockings

Paul S NJ

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Had an awesome time at John Dober's Gettysburg get together. The highlight was just having fun with some great guys; including scotch, cigars, Terraforming Mars, lots of laughs and some tipsy solutions to the world's problems. Also enjoyed visiting my favorite miniature store near the cemetery. John's hospitality is truly amazing. Got to play some new and some classic scenarios against an all-star group of ASL players. I've had some great games against all these folks when playing them in the past and enjoyed all my games. I diced for side in all the games. In all my games we issued three of George Tournemire's ASL tactical cards to add a little flavor. They were fun to consider as they might allow a -1 in ambush or some other small advantage when played. While one or two were played in each scenario, I don't think they made any significant difference in any of the games.

Game 1 - DTF-3 True Grit vs Dave Ginnard
It's always great to play with Dave, who is as much a connoisseur of movies and music as he is of PTO. If anyone is looking for advice on a tournament scenario list, you should ask Dave. He has played most of the recently published scenarios. Dave wanted to play PTO so we picked this one from the excellent 'Death to Fascism' pack. Neither of us had played it but I recall hearing good things about it. I really like the pack special rules, which add considerably to the fog of war on defense.
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Looking at the setup I felt the Dutch couldn't stop a determined banzai once the IJA were in the town so I planned a forward defense both with the initial IJA and the turn 2 reinforcements. I used the wire (since PTO is not in effect we decided fortifications in jungle and kunai would be revealed upon LOS) to force the reinforcements to enter through the building hexes. I thought the two main avenues for the initial troops would be over the hill and into the gully on my right or down the hill through the palm tree hexes. I expected the latter approach and set up with most of my dummies and some half squads making the gully side look less inviting. I used all four on my guns forward with two on the W19/X19 hill and two in the AA20/CC20 palm trees. I had the MMG and two LMG's forward for fire lanes (I used the last three SWPP to buy 3 demo charges). Dave surprised me in setting up so far to my left. He initiated a small banzai through the kunai to gain some MF's, without getting real close to my troops. Then his big stack with the 10-1, two MMG/crews, two squads with leg's moved into CC3. I couldn't resist and used all three of my 75's (including three IF shots) to hit them. Broke one gun but wounded the 10-1, reduced all the rest, some of them 2-3 steps. Then Dave started moving up to take out the now helpless guns. My MMG broke on it's first FL shot and the LMG firelane was ineffective. Seeing my wire on board and with all my front line troops fired, Dave then got a little saucy and moved an 8-0 with three squads into BB10. A little HIP conscript hs with a DC in BB9 tossed his DC into them, the 30 flat thankfully rolled below a 9 (which would have X'ed out the DC due to non-elite and inexperienced malfunction penalties), the k/4 wounded the leader and flipped all three squads. Dave advanced the stripers to take out both gun crews who didn't self-break in a failed effort to inflict some 1-2 HtH casualties on the striped squads. In DT1, I pushed the AA gun into X18 to cover the back side of the hill with it's 6 IFE.
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Over the next few turns Dave ran mostly around the far side of the hill to avoid my remaining two guns and entered his reinforcements in the face of my (relatively) studly first line 347's. They held their own. Another hip 126 conscript hs managed to toss DC for good effect, it even survived long enough to kill a 447 in HtH CC. Meanwhile a sniper killed the last IJA non-wounded leader from the onboard troops, leaving the two wounded leaders struggling to keep up with the advance. I managed to extract most of my troops back to the VC area.
Dave had terrible luck with entering his FB's who didn't arrive until turn 6. By turn 5 he had taken out the forward guns and captured the buildings around one of the three road junctions while getting several squads around to the rear of the rear-most VC area. However my 10-2 led reinforcements managed to eliminate that threat. On the last Dutch turn Dave had captured 6 of the 8 required buildings and had HtH melees in progress in two more. I made a mistake by moving a squad through the 10-2 stack which attracted the attention of a FB and broke the whole stack. However I was barely able to weakly reinforce the two melees and Dave wasn't able to roll two 6's to get the win.
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Game 2 - J146 Ragnorak vs Phil Palmer
My 1945 germans had to escape across a city board with known and unknown Russians in front and in pursuit. Four elr5 658's and a 81MTR HT need to make hole for some ELR1 447/436's. The defenders have 7 unknown reserve-type unit counters that roll when activated and vary from 628's to 227's to nothing at all. Seems like the attacker needs to pick one flank or the other and charge. The pursuing Sukas that enter turn 2 will take two turns to get to the action. In my opinion the attacker needs to exit by GT4 or won't make it. In our game I picked the left flank and managed to put some pressure on in GT1. The first three revealed cloaks were all 227's. In GT2 Phil had a line from FF6 to CC5 made of a cloak in a stone building, a BH'ed 328 and a 527 in two road hexes, and a 8-0 527 in a building. My HT went wild and managed to reveal the cloaked counter as a dummy, get the 328 to cower, and get both 527's to fail their PAATC's. This gave a path for my troops to run around the defenders and exit turn 3.
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Game 3 - J130 Art of Dying vs Tom Kearney
I had a fantastic and tight game of Mook Point with Tom last month in the Human Wave tournament, so I expected the same in this classic scenario. My Italians managed to kill off two forward russian conscripts but Tom's guns on my left flank held firm and kept a couple of my tanks well at bay. On my right Tom brought his two reinforcing tanks up to challenge three of mine while his infantry advanced in a line across the woods/orchards. Tom's defense was putting up a strong fight, breaking most of my troops, although they managed to rally back fairly well. My MMG had broken and my FT X'ed out on the first shot. Tom managed a snakes TK roll to take out one of my tanks. Things weren't looking good. However on RT3 the worm turned as the sniper took out the 9-0 commissar and a CH and another snakes TK took out his two tanks. Tom pushed his infantry across the open but most of them broke on the small -2 shots and 1 resid's I could dish out. Tom threw in the towel then.

Game 4 - FrF98 vs Ken Miodusky
Another classic scenario vs a classy opponent. I set up to defend my right flank with the FrF board village totally open. Ken sent 7 of his 12 squads and four of his tanks there. In hindsight he should have left a couple tanks to cover in front of my onboard defenders as they had a more or less clear approach to the rear Russian VC building. My Turn 1 attackers came in on the left rear and took out an M10 and a T34, while losing a truck-borne 548 and a second 548 rolling a casualty MC to become a broken 237. The next several turns were a whirlwind of an AFV melee as all 14 AFV eventually died or were immobilized. The last couple player turns really felt like a roller coaster.
To illustrate, GT4 I had his last T34 in my last Panther's sights. I missed the 8 TH and the 7 TH IF! Ken's subsequent AP turret hit needed a 3 TK and rolled the snakes! This let him roll his T34 up to the now contested VC building and take out my last JgPz who had been in motion, in bypass. With the T34 parked next to the building it looked tough for the germans; until a two-hex advancing fire FT shot rolled a 4 to take out the T34. This left a 548/FT and 447/LMG in one hex of the VC building and a russian 447 in the other at the start of RT6. Ken's 8+2 prep fire whiffed but he got two more squads into the building. He couldn't afford to hang back and just advance into the building since if the 447 routed out he would lose building control. That left me with a 24 flat FT shot and a 24+2 IFT shot. The pair of 2MC's proved too much for the three defenders. Great game!
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Game 5 - AP100 Coal in their Stockings vs. Randy Rossi
For the final we picked another classic scenario. I managed to get two WP to cover my approach on my right flank to the hedge area near the first VC building. Randy's HMG managed to burn the US MMG HT and also KIA a 666 moving behind a hedge. However that shot resulted in a costly sniper who stunned his 75* HT. Randy lost two squads by the first VC building. His 8-0 leader on that side killed himself in shame during rally, his HT died before it could unbutton and his 81 mortar malfunctioned on it's first shot. The combination of these, plus a generally fuzziness we all felt from lack of sleep and too much scotch, caused Randy to call the game.
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Thanks again to John, Phil, Gary, and Ken for their work in preparing the get together and to Jeremy for his impressive cooking. ASL is really secondary in this get together but I had all fun games and most-excellent opponents!

Paul
 
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Jacometti

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Few comments on DTF-3 True Grit....

Thanks for playing it !!!

A few oversights to point out:

1) Dave's on-board Japanese were not allowed to set up at Ground level, the setup instructions are on Hill hexes

2) Wire and Foxholes set up in Jungle do NOT reveal by LOS alone, the rules for Fortifications are part of Jungle terrain rules (which are in effect), not PTO rules.

3) The Dutch are not allowed to purchase DC.....the available Dutch SW are on the scenario card, LMG, 47* MTR, MMG and HMG only.

Hope to meet you men over a cardboard map again very soon.....Dave at ASLOK and Paul at Albany ??
 
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Paul S NJ

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Few comments on DTF-3 True Grit....

Thanks for playing it !!!

A few oversights to point out:

1) Dave's on-board Japanese were not allowed to set up at Ground level, the setup instructions are on Hill hexes

2) Wire and Foxholes set up in Jungle do NOT reveal by LOS alone, the rules for Fortifications are part of Jungle terrain rules (which are in effect), not PTO rules.

3) The Dutch are not allowed to purchase DC.....the available Dutch SW are on the scenario card, LMG, 47* MTR, MMG and HMG only.

Hope to meet you men over a cardboard map again very soon.....Dave at ASLOK and Paul at Albany ??
Thanks Peter. One of these days...I'll figure out this game. Hope to see you in Albany.
 

peterd1973

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Game 1 - DTF-3 True Grit vs Dave Ginnard
Dave wanted to play PTO so we picked this one from the excellent 'Death to Fascism' pack. Neither of us had played it but I recall hearing good things about it.

Paul
I'm pretty sure Dave and I played it, with me as the Japanese. I had set up on the hill, so a first turn banzai wasn't possible. I remember him suggesting to banzai on the second turn to close the gap. Maybe he forgot our playing.
 

Jacometti

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Thanks Peter. One of these days...I'll figure out this game. Hope to see you in Albany.
I don't think your free spirited approach made a major difference to the game you played....the DCs were to your advantage, while the liberal setup area and visible wires were pro-Japanese.... in the end probably evened out fine.

Looking forward to meeting again...
 

Carln0130

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Coal in Your Stockings, hmmm, I think Randy and I tried that one last year. Randy's Americans crapped the bed and wiped themselves with the curtains that time too. His luck in that one is NOT good. Glad a good time was had, wish we could have made it this year. Sigh, maybe next year.
 
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