Tuomo
Keeper of the Funk
Playing FrF58 Order 831 against John Bock in the Ersatz VASL League. This is the scenario that prompted the Please. Fire At Me More thread. (FWIW, the Sad Sherman in that thread went on to X out its CMG before being sacrificed in a VBM Freeze of a German strongpoint. True to form, it didn't even burn.)
The game's dice were pretty normal for a while, with the exceptions of the aforementioned Sad Sherman, which seemed to suck up all the bad karma floating by in the air, and one bad Prep Fire by the Germans on the right flank, which ultimately allowed the Russians to crack that side of the line.
Until turn 4, when the VASL dicebot decided to Get Funkayyy. I had managed to claw my way into the village, holding a building on the outer perimeter largely by smoking it and keeping the adjacent Germans from blasting me out. My luck ran out in the DFPh, though, when the Germans finally found the range and flayed me with a K/2 result. Random Selection picks a Guards HS and leaves a 9-1 and 458. The leader not only rolls snakeyes to pass the 2-check, he also rolls snakeyes on the HoB DR, elevating himself to Hero. The 458, needless to say, was impressed enough to pass his own 2-check.
In the AFPh, my remaining Sherman lobs a shell into the field adjacent to my building where a German 548 has been beating the bushes looking for the 75mm RCL that was shot out of the hands of its crew. John promptly generates his OWN Hero, although just a Regular Hero, not the Special Double Snakeyes Style Points Hero currently occupying the Russian building next door.
Sensing the futility of sitting next to two German stacks who could unload 16+1 and 12+1 shots in the upcoming PFPh, my SDSSPH heroically defenestrated from the toehold building and took up residence in the Woods next door, where the air was fresher and the density of German lead more conducive to one's health. The men of his 458 squad looked at each other, shrugged, and tagged along.
Were the heroics over? NOOOOO!
Next turn, the German 548 failed, again, to find that dratted RCL, but the German Hero, standing just a tad taller than those around him, and with steely-eyed gaze to boot, noticed a glint over by those stacks of shells and decided to investigate. Sure enough, he found the RCL and bench-pressed it manfully in the air to show his fellow comrades.
"You think you're such an ubermensch, Karl, why don't you just point that thing over at those Commies hiding in the woods?"
"WHY, I THINK I WILL"
Whereupon Karl smoothly rotated the tube, bent his knees slightly, and WHOOSHED a shell toward the trees. Bam. Critical Hit. Which both the Russian Hero and his squad ate, rolling 1's to share in the joy. The Hero boxcarred his MC but only wounded (which I suspect we did wrong, I think maybe he should have outright died, which would have been more dramatic anyway) and the 458 decided to hug the ground.
In the DFPh, Karl continued to stand tall (as Heroes do) against the continued shelling from the Sherman. True to form, and sensing he had about wrung all the Heroism out of this particular situation, Karl took a Wound which turned out to be fatal.
For his part, the Russian Heroic Blah Blah Blah leader died the next turn while setting up the final attack on the last German strongpoint.
Fun Stuff.
* Intermission *
While the Drama Density was through the roof in this little vignette, the game itself was being decided off to the side, where a lone 548 was holding off a horde of Russians in the Church in 3aI8. Several rounds of CC at 2:1 odds had failed to dislodge this character, and with time running out, the Russians were getting desperate. They had the troops to reinforce the hex, but every extra squad would incur a +1 Overstack CC penalty that would offset the extra CC firepower, so they were in a quandary. This was the last turn and they just did not feel good about being able to roll less than an 8 against this guy with the game on the line.
Then, the non-Heroic-but-still-quite-manly Russian 8-0 noticed that he had JUST ENOUGH time to sprint over to the Melee hex and place a DC. Perhaps not "Cricket", as they say, seeing as how this was a Church and all and he'd be bombing his own troops to boot, but this was an Ersatz VASL League Round 2 game and so the stakes were quite high.
John and I debated about whether this was a good idea or not, seeing as how I needed to eliminate the 548 entirely in order to win, but eventually I realized that no matter how many of my own guys I broke in that hex, I could still reinforce the hex with enough fresh troops to at least not hurt my CC odds due to the overstack. Ergo, the DC was a free chance to hurt the 548 before the CC DR came up, and was worth taking.
Sadly, looking at it now, I realize that the 8-0 actually didn't have enough MP to Place the DC. He needed all 8 MF to do so (6 MF to get adjacent to the hex, 2 MF to place it), but going CX would have reduced his IPC to 0, thus leaving him only 7MF while toting the DC. Dangit. And it was such a cool thing, too. The DC was one that had been grabbed by an Unarmed Russian unit that had been taken prisoner, then freed by CC. Figuring they could do some good, they raced over to the side of the battlefield where the original DC owners had sucked up a pair of Russian sniper shots and died in place, dropping the Package of Boom to the ground. Recognizing the 8-0 stood a better chance of using it than themselves, they gladly handed it over, gasping "For The Rodina!" before flopping down exhausted.
Turns out, it ultimately didn't matter. The bomb went off and the 548 did break (along with one of the Russians), but the ensuing CC DR was low enough to kill it in its unbroken state anyway. Russians win in an epic drama-fest. Thanks to John for being such a good and pleasant guy to play. Sorry I kept breaking rules :-(
The game's dice were pretty normal for a while, with the exceptions of the aforementioned Sad Sherman, which seemed to suck up all the bad karma floating by in the air, and one bad Prep Fire by the Germans on the right flank, which ultimately allowed the Russians to crack that side of the line.
Until turn 4, when the VASL dicebot decided to Get Funkayyy. I had managed to claw my way into the village, holding a building on the outer perimeter largely by smoking it and keeping the adjacent Germans from blasting me out. My luck ran out in the DFPh, though, when the Germans finally found the range and flayed me with a K/2 result. Random Selection picks a Guards HS and leaves a 9-1 and 458. The leader not only rolls snakeyes to pass the 2-check, he also rolls snakeyes on the HoB DR, elevating himself to Hero. The 458, needless to say, was impressed enough to pass his own 2-check.
In the AFPh, my remaining Sherman lobs a shell into the field adjacent to my building where a German 548 has been beating the bushes looking for the 75mm RCL that was shot out of the hands of its crew. John promptly generates his OWN Hero, although just a Regular Hero, not the Special Double Snakeyes Style Points Hero currently occupying the Russian building next door.
Sensing the futility of sitting next to two German stacks who could unload 16+1 and 12+1 shots in the upcoming PFPh, my SDSSPH heroically defenestrated from the toehold building and took up residence in the Woods next door, where the air was fresher and the density of German lead more conducive to one's health. The men of his 458 squad looked at each other, shrugged, and tagged along.
Were the heroics over? NOOOOO!
Next turn, the German 548 failed, again, to find that dratted RCL, but the German Hero, standing just a tad taller than those around him, and with steely-eyed gaze to boot, noticed a glint over by those stacks of shells and decided to investigate. Sure enough, he found the RCL and bench-pressed it manfully in the air to show his fellow comrades.
"You think you're such an ubermensch, Karl, why don't you just point that thing over at those Commies hiding in the woods?"
"WHY, I THINK I WILL"
Whereupon Karl smoothly rotated the tube, bent his knees slightly, and WHOOSHED a shell toward the trees. Bam. Critical Hit. Which both the Russian Hero and his squad ate, rolling 1's to share in the joy. The Hero boxcarred his MC but only wounded (which I suspect we did wrong, I think maybe he should have outright died, which would have been more dramatic anyway) and the 458 decided to hug the ground.
In the DFPh, Karl continued to stand tall (as Heroes do) against the continued shelling from the Sherman. True to form, and sensing he had about wrung all the Heroism out of this particular situation, Karl took a Wound which turned out to be fatal.
For his part, the Russian Heroic Blah Blah Blah leader died the next turn while setting up the final attack on the last German strongpoint.
Fun Stuff.
* Intermission *
While the Drama Density was through the roof in this little vignette, the game itself was being decided off to the side, where a lone 548 was holding off a horde of Russians in the Church in 3aI8. Several rounds of CC at 2:1 odds had failed to dislodge this character, and with time running out, the Russians were getting desperate. They had the troops to reinforce the hex, but every extra squad would incur a +1 Overstack CC penalty that would offset the extra CC firepower, so they were in a quandary. This was the last turn and they just did not feel good about being able to roll less than an 8 against this guy with the game on the line.
Then, the non-Heroic-but-still-quite-manly Russian 8-0 noticed that he had JUST ENOUGH time to sprint over to the Melee hex and place a DC. Perhaps not "Cricket", as they say, seeing as how this was a Church and all and he'd be bombing his own troops to boot, but this was an Ersatz VASL League Round 2 game and so the stakes were quite high.
John and I debated about whether this was a good idea or not, seeing as how I needed to eliminate the 548 entirely in order to win, but eventually I realized that no matter how many of my own guys I broke in that hex, I could still reinforce the hex with enough fresh troops to at least not hurt my CC odds due to the overstack. Ergo, the DC was a free chance to hurt the 548 before the CC DR came up, and was worth taking.
Sadly, looking at it now, I realize that the 8-0 actually didn't have enough MP to Place the DC. He needed all 8 MF to do so (6 MF to get adjacent to the hex, 2 MF to place it), but going CX would have reduced his IPC to 0, thus leaving him only 7MF while toting the DC. Dangit. And it was such a cool thing, too. The DC was one that had been grabbed by an Unarmed Russian unit that had been taken prisoner, then freed by CC. Figuring they could do some good, they raced over to the side of the battlefield where the original DC owners had sucked up a pair of Russian sniper shots and died in place, dropping the Package of Boom to the ground. Recognizing the 8-0 stood a better chance of using it than themselves, they gladly handed it over, gasping "For The Rodina!" before flopping down exhausted.
Turns out, it ultimately didn't matter. The bomb went off and the 548 did break (along with one of the Russians), but the ensuing CC DR was low enough to kill it in its unbroken state anyway. Russians win in an epic drama-fest. Thanks to John for being such a good and pleasant guy to play. Sorry I kept breaking rules :-(
