jrv
Forum Guru
My opponent wanted something relatively light I think when he picked this scenario from ASL Journal 12. He took the defending Vichy and I the attacking Australians. The scenario benefits from some careful study. One French group sets up in an isolated group where an aggressive Australian attack can isolate and encircle it. The first group of French reinforcements can only enter on one hex in trucks on the second turn, and that hex is just barely in long range of the Australian Bren guns. For the third group of French reinforcements, two-and-a-half squds enter as cavalry on two edges, and one armored truck enters on a particular hex. If the Australians contrive their moves carefully, they can encircle the rooftop of the isolated building on the bottom half of the first turn, interdict the first group of reinforcements with two LMGs at long range (two down one with the right manning units), then interdict the armored truck with an ATR and the cavalry with LMGs and a captured French mortar.
The plan was executed fairly well. The only slight hitch was that one halfsquad with a DC broke while placing it on the isolated post. Otherwise the isolated post was encircled upstairs (mortar crew on rooftop) and then broke. The crew downstairs died in close combat and the Australians captured the mortar. The two LMGs interdicted the road where the French reinforcements came in, rolled a five (down one) to immobilize the first truck, break/elr the leader and break the squad. The residual one FP did not affect the second truck. On the third turn the ATR hit but did not kill the the armored truck and the infantry did some fair damage against the entering cavalry. At this point my opponent conceded. The Australians had done well but game was not by any means lost. My opponent just did not feel well.
My advice to the French is to try to break the Australian script. Although setting up the 60mm mortar on the rooftop of the outlier building is the obvious move, if you set it up dm on the ground floor you may be able to get away by breaking (along with the 2-2-8 crew) on the first turn. Both units rout out, taking the leader with them. Likewise the French set up two squads to try to stop the Australians from forming up in the DD14 area to interdict the French reinforcements. There are other places the Australians can set up to interdict from, but
One question my opponent had was regarding SSR 4: "Australian squads may freely Deploy (A1.31) at setup." It was unclear whether setup means only at game start, if all of the reinforcement groups can deploy freely when set up to enter too. In retrospect it has to mean that all reinforcement groups can deploy freely because there are no Australians set up on board initially. They all enter as reinforcements, one group on each of turns one through four. Since there are no Australians set up at game start (the first group enters on turn one), the SSR almost certainly means that all Australian reinforcement groups can deploy freely.
JR
The plan was executed fairly well. The only slight hitch was that one halfsquad with a DC broke while placing it on the isolated post. Otherwise the isolated post was encircled upstairs (mortar crew on rooftop) and then broke. The crew downstairs died in close combat and the Australians captured the mortar. The two LMGs interdicted the road where the French reinforcements came in, rolled a five (down one) to immobilize the first truck, break/elr the leader and break the squad. The residual one FP did not affect the second truck. On the third turn the ATR hit but did not kill the the armored truck and the infantry did some fair damage against the entering cavalry. At this point my opponent conceded. The Australians had done well but game was not by any means lost. My opponent just did not feel well.
My advice to the French is to try to break the Australian script. Although setting up the 60mm mortar on the rooftop of the outlier building is the obvious move, if you set it up dm on the ground floor you may be able to get away by breaking (along with the 2-2-8 crew) on the first turn. Both units rout out, taking the leader with them. Likewise the French set up two squads to try to stop the Australians from forming up in the DD14 area to interdict the French reinforcements. There are other places the Australians can set up to interdict from, but
One question my opponent had was regarding SSR 4: "Australian squads may freely Deploy (A1.31) at setup." It was unclear whether setup means only at game start, if all of the reinforcement groups can deploy freely when set up to enter too. In retrospect it has to mean that all reinforcement groups can deploy freely because there are no Australians set up on board initially. They all enter as reinforcements, one group on each of turns one through four. Since there are no Australians set up at game start (the first group enters on turn one), the SSR almost certainly means that all Australian reinforcement groups can deploy freely.
JR
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