My ALBANY 2017 AAR

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ASL-a-maniacs,

Albany 2017...the 14th one...has come and gone and it's
afterglow will warm me till Christmastime. It seems to come
and go faster every year!

Here's what it was like for me:

Round 1 A Polish Battlefield vs. Mike Puccio

"Pooch" is a great friend and my Albany travel and room mate.
We don't play each other as often as we'd like and always plan a
"getaway" scenario on the last day. Since we were not playing on
Sunday, we matched up for a larger than usual scenario in Round one
and "Polish" seemed like a good one. We picked sides straight up
and I got the SS attacker.

I set up my entire OB on the German left, with just the off board
Arty observer on the right and I moved out. When my board entry movement
ended with virtually nothing lost or effected, I breathed a sigh of relief.
That sigh turned into a wail as Mike revealed a HIP 76LL gun on the hill with
an LOS to almost all of my tanks in line. By the next half turn, 3 of my Panzer IV's
were gone ( 1 burning ) and the British sniper recalled my CE Stug. Oh Oh!
2/3 of my Armor was gone. It was going to be an infantry fight for the hills.

I caught my breath...and personal morale...and moved off to contact.
I got a Sherman with a 'faust and another with the Arty. Hmm. Pretty good.
I also started rolling up British infantry as I climbed the hill on the left and
started moving to the right.

Pooch did a great job of positioning his remaining assets so that the Arty
couldn't affect more than one unit at a time and getting up onto level 3 and
over it to the British left flank started costing me pins, breaks and kills.
In turn 6, I assessed my position, my assets and the remaining work at hand and
determined that I didn't have the time and assets to accomplish the VC so OI threw
in the towel.
0-1
...to be continued
 
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My ALBANY 2017 AAR continued

Round 2 Operation Blackwater vs. Larry Flaherty

The only choice that matched on our lists was this Schwerpunkt offering
with the funky VC requiring that the British clear a hill of German infantry
providing 2 Tiger tanks aren't in the town center across the way on the other board.
I had played this once as the German and wanted the Brits. Larry picked the Brits
too, so I we rolled and I got the Germans and some concealment counters.

Having tried to defend in both places before, with poor results, I decided to try
the tactic of just holding out on the hill with everything. I set up with my assets
designed to force the Tommy's to get up close and personal and brave a lot of
infantry and tank fire and settled in for the siege.

The siege came...from both sides as my opponent swung a combined force
behind the hill with the bulk of his force in front. Larry methodically moved forward
and started to pin and break my force, which moved back and forth into and out of
trenches and interior hexes to lick their wounds, get away from fire and exchange
places with GO units, some concealed.

It looked bleak as my force was whittled away and I decided that with 2 turns left,
I'd try to move 1 Tiger back into town to draw fire and force the Brits to chase him down.
I was safe from the Firefly's, which were out of position or faced with lots of hindrances.
They weren't needed, as a move to the hilltop was in the LOS of a Sherman, which hit
and killed the Tiger ( I can't remember the specifics, but I recall a "2" doing the damage ).

After that, I had to stand and take it from all sides and wasn't able to mount much of a
stand. 0-2

...to be continued
 
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My ALBANY 2017 AAR continued

Round 3 Crickets In Spring vs. Charlie Willmer

Charlie is a great friend and an Albany regular. We agreed on Crickets and bid,
I bid Russian 0 and Charlie bid German 1, so I ended up with some added concealment
counters and set up.

The 76L guns have limited set-up hexes due to their size, but are vital to keeping
the Germans from making a penetration into the town center before the strong Russian
reinforcements arrive. I set them up in 2 woods hexes...one right at the board edge
looking at the center road onto the closer Russian set-up board. The second went in
the center woods mass with an LOS to the road as it approached the turn down into the
Russian set-up area. The 3rd was in a far flung right flank orchard where I thought it might
get shots at German Landsers.

Charlie made an ineffectual shot at one of 2 447's in the woods mass with a kill stack
and then moved in. My front-most 76L scored on a Panther and killed it. That made Charlie
more cautious with his Panthers wondering where the others might be. He did move a platoon of infantry
in on my right near that 76L and I licked my lips and dropped the dice only to see a 12 come up.
Ugh. As it turned out, that crew, which never repaired the gun, hung tough and held back the Germans a while,
as Charlie was intent on capturing my guns for victory points.

Charlie kept bumping into my infantry forces and a knot of a couple Russian squads with an MMG and a leader
added a Hero to the defense after a "2" MC dropped. This group kept the Germans out in the middle.
A German Halftrack stopped adjacent to my remaining hidden gun and I held fire 'cause there was a Panther
behind it that would have shown me a side facing in moving by, but my gun was revealed through infantry movement
and I never got a shot off. Maybe I should have taken the HT shot in this CVP game.

My reinforcements got in unscathed and were posted with T 34-85's nearby. A couple Panther-T34 duels ensued
which I lost and Charlie fed the Crickets in. I moved around and adjacent to them, getting one that tired to move away.
As it got later and later and Charlie's progress in taking buildings was too slow, we took stock of the situation
and the time left and Charlie conceded with 49 VP's to my 67. 1-2
 
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My ALBANY AAR continued

Round 4 Junkers Junkyard vs. Jon Merritt

After a discussion about guitars and guitar playing, Jon and I settled on
this new offering from Friendly Fire, which always has interesting and fun scenarios
that feature something a little different. I bid Dutch 0 and Jon bid Dutch 1,
so off I went to set up with what seemed to be my 2017 tournament hallmark...
added concealment counters for my defense.

I used those counters to conceal my entire OB, with enough left for a tempting
4 counter dummy stack in the upper level of the up front building that the German
is required to set up in near the large Dutch force. I used the 2nd levels of 2 buildings further
back for a couple of MG's that could fire on open ground hexes the Dutch could use.
Jon had to choose 3 of 4 groups to add to his OB, so there was a little fog of war to
deal with.

Jon's initial prep fires forced the concealment loss of an up front squad and a half but nothing else.
We discovered that Jon had misread his OB and placed only 1 of 2 75rmm guns on board. I allowed him
to add it ( without firing that turn ) and just shuffled my up front force, preserving concealment.
Jon's next shots did reveal my dummy stack, soaking up a lot of his fire, and he moved a squad out
that was attacked at maximum range by my lt mtr, which was in a middle woods mass with a large field of fire.

As I guessed would happen, the captured Dutch HMG in the German OB with a breakdown number
of 9 due to captured use malf'd on it's first shot, which freed up the 9-1 and 238 with it to move back to
the victory area at the airfield. That stack found the hip'd Dutch 20L gun in Jon's OB, which eliminated both units.
By then, Jon had moved up to attack the up front building, losing units to pins, breaks and kills. This slowed his
far-away attack to a crawl.

Near the airfield, Jon had worked up his reinforcements close and also moved a broken leader led MHG unit
up with LOS to parts of the airfield. My reinforcements came in and were able to advance concealed next to
the Dutch 20L, which had to turn in woods to shoot and didn't score. I advanced into CC and ambushed
and eliminated that threat. Jon tried to get close enough to threaten my positions in his final turn, but I had
3 full squads, a leader and lmg in the tower building occupying all three levels with 1 1/2 more squads in
victory hexes that he couldn't break. 2-2
 

hongkongwargamer

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Nice AAR! ..and Larry was the guy I got paired with. I hope he’s doing well as I hope you are too, Joe!

Rgds Jack

My ALBANY 2017 AAR continued

Round 2 Operation Blackwater vs. Larry Flaherty

The only choice that matched on our lists was this Schwerpunkt offering
with the funky VC requiring that the British clear a hill of German infantry
providing 2 Tiger tanks aren't in the town center across the way on the other board.
I had played this once as the German and wanted the Brits. Larry picked the Brits
too, so I we rolled and I got the Germans and some concealment counters.

Having tried to defend in both places before, with poor results, I decided to try
the tactic of just holding out on the hill with everything. I set up with my assets
designed to force the Tommy's to get up close and personal and brave a lot of
infantry and tank fire and settled in for the siege.

The siege came...from both sides as my opponent swung a combined force
behind the hill with the bulk of his force in front. Larry methodically moved forward
and started to pin and break my force, which moved back and forth into and out of
trenches and interior hexes to lick their wounds, get away from fire and exchange
places with GO units, some concealed.

It looked bleak as my force was whittled away and I decided that with 2 turns left,
I'd try to move 1 Tiger back into town to draw fire and force the Brits to chase him down.
I was safe from the Firefly's, which were out of position or faced with lots of hindrances.
They weren't needed, as a move to the hilltop was in the LOS of a Sherman, which hit
and killed the Tiger ( I can't remember the specifics, but I recall a "2" doing the damage ).

After that, I had to stand and take it from all sides and wasn't able to mount much of a
stand. 0-2

...to be continued
 
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My ALBANY 2017 AAR concluded

Round 5 Armored Probe vs. Mike Allexenberg

I've know Mike for many years and consider him a good friend who is also
a great supporter of Albany and the Nor'Easter. I wanted to go off list cause
I didn't like many of the round 5 choices, so we looked at the earlier round
scenarios and picked Armored Probe due to it's size and my wanting to play
some PTO. I asked for The Japanese and got 'em...BOY, did I get 'em as it
turned out.

Mike set up his all concealed force and I surveyed my move in, with armored
assault with2 squads and leader led cx moves to get into position for a 2nd turn
jump off. Mike had positioned a squad to deny concealment and he revealed his
9-2 HMG stack, which forced an MC. No problem I said. These are Japanese.
Then I dropped the first of about 4 MC 12's that, in each case, turned a GO 447
into a broken 137 in 1 result. Ugh! The Japanese are supposed to withstand MC's
a lot better than that.

I shrugged off this bad result and get some solace from Mike malf'ing and then
6-ing out his 50 cal. That's better. Unfortunately, as I moved up, Mike continued
to drop 3's, 4's, 5's and 6's on me...0nce proclaiming his belief that in 12 rolls,
his highest number was a 6. I was reeling, with broken units al around. No worries, right?
These are Japanese. No DM and increased morale will bring them back right quick.
Oh yeah? I didn't pass a single MC and my broken force got worse and worse...in
some cases eliminated.

I banzai-ed 3 squads and a leader toward the 9-2 position, which had fallen back
to consolidate with the bulk of the American force and got there in pretty good order,
but Mike voluntarily broke the squad and routed out with the GO 9-2. I moved my
reinforcements in and once again, got broken up and pinned and couldn't make much
progress.

With all my tanks on board, I assessed the situation and had to move out toward the
exit hexes. Mike scored with a bazooka shot and the remaining tank got 4 hexes away,
though alone and isolated. I fed up my other 4 tanks with as much infantry as I could muster
and with the clock ticking, moved out. I passed all but 1 bog check, as I stayed off the road,
where the bulk of the Americans were, and moved around the jungle. Mike missed 2 bazooka
shots and I breathed a sigh of relief, but with 1 movement turn left, I counted up my available
CVP's and, having not scored many CVP's against the Americans, realized that I would come up short.

Despite the most horrible luck I can remember having in a long time, coupled with
an absolute dicing, I actually could have been a lot closer to enough CVP's to win
than I imagined, but I didn't have enough assets to hold back the Americans from
moving adjacent to my tanks to believe I'd still have a chance so I surrendered. 2-3

This was my final game for 2017, as I was leaving without playing on Sunday morning.
my 2-3 finish after starting 0-2 was a personal victory and I left feeling good about my
14th Albany tournament as a player and tournament director.

I hope to see you all...and many more of you...in 2018!

Joe Leoce




considering the American FP. I got into the hex with the 9-2 and a 667
 
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