Vrosso
Member
Hi All,
First off, what a great tournament hosted up north. It is always a pleasure to get up there for a few days of ASL. Many thanks for all the hard work the organizers put in and the great selection for scenarios.
My first game was the old Boiling Kettle of Fire and Blood vs. Phil Palmer on the mid-day Thur round with me drawing the Poles on the attack. In short, I sort of did what I wanted in the early game, drove hard on my right getting the little tankettes on top of his forces and allowing the infantry to flow behind, but ran into a few trouble spots. First, I went on a series with 8 Morale squads rolling 11 and 12's on MC's, which was brutal (4 boxcars, 5 11's for ELR including a dead 9-1), my plan was to have some of my forces engage on the front, but this left them scattered for the counterattack where I suffered greatly. In T2, I got my tankettes on top of the infantry gun and behind his forces to disrupt routing, however, I parked a vickers in front of the infantry gun from where the AT gun could see it and payed for that. The Inf gun then managed to survive a barrage of Adv Fire, kill the tankette on top of it without burning it, and then kill another vickers parked next to it, I would badly miss these vehicles. In T3 at least half his on board force was eliminated for FTR, but the counterattack kicked my ass and my last ditch attempts to win this game by gambling went badly so it wasn't long until I had nowhere near the needed VC left on the board. Phil was a great opponent and even if the bad luck/good luck swing didn't happen, he would have probably prevailed in the end with a better overall strategy.
Game 2 vs. Rob A saw me as the defender in A Wave Breaking with the Tide. Another great game, as the defender, I started out by laying down all my firelines and putting leaders with the key ones so we didn't cower, then setting up to avoid artillery fire (or such that no more than two pieces would be effected by an FFE). Rob made some good progress on the hill on my left (I wish I placed a HS on the board edge), but my defenders skulked a lot and only two successful snipers occurred (adding partisans to the mix). Did learn how to use wagons on this one. The skulk back strategy worked pretty well and the end game saw rushes against HMG's that did not fare so well (along with a lot of red cards showing up on the access requests, giving me the win for a 1-1 record.
Game 3 vs. Paul C. had me draw the defense in On the Road to Hell and it started out as badly as it could for me. In risk assessments two things to consider are 1) what is the probability of something happening and 2) how severe was it. I got bit by 1) really rare but 2) crippling to the scenario. For me, my key JagPanther was set up behind a stone wall and Paul lobbed 60 mm MTR shells at it, with 3 shots, got snakes on the last one to immobilize the beast putting it out of the game. Decided not to concede at that point and Paul started meticulously picking me apart. At one point, I got my Marder on the board, deep upper left corner and then a oppurtunity occurred for my infantry to break out to the left. I ended up with 4 squads breaking out, but I threw my Marder away by poor AFV play (again think risk) a 6+2 landed a MC which stunned the vehicle making it helpless on a manuever I really didn't need to do. At that point the shermans ate the marder and it was 3 tanks on 4 squads with a lot of infantry support, One squad lasted to the last turn, but it was over on turn 1 with some excitment, had I played better with the Marder it would have been a close one (now 1-2).
Game 4 vs. Rob Loper had me defending vs. A Rising Tide. I spread the guns out on the front with two guns that could fire on my left, one hidden back on the right. I think Rob sent about 11 squads on the left and 5 on the right. The guns and both MG's with -1 leaders covered the left and did a lot of damage in the early turns. A significant group of attackers got hung up on the wire in DD6/DD7 where gun W5 punished them. One handicap Rob had is he never rolled below an 8 on radio contact (thru 5 turns). In spite of this, 3 lone squads almost got the gun on the far right W5, the thin defenders there almost gave out. A massive cc erupted on the middle gun aa10, which I eventually won (mainly because the gun crew won ambush and kept it on the black numbers). Leading up to this cc, I had almost everything that I had defensive firing vs. the charging IJA on hill 656, including intensive fire from the artillery piece. The hidden gun on the right aa19 was overrun with it's infantry protection falling back into the village, but not before it took out the banzaiing leader on that side. Overall this was quite an exciting game against another great opponent (2-2 now).
Round 5 was Road Kill vs. Mike Hershey. For this one I drew the defense and had heard that nobody doesn't put the mmg in the tower, so I didn't hoping to get a surprise down 2 or 3 shot somewhere down the road (didn't happen, but this turned out to be effective). I had a light in the tower, so on entering I showed a willingness to blast away with the mortar and caused some broken squads, but the tower piece held it's fire and the big us pieces 9-1 2x squad 2x mmg and 9-2 with HMG creeped on the board in T1. For me, T1 saw a concealed 436 creep up against the mounted force and caused a lot of distraction, eventually taking a 24 Adv fire shot and catching snakes on it. Turn 2 saw the tower piece remain silent which inhibited movement a little. A lot of action in this game and my armored force was in play during t2, but both heavy guns were put in the bag shortly after leaving only a marder running in the middle of the town. Eventually the clock ran out on the US attack, helped by slowing feeding small units into the juggernaut' path with many german units still in place and now breeding HS's. Another exciting game against a great opponent to go 3-2.
Final day I drew John as an opponent for the Legrew Manuever with me pulling the US forces again. For this the objective was simple, don't let the infantry get away. All the tanks rushed on my left, which was defended by dummies, breaking out of the woods and into the backfield. Some of my squads cautiously advanced up the middle and had cross fire shots at the retreating infantry doing some damage. In the end, 3 german vehicles made it off the board, one was destroyed and the last one boxcar'd a TH roll resulting in concession. So ended this year at 4-2 against 6 great opponents with all of the games being quite exciting to play.
Looking forward to 2017
V
First off, what a great tournament hosted up north. It is always a pleasure to get up there for a few days of ASL. Many thanks for all the hard work the organizers put in and the great selection for scenarios.
My first game was the old Boiling Kettle of Fire and Blood vs. Phil Palmer on the mid-day Thur round with me drawing the Poles on the attack. In short, I sort of did what I wanted in the early game, drove hard on my right getting the little tankettes on top of his forces and allowing the infantry to flow behind, but ran into a few trouble spots. First, I went on a series with 8 Morale squads rolling 11 and 12's on MC's, which was brutal (4 boxcars, 5 11's for ELR including a dead 9-1), my plan was to have some of my forces engage on the front, but this left them scattered for the counterattack where I suffered greatly. In T2, I got my tankettes on top of the infantry gun and behind his forces to disrupt routing, however, I parked a vickers in front of the infantry gun from where the AT gun could see it and payed for that. The Inf gun then managed to survive a barrage of Adv Fire, kill the tankette on top of it without burning it, and then kill another vickers parked next to it, I would badly miss these vehicles. In T3 at least half his on board force was eliminated for FTR, but the counterattack kicked my ass and my last ditch attempts to win this game by gambling went badly so it wasn't long until I had nowhere near the needed VC left on the board. Phil was a great opponent and even if the bad luck/good luck swing didn't happen, he would have probably prevailed in the end with a better overall strategy.
Game 2 vs. Rob A saw me as the defender in A Wave Breaking with the Tide. Another great game, as the defender, I started out by laying down all my firelines and putting leaders with the key ones so we didn't cower, then setting up to avoid artillery fire (or such that no more than two pieces would be effected by an FFE). Rob made some good progress on the hill on my left (I wish I placed a HS on the board edge), but my defenders skulked a lot and only two successful snipers occurred (adding partisans to the mix). Did learn how to use wagons on this one. The skulk back strategy worked pretty well and the end game saw rushes against HMG's that did not fare so well (along with a lot of red cards showing up on the access requests, giving me the win for a 1-1 record.
Game 3 vs. Paul C. had me draw the defense in On the Road to Hell and it started out as badly as it could for me. In risk assessments two things to consider are 1) what is the probability of something happening and 2) how severe was it. I got bit by 1) really rare but 2) crippling to the scenario. For me, my key JagPanther was set up behind a stone wall and Paul lobbed 60 mm MTR shells at it, with 3 shots, got snakes on the last one to immobilize the beast putting it out of the game. Decided not to concede at that point and Paul started meticulously picking me apart. At one point, I got my Marder on the board, deep upper left corner and then a oppurtunity occurred for my infantry to break out to the left. I ended up with 4 squads breaking out, but I threw my Marder away by poor AFV play (again think risk) a 6+2 landed a MC which stunned the vehicle making it helpless on a manuever I really didn't need to do. At that point the shermans ate the marder and it was 3 tanks on 4 squads with a lot of infantry support, One squad lasted to the last turn, but it was over on turn 1 with some excitment, had I played better with the Marder it would have been a close one (now 1-2).
Game 4 vs. Rob Loper had me defending vs. A Rising Tide. I spread the guns out on the front with two guns that could fire on my left, one hidden back on the right. I think Rob sent about 11 squads on the left and 5 on the right. The guns and both MG's with -1 leaders covered the left and did a lot of damage in the early turns. A significant group of attackers got hung up on the wire in DD6/DD7 where gun W5 punished them. One handicap Rob had is he never rolled below an 8 on radio contact (thru 5 turns). In spite of this, 3 lone squads almost got the gun on the far right W5, the thin defenders there almost gave out. A massive cc erupted on the middle gun aa10, which I eventually won (mainly because the gun crew won ambush and kept it on the black numbers). Leading up to this cc, I had almost everything that I had defensive firing vs. the charging IJA on hill 656, including intensive fire from the artillery piece. The hidden gun on the right aa19 was overrun with it's infantry protection falling back into the village, but not before it took out the banzaiing leader on that side. Overall this was quite an exciting game against another great opponent (2-2 now).
Round 5 was Road Kill vs. Mike Hershey. For this one I drew the defense and had heard that nobody doesn't put the mmg in the tower, so I didn't hoping to get a surprise down 2 or 3 shot somewhere down the road (didn't happen, but this turned out to be effective). I had a light in the tower, so on entering I showed a willingness to blast away with the mortar and caused some broken squads, but the tower piece held it's fire and the big us pieces 9-1 2x squad 2x mmg and 9-2 with HMG creeped on the board in T1. For me, T1 saw a concealed 436 creep up against the mounted force and caused a lot of distraction, eventually taking a 24 Adv fire shot and catching snakes on it. Turn 2 saw the tower piece remain silent which inhibited movement a little. A lot of action in this game and my armored force was in play during t2, but both heavy guns were put in the bag shortly after leaving only a marder running in the middle of the town. Eventually the clock ran out on the US attack, helped by slowing feeding small units into the juggernaut' path with many german units still in place and now breeding HS's. Another exciting game against a great opponent to go 3-2.
Final day I drew John as an opponent for the Legrew Manuever with me pulling the US forces again. For this the objective was simple, don't let the infantry get away. All the tanks rushed on my left, which was defended by dummies, breaking out of the woods and into the backfield. Some of my squads cautiously advanced up the middle and had cross fire shots at the retreating infantry doing some damage. In the end, 3 german vehicles made it off the board, one was destroyed and the last one boxcar'd a TH roll resulting in concession. So ended this year at 4-2 against 6 great opponents with all of the games being quite exciting to play.
Looking forward to 2017
V