Ozerekya Breakout.

[Tim Niesen]

The rule that a shellhole eliminates a Blaze counter and its burnable terrain helps the broken 347 Rumanian by the initial naval OBA of 180mm. (Heavy cruiser main gun.) This isolates fire flames, not yet Blazes to three contigious hexes which cannot now spread, for its path is broken by shellhole. The broken 347 can now rout to relative safety. Tim

 

[=FC=Gorgon]

Hopefully you won't have Blazes on a large portion of the map. Even with the Errata, that can still happen.

 

[Tim Niesen]

Gordon, No, the fire basically put itself out by shellhole. Limited to three contigous hexes near the center and front of the board. Tim

 

[Tim Niesen]

Gordon, Duh. It looks like my assessment of the Blaze beimg removed by shellhole is wrong. We never actually applied the removal of the Blaze on the board. Just in my mind. I failed to understand that woods hexes seem to be immune to the creation of shellholes. Seems odd. Perhaps because they are LOS obstacles may have something to do with this. The Romanian broken 347 can still exit the foxhole and rout to cover. Tim

 

[Tim Niesen]

Not sure where to begin. We completed turns two and three. To complete turn two Don was aggressive with his four remaining tanks. Three of the four remaining tanks move Adjacent to Rumanian infantry in foxholes and started blasting them, but not broke after the 6 plus 2 and 3 plus 2 bounding fire shots. The fourth tank cut off a rout route for the broken Rumanian 336. Steve attempted DI but remaining in motion thwarted his attempt.

 

[Tim Niesen]

Steve's shooting in defensive fire was extraordinary, rolling three 3s and two 2s, keeping rate of fire on the second of two 81 mortars shooting from near the church. Many (perhaps four ot five) 8-1s and one 16-1 against the two 628 Soviet combat engineers killed both of them.

 

[Tim Niesen]

Soviet defensive fire in turn two helped turned the tide, breaking all but one of the four Rumanians in foxholes Adjacent to our Stuarts. Not much else happened, but the Soviet rally phase of turn three brought in our fighter bombers.

 

[witchbottles]

Hopefully you won't have Blazes on a large portion of the map. Even with the Errata, that can still happen.

The Errata provides the fix - it is not the blazing hills that is a major issue in the CG - it is the fact that originally, the fires ALWAYS got bigger and never went out until they ran out of things to burn that made the CG unplayable if something rather common like a large caliber NOBA or a MOL-P hit on the first CG date, started a forest fire. That errata was necessary, and it at least contains the fires - but they can and often do, re-spark from another MOL-P hit or another NOBA or aircraft bomb hit - it is the fact that even then , those fires go out in between scenarios that makes the blazes something both sides must consider, (a realistic assumption of the historical commander's issues), but not now something that degenerated into a game of Advancing FIRE phase DR's that went on forever, (and worse, if/when a Gust or breeze appeared). (maybe realism (in that case) run amok, but playability has to come into focus in a design for effect game like ASL).

I believe the CG is playable and a good run with the Errata, and unplayable and not a consideration on my part as something to play, without the Errata. As with most things, YMMV.

KRL, Jon H

 

[Tim Niesen]

Turn three broke the battle wide open. Many Rumanian infantry units either surrendered, died, or routed away. We advanced another Stuart further up the stream, putting two of the tanks at the bend of the stream where a heretofore unbroken Rumanian unit had thwarted our outflanking of the first pillbox on the road. We had advanced a 328 with a FT out of the stream towards the pillbox on turn two which now broke all the units in the pillbox, who routed back to the next line of Rumanian defence on the road. (This was an error, for the broken squads are being placed back in the pillbox.)

 

[=FC=Gorgon]

The Errata provides the fix - it is not the blazing hills that is a major issue in the CG - it is the fact that originally, the fires ALWAYS got bigger and never went out until they ran out of things to burn that made the CG unplayable if something rather common like a large caliber NOBA or a MOL-P hit on the first CG date, started a forest fire. That errata was necessary, and it at least contains the fires - but they can and often do, re-spark from another MOL-P hit or another NOBA or aircraft bomb hit - it is the fact that even then , those fires go out in between scenarios that makes the blazes something both sides must consider, (a realistic assumption of the historical commander's issues), but not now something that degenerated into a game of Advancing FIRE phase DR's that went on forever, (and worse, if/when a Gust or breeze appeared). (maybe realism (in that case) run amok, but playability has to come into focus in a design for effect game like ASL).

I believe the CG is playable and a good run with the Errata, and unplayable and not a consideration on my part as something to play, without the Errata. As with most things, YMMV.

KRL, Jon H

I completely agree that this CG is playable with the Errata. I love it and will gladly play it again. I stand by statement that even with the Errata a game could have a lot Blazes on the map which can really change the game and make the Advancing Fire phase tedious.

I said this in my thread but the problem is that the fire rules were never intended to work for a CG. They work great in a regular scenario, but not here. Think about it. The scale of OG is over a day or 2 IIRC? If just a part of the forest on the map burned down in a conflagration the ground would be way too hot for humans to cross on foot. Yet we just treat it as Open Ground on the next TM. If all of the terrain that burned was somehow not traversable by infantry, that would make more sense to me.

I just see this as an opportunity to re-think how Blaze may affect a CG and craft rules to handle it, within that CG. My $0.02.

MikeS

 

[Tim Niesen]

I would have gone with the rules and errata, but it was not my call. Our fires were limited and isolated and therefore not of much consequence.

 

[Tim Niesen]

In our Soviet defensive fire of turn three we attacked with three fighter bombers. The attacks were mostly ineffective but did break one of the Rumanian mortars. Which will help us as we plan to make a mad rush in the direction of the second line of Rumanian defense on our coming turn four. The remaining Rumanian 81 mortar can't kill us all.

 

[Tim Niesen]

Folks, Steve and Bill have resigned the Romanian position at the end of their turn three. The rampaging Soviet advance captured about ten squads and killed a few more out of the thirty total Romanian squads. One and a half more squads we would have attempted to capture on turn four. We also captured three HMGs, one LMG, and a 60mm mortar.

 

[Tim Niesen]

Steve had set up the Romanian defense in secret, and somehow he did not put the Romanian crew counters on the Guns but rather put the eight Romanian 247 crews for the MG on them. Therefore, the Romanian command shorted themselfs eight half squads. We allowed them to be added on turn two in the rear, but I think it significantly hurt the Axis defensive effort. Don disagrees, but it is a moot point.

 

[Tim Niesen]

It is crucial for any Romanian defense in this campaign game to defend both the road and the stream, but Steve's defense did not defend the latter, allowing us to use the stream as cover to out flank the pillbox on the road. Next time he vows to do things differently. Starts tommrow. We will see. Tim

 

[Eagle4ty]

In as much as a HS manning a Gun incurs non-qualified use penalties, if they had HS manning the Guns its potential for a poor showing by them could be huge, especially if they had eight Guns. :nod:

 

[Tim Niesen]

Steve had been in a hurry setting up on the first day, so I immediatedly replaced his 247s with 227s, allowing him to place his eight half squads in his second line of defense. He just lost his state job after five years. He now has two parttime jobs, earning half of what he made before. We were slaughtering them after all, and Steve may not be thinking clearly due to the pressure of his situation. His girlfriend has been badgering him to pay their rent. Everyone but Col. Smith and I seem to be in a hurry to leave the game early. Life goes on. They get to start over with the right counter mix tommrow. Next time Steve vows to defend the stream bed approach. Tim

 

[Tim Niesen]

One issue that is almost certainly common to all purchase campaign game is the issue of half squads as crews for MGs. We want to enforce the rule that these 237 half squads are used for the MGs and not reformed into 447s. Is this a common issue and does anyone disagree? Tim

 

[Tim Niesen]

I suppose that a 447 could be assigned two MGs. Tim

 

[witchbottles]

One issue that is almost certainly common to all purchase campaign game is the issue of half squads as crews for MGs. We want to enforce the rule that these 237 half squads are used for the MGs and not reformed into 447s. Is this a common issue and does anyone disagree? Tim

dedicated SW crews are something seen in some, but not all, of ASL. Designers, in general, tend to fall into one of two categories there. being "Always - a must" or "Never- it's a player's choice per the ASLRB to deploy to man SWs or not".

Whether one agrees or disagrees with dedicated SW crew ideas in design, using HS to be dedicated SW crews makes the SW's far more prone to being knocked out of action by enemy fire, than using the "infantry crew" (1-2-7 or 1-2-6 variety). - specifically because without an SSR to prevent it, an HS will ELR and cannot Self Rally - an infantry crew is by the ASLRB immune to ELR and can always Self Rally.

It is likely a requirement in a design using HS's to be dedicated SW crews that there be an SSR to either prevent their recombining or to penalize it in some way, so they do not just recombine to gain the advantages of being a full squad. (ie as in scenario LN 12 SSR- if the 1945 USMC 3-4-8 HS recombine, they cannot become the 7-6-8 squads, only the 6-6-8 squads, by SSR, regardless if they were made from 7-6-8's deploying or not.) Otherwise, as you note, a 4-4-7 with 2 MMGs can then set up with a 4-4-7 with no SW, use the initial RPh to transfer one to the unencumbered 4-4-7 and both may now move and fire both the MGs and their IFP as a full squad, unless an SSR prevents it. (This is a common example of what occurs with the German MMGs in Red Barr CG's that come from the "HW Coy" RG purchases. They routinely end up immediately in Rally phase of turn 1, being transferred to a 4-6-7 or a 4-6-8 to enhance their maneuverability and firepower capability. while their 1-2-7 infantry crews end up manning the Infantry Coy RG's 50mm Mtrs en masse, or any "extra" HMGs retained from earlier Infantry Coy purchases, and then set up in killer stacks.)