All of these games are from the recently completed
Bitter Ender tournament in Cary, NC the weekend of April 11-14, 2019.
Round 1. Played longtime friend
Gary Bartlett for the first time in an ASL scenario after many a Euro game. Scenario of choice was
FrF93 Wiener Walzer from the latest Friendly Fire Scenario Pack (#12). Rolling for sides gave me the Attacking German forces. This scenario requires the initial German Turn 1 Infantry force to enter as riders in Platoon movement in 8 SPW 251/1 and one command SPW 251/10 as they try and run through a gauntlet of Defending Russian Infantry supported by 1 BT-7A and a 45L AT Gun. The Germans enter along a pretty narrow board edge front of 6 hexes on Board 4 as they make a run for several buildings within 2 hexes of the two bridges on Board 22. The kicker for the Germans is that they pretty much need to reach both bridge areas and get a defense set up before the Russians reinforcements arrive in Russian Player Turn 2. So, with no real time to waste, the Germans need to move post haste to the bridge areas, get settled in, and then worry about how best to risk their vulnerable (and VP valuable) reinforcing PZ IIIHs. Gary played an awesome game, especially overcoming an early boxcars Start DR on his initial BT-7A. I liked this scenario, but the outcome is highly dependent on the Russian ability/in-ability to kill a fair number of SPW 251/1s with Passengers on Game Turn 1 and then mount a crushing counterattack on preferably one of the bridge areas, since in order to win, the Germans need at least 1 unbroken squad-equivalent in each bridge area.
Gary’s counterattack was well conducted and I was in danger of dropping both Control of the one building I held (22T6) and exceeding my CVP cap. Fortunately, a late game Intensive Fire shot from a Pz IIIH caught a Russian T-34 M41 in the rear turret to take some pressure off of T6 and then I swarmed another T-34 M41 and was able to also get it with a rear shot. Gary’s last desperate attempt to kill one of my Immobilized Pz IIIHs and put me over my CVP cap came up just short. I thought Gary played a great game, but was hurt by his early failure to properly maintain his armor transmission while in the field.
Round 2. Played another first time opponent in
Nelson Harris. We decided to go off the primary scenario menu and play MMP’s
J129 Mountain Hunters from a list of alternate scenarios provided by our erstwhile TD Ray. The DR gave me the Defending Russians. My strategy was to use a decent force (1x 4-4-7 and 4x 5-2-7s) to hold the upfront VC buildings (2a K15 & M15) as long as possible, while then balancing the rest of my forces to hold the other two VC Objectives, 6 buildings in the Board 2a Village area and 5 Level 2 Woods/Brush hexes. Nelson started nicely when his 9-2 directed heavy in N18 seriously spanked my 9-1/458/HMG over watch position in F12 to open the game. I was left with a broken and wounded 9-1 (which didn’t Self-Rally until Turn 3) and a broken HS. Fortunately, some of Nelson’s good DRs worked against him as my SAN of 5 eventually claimed his 9-2 and kept his HMG from taking any shots after Turn 2. Nelson’s other shot of note on Romanian Turn 1 was snakes with his FT on my Concealed 4-4-7 in M15. So much for that VC buildings holding out. Nelson then proceeded to crush SMOKE and crush the remainder of my units holding the K15 VC building. Two Turns in and it was looking a little dicey for the Defenders. Fortunately, the Level 2 hills offer some nice LOSs into the Board 2a flatlands and the Russians started to take a heavy toll on the crossing Romanian Infantry. Things helped go the Russian way when one of my 2-2-8 Gun Crews dropped their somewhat in effectual 76 ART piece and took one of the supporting German Stugs out in CC. True Heroes of the Motherland! In the end, Harris fell one Woods/Brush hex short of a Romanian win after a titanic struggle for the D11 Woods mass. Really another classic scenario by
Chris Mazzei and Peter Struiif, two of my absolute favorite designers!
Round 3. The newly betrothed
Dave Reenstra and I decided on what I consider the best scenario out of the
Death to Fascism Scenario Pack
DTF-3 True Grit. As I had played the scenario before Dave chose the Attacking Japanese against my staunchly Defending Dutch. Played mostly on Board 8b, the Japanese start out of LOS on the backside of the Board 58 hill mass with the goal of taking and holding 8 out of 12 VC buildings. The Japanese start with a superior quality Infantry force that is then subsequently reinforced on Japanese Player Turn 2 with a small but equally quality force along the Dutch flank near the back left set of VC buildings. The Dutch are supported by three Blood & Jungle required 75 ART pieces and one 20L AA Gun. The beauty of this scenario, along with all of the other fine scenarios in the
Death to Fascism pack is that the Attacker and Defender get a variable number of purchase points from which to augment their respective OoB through the purchase of various SWs that are initially unknown to the opposing player. The other massively fine part of each scenario is that the Defender may record as HIP all SWs and SMCs that set up with a Defending unit. These two features combine to add a really nice amount of uncertainty/replayability to each scenario in the pack.
So, strategically, the Defending Dutch do need to inflict some amount of damage to the attacking Japanese forces in the hope that they bleed them just enough so the Turn 5, 10-2 lead reinforcing Dutch units can either hold on to the necessary VC buildings or more likely counterattack to recapture one or more needed VC buildings. Dave played an awesome game of advancing his Japanese units on a steady pace until the moment of pouncing with multiple, highly successful Banzai Charges. Needless to say, but the Dutch infantry apparently failed to pack the grenades and entrenching tools after they got shwacked time and again in CC. By the end of Game Turn 5, Dave had secured the required number of VC buildings and was pressing on the back set of buildings in order to ice the cake. On the top of Turn 6, the Dutch got their first real CC break when a 1-3-7 Dutch HS exchanged its life for that of a full 4-4-7 Japanese MMC, thus weakening the Japanese right flank. This good luck was partially offset by my ability to break my 10-2 on both Game Turns 6 & 7 (eye roll emoji here). Bottom of 7, last Turn, the Dutch go all in on hoping to retake one VC building and holding another in CC. Fortunately, the Dutch had just enough squads to squeak out recapturing one building and then surviving into Melee to hold the other. Dave played an awesome game that left my defenders scrambling during the entire affair.
Another fine
Peter Struijf and Chris Mazzei production!
Round 4. A rematch in the semis with
Tom Kearney who spanked me last year in this round to advance to the Bitter Ender 2018 Championship. We both decided that off menu was needed for this Round. Fortunately, Al Saltzman was there to help as he had pulled together a list of top alternate scenarios for just such a case. After some perusing, we decide on going with the
Gary Fortenberry classic,
AP62 Shouting Into the Storm. The dice gave me the attacking Germans, a decidedly capable bunch of Infantry supported by a wealth of quality armor including 3 King Tigers. Both sides have variable force selection in this scenario, so I went with the 8-3-8 FT wielding group as my choice as the end game would most likely require to 24FP Flat shots to get the job done. Tom found a nice LOS to the hex coming off the bridge where he laid 4FP worth of Residual FP from his HMG. Fortunately, every AFV in the German OoB brings a sD/sN and they weren’t shy about finding them. Having to secure two multi-hex stone VC buildings on the opposite sides of the Russian defensive area, I figured I couldn’t be shy about putting my forces right in Tom’s face and pushing hard. So push they did. Fortunately, Tom decided to bring his 10.25 MC dice with him, as in every MC and FPF shot he took didn’t go well. Three turns in and the Germans were in danger of capturing both VC buildings as they were either not occupied or mostly held by broken units. I like this scenario. I would like to play it again where the Russian defense isn’t compromised by its own DRs as I think it is fairly Balanced given the VC, but clearly Tom’s luck was working against him this day.
Round 5. My write-up of this game of
FrF98 Amerikanskaya Suka against
Doug Sheppard can be found here
http://www.gamesquad.com/forums/index.php?threads/bitter-ender-live-updates.151572/page-2.
All in all, a great time against a host of quality and fun opponents.
Bill