War Stories: Tell your tales from the ASL battlefield

Binchois

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By special request, I hereby initiate a thread for ASL "war stories," intended to elicit some quick scenario experiences plus tales of glory, roller-coaster swings of fortune, epic defeats, and unprecedented feats of heroism. To take a cue from Honza's fun "chain threads," I thought we'd make a game of this too.... I will begin the chain with post #2 below, describing a particularly inglorious victory I recently scored. Here are the "rules" (such as they are):

The "chain" works when either the scenario itself or one element from that story reminds you of something that happened in one of your own playings. For example, my first post describes a playing of scenario DB127.

On the one hand, your response could simply be an account from your own experience playing DB127. Anything from a brief AAR to a simple rating will do. You could also use my story as a point of departure to describe another scenario in that pack/journal/module (in this case, DftB 42)...

OTOH, my story also describes an unusually effective sniper, a misstep in front an HIP enemy, a quickly busted scenario design, plus other elements. Any of these - as your memory is prompted - can be the point of departure for the next reminiscence. Think of it as the ASL Veteran's version of Proust's madeleine.

So follow-up my post with a yarn about how you made your opponent pay for a single small error, or about how fragile some scenario designs can be (best to always mention the scenario by name!!). If nothing else, tell us instead why you hate using smoke or playing versus the British. Whatever rings your bell!

With luck we'll produce a stream-of-consciousness repository gathered from our collective memories... both of the scenarios we've played, and of the thing that makes ASL great: the incredible moments, the fun, and the experience of it all!

....P.S. should the thread seem to lag a few days, go ahead and "give it a kick" with a fresh scenario/story - even if it breaks the chain. Have fun!
 
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Binchois

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First link in the chain ("How to Break a Scenario in One Move"):

The game was DB127, "Grand Hotel Britannia," from a DftB42 - a fine little tournament scenario using half of Board 45. In a clever twist, the game starts both Germans and British fairly equally matched within the Victory Building (J2), but concealed and shrouded from each other by a smoke FFE (which will dissipate over the first turns). The rest of the Brits attack from the east. Clearly the scenario is designed to play out with the two forces struggling - slowly! - to gain the upper hand inside the building while the rest of the German force desperately attempts to slow the British advance from the East.

What actually happened, however, was that my opponent (the British Commander) made a perhaps unwise advance directly adjacent to my HIP 2cm Flak 38's gun barrel. It was just Turn 1, and this led to a Prep-fire ROF tear which began with an innocuous MC... breaking a leader only, but with two British squads passing their MCs by hitting the German SAN instead.

My sniper then proceeded to expertly target building J2, first wounding a DC-toting leader, and second by breaking a squad beneath a stack of "?s." Because of our relative positions within the Objective building, this led to a situation that - through some smokey bump-scouting and a DC threat of my own - I was safely able to identify and pick off all but two enemy HSs left inside the building during my Turn 1 MPh. Coupled with the PFPh mauling my Flak eventually leveled upon those original advancers, we quickly had to abandon DB127. Fate and the Dicebot had won.
 

Ed Donoghue

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First link in the chain ("How to Break a Scenario in One Move"):

The game was DB127, "Grand Hotel Britannia," from a DftB42 - a fine little tournament scenario using half of Board 45. In a clever twist, the game starts both Germans and British fairly equally matched within the Victory Building (J2), but concealed and shrouded from each other by a smoke FFE (which will dissipate over the first turns). The rest of the Brits attack from the east. Clearly the scenario is designed to play out with the two forces struggling - slowly! - to gain the upper hand inside the building while the rest of the German force desperately attempts to slow the British advance from the East.

What actually happened, however, was that my opponent (the British Commander) made a perhaps unwise advance directly adjacent to my HIP 2cm Flak 38's gun barrel. It was just Turn 1, and this led to a Prep-fire ROF tear which began with an innocuous MC... breaking a leader only, but with two British squads passing their MCs by hitting the German SAN instead.

My sniper then proceeded to expertly target building J2, first wounding a DC-toting leader, and second by breaking a squad beneath a stack of "?s." Because of our relative positions within the Objective building, this led to a situation that - through some smokey bump-scouting and a DC threat of my own - I was safely able to identify and pick off all but two enemy HSs left ine tleside the building during my Turn 1 MPh. Coupled with the PFPh mauling my Flak eventually leveled upon those original advancers, we quickly had to abandon DB127. Fate and the Dicebot had won.
The damn HIP guns can be hell, no doubt about it. But not always.

A while ago I was playing AP29 RAFF'S DILEMMA. On 6/6/44 Lt Col Raff was leading a combined arms team to relieve Ste. Mere-Eglise. He spotted a German position atop a hill scheduled to be an LZ for more gliders later that day and decided the town's relief would have to wait. The road thru the bocage to the hill top was pretty well hidden until the last turn, then it went straight up hill. My 76L AT was HIP in the woods at that turn. The support fire from his 4 tanks were taking my 2nd line & conscripts apart as his MMCs, lead by a loaded ht came straight up the road. Point blank fire & a nice low TH roll, kept ROF & HIP status. Rolled boxcars. Without enuf MP to stop & unload the track turns right & I fire again. Same TH shot, another hit, but loose ROF & HIP.

My AT didn't last too long after I rolled a second pair of sixes. Best laid plans bla, bla, damn.
 

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I may have posted this somewhere in GS Forums already but the most memorable and funny occurrence during a game many, many moons ago and it came about on a major rules gaff. Several friends & I were having at an RB CG over a long three day weekend and tag-teamed our play with the guys assigned to each side, allowing people to get some shut-eye while other took their place and continued the game for 72+ hrs over a 3 1/2 day playing. The gaff would come early on Saturday immediately following a tag-off of German players on the western flank.

On Friday evening we had set up the game and started play. My buddy Steve "earthpig" Hicks controlled the effort of the Germans on the western flank and had run into a hard-knock buzzsaw in the multi-hex building just to the west of the backwards "L" shaped Manufacturing Hall #5. Try as he could, he just couldn't get into the structure or silence the MGs therein protected as they were by mines, fortified building locations and an ATG providing support from another position. By 0200 Sat. he was physically and mentally exhausted as he had worked hard all day Friday and had to get some sleep. Tagging off to another player he headed for the rack fairly certain in the knowledge that his replacement was in for one heck of a beating tying to take the edifice.

By mid morning of Sat. he had gotten about 5 or 6 Hrs sleep and was ready to get back it. As he tagged back in the first thing he noticed was the Russian HMG still sitting atop the stack in that same d@#%! building! Immediately he noticed he had a Lt Mtr with a LOS to it and preceded to plaster the building. Plaster it he did getting a CH and Yahtzee'd the RS DRs (3 or 4 IIRC) then another snake-eyes for the effects (absolutely the best rolls for him for the entire game up to this point) then yelled out "Finally got the b@$%#*'s!" It wasn't until he spread the units out that he noticed they were German units that had captured the Russian weapons! By now we were all laughing so hard (not only from the actual occurence but probably punch drunk from lack of sleep on some parts) we HAD to wake up the guys that had just gone to bed and tell them what had transpired. I can't remember clearly if we let it stand but by then Steve was so flummoxed that he headed back to the rack. Sparking of course anther round of hearty chortling and guffaws (but he did have a smile on his face).
 

Ed Donoghue

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A HIP gun that fires is placed on board, albeit possibly still concealed [A12.34].

JR
Sorry, we played it correctly, status went to concealed, but I related it incorrectly.
 

footsteps

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Best laid plans blam, blam, damn.
Fixed that for you.

Which reminds me of a game I played decades ago (so the details are fuzzy). I was the Americans in one of the Yanks scenarios, tasked with exiting some units off the far end on some city maps. Some hard luck early on, when my best leader and some squads entered a bore-sighted hex. I honestly thought it was out of LOS of likely German units. I was wrong. Blam blam damn.

Some funny luck followed, when a German MMC/LMG got Lost in the Sewers, which I happily sent wandering off to the side. I continued my push forward, winning some, losing some. Then the Lost unit had a Come-to-Jesus moment and was no longer lost. Exiting the sewers, it made a bee-line to the exit edge.

I was getting close, and had a bit more than needed to win. All I had to do was exit. Across a road. First to cross was an M4 Sherman. A German HIP gun pops up. Blam blam damn.

Okay, I can still get the infantry across, with the Wreck as cover. The fetid, stinking, sewer Nazis opened up with their magically clean LMG. Blam blam damn.

Damn.
 

Binchois

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I may have posted this somewhere in GS Forums already but the most memorable and funny occurrence during a game many, many moons ago and it came about on a major rules gaff. Several friends & I were having at an RB CG over a long three day weekend and tag-teamed our play with the guys assigned to each side, allowing people to get some shut-eye while other took their place and continued the game for 72+ hrs over a 3 1/2 day playing. The gaff would come early on Saturday immediately following a tag-off of German players on the western flank.

On Friday evening we had set up the game and started play. My buddy Steve "earthpig" Hicks controlled the effort of the Germans on the western flank and had run into a hard-knock buzzsaw in the multi-hex building just to the west of the backwards "L" shaped Manufacturing Hall #5. Try as he could, he just couldn't get into the structure or silence the MGs therein protected as they were by mines, fortified building locations and an ATG providing support from another position. By 0200 Sat. he was physically and mentally exhausted as he had worked hard all day Friday and had to get some sleep. Tagging off to another player he headed for the rack fairly certain in the knowledge that his replacement was in for one heck of a beating tying to take the edifice.

By mid morning of Sat. he had gotten about 5 or 6 Hrs sleep and was ready to get back it. As he tagged back in the first thing he noticed was the Russian HMG still sitting atop the stack in that same d@#%! building! Immediately he noticed he had a Lt Mtr with a LOS to it and preceded to plaster the building. Plaster it he did getting a CH and Yahtzee'd the RS DRs (3 or 4 IIRC) then another snake-eyes for the effects (absolutely the best rolls for him for the entire game up to this point) then yelled out "Finally got the b@$%#*'s!" It wasn't until he spread the units out that he noticed they were German units that had captured the Russian weapons! By now we were all laughing so hard (not only from the actual occurence but probably punch drunk from lack of sleep on some parts) we HAD to wake up the guys that had just gone to bed and tell them what had transpired. I can't remember clearly if we let it stand but by then Steve was so flummoxed that he headed back to the rack. Sparking of course anther round of hearty chortling and guffaws (but he did have a smile on his face).
Ah! Those things we notice only after it's too late... While I can't recall ever sending OBA against my own men (at least not with such triumphant glee), I certainly know the inner-rage which boils once you realize that your tank - you know, the one that was just wrecked after slugging it out for turns versus opposing armor - had a 9-2 AL commanding it all along! You wrote the ID# down and everything!!

But back in "aught-2" (I think), I was playing against a favorite opponent from Australia whose memory slip eventually cost me the game. The scenario was "Bridge of the Seven Planets" (ASL 79), a true barn burner from Croix de Guerre, pitting French defenders south of Dunkirk against the well-equipped, German 18th Infantry Div. It's an excellent scenario played across huge swaths of open ground and grain - all playable terrain being at Level Zero. It features one tank, trucks, Guns, OBA, plus a whole lot of troops, leaders, and SWs. My rôle: lead the German attackers across the river with the only objective being an innocuous, single-story house on the water's west side. One caveat: I could lose no more than 25 CVPs.

My push towards the bridge was torturous to say the least. While clinging to the board's few woods and otherwise limited cover, we took a pounding from the many French MGs and Guns. If we would ever reach the bridge, our reinforcements were desperately needed!

Well...eventually, "die Kavallerie" arrived, and the French dam finally broke. Our OBA plus hastily setup mortars, machineguns and INF did what they needed to do, and with just a few turns to spare, we were crossing the bridge. The Victory Building lay just on the opposite side. It was probably right around that time that my opponent cursed inwardly: "My Bore-sighting!! I forgot about my darn bore-sighted Locations!!" Alas! Who hasn't done THAT before...

By the beginning of Turn 9, it all seemed over. I was confident that the Victory hex would be mine except for one small mistake... On the previous turn, my already +1 Stunned Pz IIA was pressing along with my Infantry to take la maison de la victoire, when a French MG caused an (un)lucky additional stun result. This meant that the little tank started TURN 9 under RECALL forcing it to retrace its path back over the bridge towards the eastern edge... No big deal, I thought, except that tucked away in those woods was a French 25LL AT, still manned, though all but useless during the second half of the game. This time it remembered it's BS Location which my panzer was required to drive right through. A small target, moving...should have gotten through. But this time, he didn't forget Case M. BLAMMO!!! CVP #26 and the French win.
 
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Amateurs! Years ago, Dave Finan and I had time for a quick game of Aachen’s Pall (T8). I’m the Germans and David the Americans. I set up in the multi-hex P5 main building, the victory building with Mr.10-2 and squad/hmg. I had squads in it and another hex on multiple levels. Americans are ready and 1st prep-fire phase the big 155 SP gun decides to Smoke me rolls an 11 no Smoke. David’s bummed out but announces an area fire shot, yep rolls a “2” followed by a rubble creating 1, followed by a falling die roll of 6 and of course into a ground floor hex with my other squads on different levels. Game over one shot one kill. We laughed our A%$ off.
 

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Amateurs! Years ago, Dave Finan and I had time for a quick game of Aachen’s Pall (T8). I’m the Germans and David the Americans. I set up in the multi-hex P5 main building, the victory building with Mr.10-2 and squad/hmg. I had squads in it and another hex on multiple levels. Americans are ready and 1st prep-fire phase the big 155 SP gun decides to Smoke me rolls an 11 no Smoke. David’s bummed out but announces an area fire shot, yep rolls a “2” followed by a rubble creating 1, followed by a falling die roll of 6 and of course into a ground floor hex with my other squads on different levels. Game over one shot one kill. We laughed our A%$ off.
See one of my signature quotes ...
 

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Amateurs! Years ago, Dave Finan and I had time for a quick game of Aachen’s Pall (T8). I’m the Germans and David the Americans. I set up in the multi-hex P5 main building, the victory building with Mr.10-2 and squad/hmg. I had squads in it and another hex on multiple levels. Americans are ready and 1st prep-fire phase the big 155 SP gun decides to Smoke me rolls an 11 no Smoke. David’s bummed out but announces an area fire shot, yep rolls a “2” followed by a rubble creating 1, followed by a falling die roll of 6 and of course into a ground floor hex with my other squads on different levels. Game over one shot one kill. We laughed our A%$ off.
Easily one of the best ASL stories.
 

von Marwitz

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Amateurs! Years ago, Dave Finan and I had time for a quick game of Aachen’s Pall (T8). I’m the Germans and David the Americans. I set up in the multi-hex P5 main building, the victory building with Mr.10-2 and squad/hmg. I had squads in it and another hex on multiple levels. Americans are ready and 1st prep-fire phase the big 155 SP gun decides to Smoke me rolls an 11 no Smoke. David’s bummed out but announces an area fire shot, yep rolls a “2” followed by a rubble creating 1, followed by a falling die roll of 6 and of course into a ground floor hex with my other squads on different levels. Game over one shot one kill. We laughed our A%$ off.
I remember Scott Holst reporting an even worse armageddon of mythic scale in one of his RB campaign games with a chain of falling rubble creation eclipsing some vital stone building and its numerous defenders. All what was left were plumes of dust and awestruck silence. (Well, maybe also some maniacal laughter by the beneficiary...).

von Marwitz
 

TopT

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I remember Scott Holst reporting an even worse armageddon of mythic scale in one of his RB campaign games with a chain of falling rubble creation eclipsing some vital stone building and its numerous defenders. All what was left were plumes of dust and awestruck silence. (Well, maybe also some maniacal laughter by the beneficiary...).

von Marwitz
I think I remember reading about that some time ago.

I did have a recent playing of Burn, Gurkha, Burn! that pretty much ended on T3 as I broke both FT's, the HMG, a MMG and 1 Lt Mtr (the other Mtr missed everything) and the DC hero's were both KIA'd. With all of the malf's I couldn't get past the stream. I captured 1 Hill location total. It was quite a pitiful showing.
 

sdennis

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I think I remember reading about that some time ago.

I did have a recent playing of Burn, Gurkha, Burn! that pretty much ended on T3 as I broke both FT's, the HMG, a MMG and 1 Lt Mtr (the other Mtr missed everything) and the DC hero's were both KIA'd. With all of the malf's I couldn't get past the stream. I captured 1 Hill location total. It was quite a pitiful showing.
My story would be (and I cannot remember who I was playing) in Burn Gurkha Burn was I managed to TAKE BOTH FTs away from the Japanese and successfully use them against them! Great fun!
 

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In one of my KGP CG-1 CGs, a falling rubble domino effect rubbled all but 1 location of the sanitorium.....

(by then, we were used to the sanitorium being a usual 19PM target for German OBA, so there wasn't anyone inside)

John.
 
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Raptorfan

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ASL 102 Point of the Sword:

In the Prep Fire Phase of turn 5 the British decided to form a massive Fire Group in order to break the German Squads in Building hex V7.
Included were three MGs: two LMGs and one MMG. The Prep Fire DR was 12....Random selection dr for the MGs: 3x6....
The repair attempt drs in the ensuing RPh were 3x6......Need I say the Britsish lost the game?
Oliver
 

Martin Mayers

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I remember Scott Holst reporting an even worse armageddon of mythic scale in one of his RB campaign games with a chain of falling rubble creation eclipsing some vital stone building and its numerous defenders. All what was left were plumes of dust and awestruck silence. (Well, maybe also some maniacal laughter by the beneficiary...).

von Marwitz
Might have been me that...

Played two days of RB main campaign game against a Spanish opponent of mine many years ago. The building top left corner for the Russians was still holding out but the Germans were poised to take it day three. I'd managed to snaffle a German DC the day before courtesy of a dead Sturm HS so I took a punt at leaving a set DC in that building along with a number of dummies and a couple of half squads.

Germans went all out for the building and made short work of the defences then loaded the building up. 12 squads he had in there and also some brokies in the cellar. Plus MGs. Plus some strong leaders.

Then...poof. Hit the detonate button. 1 1 Critical hit sunk the hex, then the falling rubble took the adjacent hex out. He lost every single unit.

Following a 30 second silence my Spanish friend grumbled.... "could you excuse me for a moment Martin? I need to go outside for a cigarette"
 

Martin Mayers

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Played a very tight game with my good ASL-friend Gerrard Burton down at Intensive Fire a few years back. The entire scenario came down, in the end, to me avoiding one of my two remaining Churchills getting plugged in, like a full final game turn. Germans had the last turn.

Long story short Gerrard had manoevred an 88LL tank destroyer into a position where there was a huge village between him and the Churchills.

I could have manoevred the Churchills literally anywhere for the win. All I needed to do was avoid anything stupid.

This village was such a complicated and large one that I hadn't realised that there was a CLEAR los right through the centre of the village literally from one end to t'other. Where did I put one of my two Churchills....of course right in his LOS.

His defensive final fire...fires, misses but gets ROF. Fires, hits, game over - but no....rolls a DUD

Next prep fire...just needs the hit. Base 9TH. He has two Acq. Churchill is motion but is large. Rolls 11. Misses.

Intensive Fires - hits. Game over? Nope....rolls another DUD

Brits won the game. Easy peasy lemon squeazy.
 

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A Nord Korean 6-2-8 ass.move adiacent to a Conscript Sud Korean 3-3-6 marked with final fire. In a crazy moment i decide to go with a FPF and roll a 1.1 !!! but being conscript have no effect other than Hob on my squad.... and it goes berserk. The 6-2-8 enter in APh, ambush me and capture the poor Sud Koreans! sad end!:)))
 
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